Four and Twenty Blackberries Baked in a Pie!

"Friday" rhymes with "Pie-Day" so today I bring you a "Sour-Cream Blackberry Pie!"  Don't let the name fool you, this pie is tart, sure, but it's anything BUT sour!

You Will Need:

• 1 Frozen Pie Crust
• 1 Cup (8oz) Sour Cream
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 TBSP A/P Flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 Cups FRESH Blackberries (or a 16oz frozen bag of blackberries, but the fresh berries are so much better that I hate to even mention this option, so forget I ever brought it up)

NOTE: Frozen pie shells come in packs of two, so why not double the recipe? 

This is the easiest pie you will ever bake.  In fact, you'll spend more time managing the pie-crust than you will making the pie.  This pie doesn't bake at a very high temperature, so you'll need to par-bake the crust to give it a head start.  Thaw the crust thoroughly so that it's at room temperature, then dock the bottom and sides with a fork to vent any steam.  You don't want giant air-bubbles in your crust, so use the fork to poke holes in the bottom and the sides!  Bake the crust according to the directions it comes with, but only for about 3/4 of the specified time.  It will be "tan" but not quite "golden brown."  When the crust is done, set your oven to 350 degrees, in anticipation of the pie that will be in there, soon.

Now, for the pie filling... Plop the sour cream, sugar, salt, and flour into a bowl and stir it together with a paddle or spatula.  The sugar will take some time to dissolve and you don't want gritty filling so... really beat the crap out of it!  BEAT BEAT BEAT!!  Let it sit, covered, in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour and taste it.  The sugar should be completely dissolved and your brain should tell you, "Hey, this would be a downright spectacular fruit dip to serve with berries and cut melons!"  When that happens, you'll be ready to add the blackberries!  Dump them in there and gently stir them into the mix.  

You could stir the berries more violently, I suppose, if you want some of the berry juice to mix with your filling, but I prefer to let the heat in the oven "pop" them open.  If you do crush the berries during the stir, or if you used frozen berries, you'll have a purple pie.  That's not a bad thing, but some people might be averse to purple food.  The only purple food I ever ate was Poi, in Hawaii.  I don't recommend it.  In fact, I think I'd recommend that you eat the sand on the beach before you try to eat Poi.  Nasty stuff, that.

Pour, fold, and scrape every ounce of goodness from your bowl into your pie crust.  Gently mash the berries into place using your spatula and make sure the filling oozes into the gaps.  If you're persnickity about how the pie will look when it's done, you may want to gently pluck out and rearrange some berries so that things look a bit more "even" to your anal-retentive self.  In any case, you're ready to bake!  With the oven set to 350, place a pie in the center rack, and let it bake for 50 minutes.  Baking two berry pies at one time can be a bit unpredictable so I chose to bake mine one at a time.

The heat of the oven will pop the berries and set the filling.  If you jiggle the pie, it might "dance" a little bit, but it should be noticeably more firm when it was when you slid it in there.  Also, there should be some berry juice highlighting the pie with accents of bright purple here and there.  You'll need to resist the temptation to just eat it with a spoon at this point.  Set the pie on the counter to cool.

I recommend a modest scoop of Rocky-Road ice cream with this pie.  The marshmallows tie-in the texture and the chocolate adds a nice contrast.  The nuts don't hurt, either!

Portobello Blues

CAUTION, this recipe has a "Vegetarian Option" in deference to my good friends Scott and Shelly.  It is appropriately labeled so you don't have to read it, if you don't want to.

Recently, the upper Northern regions of MN experienced a great loss when the owner of the Foundry Tavern in Cloquet stopped making/selling her famous Blue Cheese dressing.  It was always my intention to get some of that white gold and to stuff some portobello mushroom caps with it, but somehow we always managed to eat it all before I could get around to buying the mushrooms.

With the incredible flavor of her chunky dressing burned into my head, I set out to duplicate it, and to stuff some mushrooms with it, and to wrap them with bacon!

You Will Need:

• 15 "Baby Bells" Portobello Mushroom Caps
• 1lb of Thick Bacon
• 2 Cloves Garlic, Peeled and Minced
• 1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 Cup Half and Half
• 4oz Blue Cheese Crumbles
• 2Tbsp Chopped Fresh Chives

Get things started by dumping the garlic, cream cheese, half and half, chives, and blue-cheese crumbles into the bowl for your mixer. Use a paddle attachment and start it up, low and slow.  When things first start to come together, the mix will look wet and sloppy and you'll think, "There is no way this is going to work," but stick with it.  When things are combined, bring the speed of the mixer up to medium for at least two full minutes.  Sprinkle in some salt and pepper.  This will set up into a gloriously thick and delicious blue cheese mixture and you'll be tempted to just eat the whole batch with a spoon.

Now, pull the stems out of your baby bellos and use a small kitchen spoon to stuff each cap with cheese.  Be generous. While you're doing this, start to contemplate the wine you'll need for this dish.  I think "Cab Sav" when I cook portobellos, but that might be because I usually serve them alongside a thick New York Strip.  You have an awesome blue cheese to think about, and bacon is coming too!  Personally I don't think you can go wrong here, when it comes to a wine selection.  Perhaps my friend Tim (California man with a nose for the grape) will comment with his ideas.  Drizzle some olive oil onto a small steel pan (or cookie sheet, if you want to use your oven, rather than the grill) and line up your little caps as you get them stuffed.  If you want to dip the mushroom stems into your cheese to snack on while you do this, I will not be there to stop you...

Now, using some kitchen sheers, cut your bacon strips in half.  Lay a 1/2 strip of bacon over the top of each cap, and tuck the ends underneath the bottom.  Take care not to squish the cheese out from under the bacon.

