fifi

Now you're thinking. For the price/results ratio, I vote for the WSM. Of course, you can get more extreme than that. Like this little rig. Oh well, you can use this to impress him with how frugal you are.

heh heh heh heh heh

Try this . . . "It's less than $200. That is less than a piece of jewerly. It is less than $200. It makes incredible pork. And chicken. And Brisket." That whispered in his ear may just get it.

Thanks for picking up on the chunks, Susan. You are absolutely right. I bury chunks in the charcoal (Kingsford plain) with more toward the center to maximize smoke before the meat temp gets too high. When I am adding fuel I sometimes add more chunks along with the charcoal just because it seems like a good idea at the time and they seem to burn pretty steady. I am not sure that I see the point of the chips at all.

Sorry, I have been away and just got wind of this discussion. One of the really great things about the WSM is that it holds temperature so well using the Minion Method of firing. If it hasn't been mentioned upthread, go here. For brisket, you are looking at maybe 16 - 18 hours at the desired 225F at the grate (250 at the top vent). I cut the whole brisket in half and put my remote thermometer probe in the flat and watch that. After it has gone through the stall at 170 and heads for 200, I know it is time to pull the flats. Then I move the temp probe to the points because I know they are going to take longer and watch them likewise. I cut them in half for two reasons, 1) so they fit better 2) so I can pull the flats sooner since they will cook faster. For that reason, I put the flats on the top grate. Eighteen hours isn't as daunting as you might think. Using the Minion Method in a WSM, there is very little tending of the thing to do. You might have to add water to the pan a couple of times and add some fuel a bit at a time toward the end but you can get some sleep in there. I really don't advocate interrupting the process. For one thing, to get back up to "conversion temperature" will add many hours to the whole process and God knows what you will end up with. And part of the fun is the planning, tending, napping, drinking and then rejoicing in the final product. Good BBQ is as much about the process as it is about the final product.

Sorry for the glitch in the link to the planning process. I edited above but here is a link that should work. Planning a Kitchen

In the picture of the lard in the linked recipe, the cracklings are from the little bit of connective tissue that holds the fat together on the animal. That batch of fat didn't have any skin. I am thinking that rendering beef fat would yield the same thing. Home lard making like I am familiar with usually involves removing the skin and frying that separately like they do in Mexico. That is how my great aunt used to do it. If the gobs of pork fat had some skin left on it, she would slice that off and set it aside. Then she would cut it into strips and get a little pot of lard really hot and drop the strips in. They would puff up and get tender crispy. Us kids loved it when she did that. I remembered that I have a friend that rendered some beef fat (also from a loin) some time ago. He does the same thing that I do, storing rendered fat in jars in a cold fridge. I asked him how long it was still good. He went and checked and it is still good. He thinks that is at least a few months. That makes some sense. The enemy of pure fat is oxidation to fatty acids that make for the funky rancid taste. Kept cold and sealed in a jar there isn't much chance for oxidation. This assumes that there is no water to support bacterial growth and that gibbles of other stuff isn't there to maybe catalyse oxidation. I am not at all sure how long fat would last in the freezer, maybe just about forever.

Since you have time, let me suggest this planning process. It helps with priorites when you run into the inevitable budget problems. Building my house got delayed but it is about to happen. In that time I have revisited the kitchen design doing visualization walk throughs and still wouldn't change anything. I am about to repeat the process to make the final decisions on cabinet drawer configurations. I, too, spent my share of time as a lab rat and love the soapstone. Some time ago I caught the Martha Stewart shows where she was showing off the new studio kitchen. I had forgotten all about soapstone and started drooling. Unfortunately, the kitchen in the new house has enough counter space that you could buy a really nice car for the cost of whatever kind of stone or manufactured stone. I. Just. Can't. Do. That. I have had laminate counters almost all of my life and have no complaints. Then Varmint did the granite tiles and that seems like a good compromise. I have found that some of the soapstone suppliers have tiles so I may consider it. Whatever I do with the counters, I am going to put a marble insert in the island for messing about with dough. A friend of mine just put in that quilt pattern stainless behind her stove. She loves it. Ikea cabinets are about the best deal going when you look at the quality price ratio. If my builder doesn't opt to job-build that is probably how I will go. The selection is amazing. My favorite kitchen floor material of all time is commercial vinyl tile (CVT). Dave the Cook used that in his remodel. If I can find the link I will post it. My last house had ceramic tile and it was pretty but hard to stand on and anything breakable that dropped, well, kiss it good-by. edit: fixed the link

Jamie is correct. Unless you catch it yourself or know someone who did, tuna will have been flash frozen at sea. It has to be. Tuna is somewhat unique in that if it has been exercising itself by swimming fast or struggling with a hook, the flesh temperature rises even though it is a "cold blooded" animal. If not quickly cooled it will deteriorate, fast. My question is, what is the best way to thaw it? In my big game fishing days, if we caught tuna and wanted to keep it, we cleaned it immediately and put it on ice including stuffing some in the cavity. (Then, of course, we had to change fishing spots before the sharks closed in. One day we boated a 600 pounder. That was quite an operation. We actually had to cut it up. The sharks were amazing.)

I inherited one of the original CAs from my mother but had to replace the lid. The new lids with those horrendous feed tubes and their interlocks caused me to give the piece of crap to my sister for the country place. I use the graters and slicers a lot so the feed tube issue was a real problem for me. When the KA went on sale I jumped at it, having looked them over at Sur la Table. The design genius just kept coming . . . simple feed tube, graters and slicers that store flat, small bowl (LOVE it), pusher that doubles as a measure (it is going in the dishwasher anyway), ingenious spatula design, solid construction. My piece of crap blender went out just when I needed to make chile sauce for enchiladas. After about 5 minutes of processing in the big bowl with the blade, the ancho paste was smooth as silk. I may not replace the blender. If the KA craps out in a couple of years I will just buy another one.

I like ground pork in my meatloaf. I saw a commercial not long ago for some sort of antacid and the mom was ladling brown gravy over the meatloaf. How do you make brown gravy from meatloaf?

You can use either method as described in Lard to render your beef fat. I haven't had the luxury of getting my hands on hunks of beef fat so I don't know how long it lasts. I always store pig and chicken fat in canning jars so that it doesn't pick up flavors from the fridge or freezer. I actually don't know how long it keeps in the fridge. I keep mine pretty cold and have usually used it up before anything happens to it. I know I have kept lard and goose fat (bought canned) for months. The trick is to fully render it, no water left, and leave any sediment in the pot.

Meatloaf on the grill. Now that is just genius. Do you put it in a pan? How do you get it to take up the smoky goodness? Now you have given me a whole new problem to worry about. And to think, I was stuck in the ketchup or no-ketchup dilemma for meatloaf.

This site sells lids and bowls separately. Do treasure the old style lid with the simple feed tube. That new thing with the interlock led me to pitching a vintage Cuisinart when the original lid broke.

errr . . . If we have to tell you . . . No. You are right. After all, BBQ is sacred.

Very cool. I don't see why they wouldn't grow there. The production cycle isn't that long. We discussed this in the Louisiana forum here. Ours don't have the spiny things and are smooth. They are called mirlitons here (before we knew that they were called chayotes in Mexico) and have just become common in the markets here in the last few years.

As soon as I quit giggling I will try to think of something. I am liking heating up the bowl and trying to jiggle the blade. Also, after heating the bowl a bit maybe by wrapping with a hot towel, try compressing the bowl from the outside opposite the plane where the blade is stuck. It won't be obvious but you might be able to move it a few thousandths enough to let the blade drop. Hot towel = wet towel in microwave until steaming. Maybe I need to tell someone that would pull this trick that you need to protect your hands from steam burns from the towel. Sorry. I have to go giggle some more.

Daniel . . . Here is what you need. You might have trouble parking it in Manhattan, though. My report last year on the Houston World Championship Bar-B-Que has some pretty creative rigs. Scroll down.

How did this turn out fifi? I think you're right and the meat does soak up some of the wine. I know I just marinated a roast for 36 hours straight with a full bottle of wine, and I found the same thing. I assume the aromatics soak up some as well. ← Ooops. I forgot to report back on this. Thanks for reminding me. (Computer problem interruption.) When I poured away the marinade, I got back 500 milliliters so 250 went somewhere. I examined the aromatics and the onion got some of it but that is about it. I am going to assume that it went into the meat. I know it does that some but this just seem a lot. I cut the chunk of panchetta in four pieces and ran some cold water over it for about 15 minutes. When it came out of the oven, my nephew and a friend were here. As I am taking it out of the pot, straining the liquid, picking out the garlic and panchetta . . . we tasted the panchetta. It never made it to the finished dish. We ate it. Final verdict . . . While this is very very very good, I am not really sure that this is that much better than one of my simpler recipes. I would be inclined to simplify like I did in this post. Um . . . I can't say that the panchetta added anything distinctive to the sauce. Granted, we ate it and didn't shred it into the sauce. But the panchetta really tasted like the roast. Its yum factor was a texture thing.

Good for you diva! I mean about not bothering to soak the beans. I quit doing that a long time ago. It occurs to me that I probably need to edit that recipe. In case you missed it, the discussion about Dried Beans is here. Come to think of it, I probably ought to add the oven cooking method to the recipe as well. I see what ya'll mean about the pork being variable. I have found the same with hocks as well. DUH!

This is tough because I don't know a lot about Sugarland but the first thing that sprung into my mind is that a private Dim Sum could be fun. Maybe don't go for anything too formal. Congratulations and all of my best and blessings to you both. BTW . . . Start practising "Yes, dear. Yes, dear."

I am shouting with snowangel on this one. When I read that in CI some time ago, I sent them a scathing e-mail. What they said just doesn't jibe with the science, condensation of smoke components. I keep my fridge really cold but if I think about it and I have room, I will also give the butts a stay in the freezer. Yes, it takes them longer to cook. Oh well . . . more time to drink beer. Hey! This ain't fast food. I know I have mentioned this before but one of the things I do when I fire up the Weber is get one of those big packs of chicken thighs, put them in brine for about four hours and put them on the other grate. Then I have that pantry gold, smoked chicken for salads, quesadillas or whatever. You just pull the meat off and freeze in smaller foil packets ready for the toaster oven. NEVER put in the microwave.

Now that is just freakin' genius. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And to think that I was just cursing my coffee carafe this morning for this very problem.

I have only recently seen smoked neck bones in my market so I don't have a clue as to how salty they are. I am looking forward to trying them. When I use ham hocks, I usually just put them in a bowl under slowly running cold water for about 15 minutes. It seems to help with the salt, and I like to have a pretty high seasoning meat to bean ratio. Then, of course with the Ham Bone Bean Soup I just use the ham bone as is. That recipe is a family favorite. The only trick to it is using more aromatics than you might normally and the dark beer.

Well folks . . . I took one for the team today. I had an appointment near the Boston Market in my area and I needed lunch. While hungrily eyeing the meatloaf, I checked myself and said "I gotta do this for eGullet" and ordered the quarter of a rotisserie chicken. The first thing that put me off is that this season's "flavor" is "Sweet Garlic Rotisserie Chicken." I love garlic. There is no such thing as too much garlic. But the sweet part put me off. I really don't like sweet stuff in my savory dishes. Oh well. I must try this for my buds. I did "chicken out" on getting the white meat and went for the dark. Hey . . . A person can only go so far in the name of science. I was studying the chicken as it sat next door to the creamed spinach (love that stuff) and the requisite mashed taters and gravy. It looks respectable . . . a delectable golden brown and all glisteny. It appears that this hind quarter came off the size of chicken that I covet for frying. It is really cute. I poke the side of the thigh and come up with a piece of meat and skin. The skin is not crackly crispy but pleasantly thin and tranparent. Lots of juice is making an appearance. Into the test chamber. Hey! Waitaminnit! This is GOOD! Very juicy, the garlic is just right, sort of mellow and well rounded. It doesn't shout you out. Now where is the "sweet?" Well, you have to look for it. It doesn't scream at you either. I think it is just calling the rounds for the salt/garlic dosey-doe. We must analyse this wonder. Working from the outside in, I taste the skin. Good balance. Meat right under the skin has the same balance. The same goes for meat near the bone. The menu says that the chicken is marinated before cooking. I am going to make a wild guess here and surmise that the chicken is actually brined with some added sugar and maybe garlic juice in a well crafted mix. I don't actually see any garlic on the skin unless I am missing something. We have a winner here. I forgot to see what a whole chicken costs but I probably wouldn't care. Our intrepid Chronicle testers got it right. This is worth eating. I will be heading for that drive through. I am a little suspicious of that "seasonal flavor" thing though. Just when I find something that I really like and could come to crave, they will probably change it to something noxious like red sweet glop with pineapple and artificial smoke with chipotles. After all . . . The Blackeyed Pea quit making their signature pea salad maybe 20 years ago and I haven't forgiven them yet.