**** VEGETARIAN OPTION ****

Using a vegetable peeler, peel some thin strips of eggplant or zucchini as a substitute for the bacon.  The eggplant will take on a very presentable color and will look nice.   It won't taste as good as bacon, but it's probably better for you, if you are trying to live to be 120.

Ok, time to cook.  These little dudes only need to stay in the oven long enough to crisp up the edges of the bacon.  I use my grill, rather than the oven, but the concept is the same; 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.  Hindsight being 20/20, I'm looking at this picture and I'm wondering how marvelous it would have been to hide a thin slice of jalapeno in the base of each mushroom, prior to stuffing?  Your mileage may vary.  Regardless of how you might want to embellish, this is an amazing dish that you will love!

I planned to serve it for Easter brunch but sadly, we ate them all before any of my guests arrived.  Early bird... worm... you know the drill.

Tools You Need, and Tools You Don't

Looking back over the years, I think I've bought, used, tried, tested, and ultimately thrown away more BBQ tools and toys than most people will ever use.  This is not something I'm proud of, but it's knowledge I'm proud to share!

There are a zillion crazy tools out there.  For pity-sakes, do you really need a spatula that says, "MMMmm that looks tasty" every time you flip a burger?  That's the sort of thing that belongs in the garbage, right next to the "Billy-Bass" singing fish that you never should have hung on your wall. Here are the tools that I consider "Essential" and I'll tell you why:

• Charcoal Chimney
• Thermapen
• Remote Temperature Monitor
• Tongs
• Seriously... just Tongs
• Knife / Cutting Board
• BBQ Grill Mat
• Non-stick foil

Charcoal Chimneys are awesome!  You can start a giant pile of charcoal in 20 minutes with a single match and two sheets of crumpled newspaper.  Lighter fluid has its place in the world, for lighting bonfires or garbage piles on fire, but lighter fluid should never be used anywhere near food!  Also, avoid the "light the bag" style of charcoal with the briquettes that are saturated in lighter fluid.  The smell of chemicals will permeate your food and that's just bad for all kinds of reasons, chief of which is, "your food will taste horrible."  I burn through a charcoal chimney at the rate of about one per year... They also double as a mini-stovetop if you ever need "jet-engine" heat for Blackening steaks in a cast iron skillet, or if you ever need to sear some sushi grade tuna, rare.

I would be lost without my Thermapen!  The $90 pricetag bothered me, but I thought back and calculated that I'd thrown away at least $200 worth of broken, inaccurate, burned out, and otherwise useless probes and thermometers.  This thing is hyper-accurate and scary fast.  It uses an actual two-wire thermocouple rather than a digital sensor, and the pickup is in the extreme end of the tip so you can literally see what's going on in your food, whether its deep inside a ham near the bone, or just under the skin of a Cornish hen.  Get one.  Most "instant read" thermometers need a minute or two to settle on a final reading.  Any BBQ chef will tell you, you don't want to raise the lid on your pit for two minutes... leaking that kind of heat out will cost you another 20 minutes of cook time on the back end.  This thing will tell you in 3 seconds or less, EXACTLY what the temperature of your food is.  I wouldn't cook without it.

What's so important about a remote temperature monitor?  I believe that the trouble most people have in grill-cooking is knowing when to take the food OFF of the heat.  A chicken breast that is 180 degrees is definitely safe to eat.  It is also dry, tough, and something I wouldn't serve to my guests.  A chicken breast that is 165 degrees is equally safe to eat, and will be super tender, juicy, and talked about long after the meal is over.  For bigger meats, most connective tissues don't completely break down until they reach 180 degrees.  Briskets and Pork Shoulders are done and safe to eat at 140, but they don't reach their optimum textures and "pull-apart goodness" until they touch 190, deep inside the muscle.  The only way to know for sure when your meat is delicious, but not burnt, is to jab a probe into where it counts and to watch it.  My ThermoWorks remote monitor has two inputs for two probes, so I can monitor two cuts of meat at the same time.  It also has alarms to let me know when things are close to being done.  The newer version of this monitor has bluetooth and will talk to your home wi-fi so you can use your cell phone to monitor the grill and food temperature from anywhere in the world!  This is useful for getting you out of the ballet or the opera with your wife... "Honey, the ham is done, I got to GO!"

I use Tongs.  I don't use spears, spatulas, claws, mitts, gloves, forks, or pokers to handle my food while it's on the grill.  There are several reasons for this, but mostly it's because I don't want to poke any more holes in my food than is absolutely necessary.  Nothing will ruin a good link of sausage more quickly than jabbing holes into it to let all of the juice run out!  If your burgers are too "stuck" to the grill for you to use tongs to flip them, then you shouldn't be flipping them yet, anyway, so a spatula wouldn't help you.  Get yourself a nice pair of long stainless steel tongs (NOT silicon, because silicon won't grip your food and that's the whole point) and start using them!

I am just amazed, every time I ever help a friend grill, at the complete lack of cutlery I encounter in most of their kitchens.  Lots of people have "that one big knife we got from our wedding" or from Uncle Fred or whatever, and it's usually in a drawer somewhere with some rust on it.  *SIGH* get yourself a good knife!  Bigger is not better, "Sharper" is better, so spend some money on a knife with good steel, that will hold a good edge, for a long time.  Do NOT get an "eversharp" or other knife that "never needs sharpening!"  If you look closely at these knives, they have serrated edges (like hacksaw blades) that will cut almost anything (even nails and metal), but they'll tear your food up.  You want "slices" of things, not "hacked portions" of food adorning your serving platters.  Spend some time in the store handling different kinds of knives, because every hand and every preference is different.  I like German knives, they tend to be a bit heavier (I like that) and they are balanced well in my hand.  Your mileage may vary.  Also, get yourself a good, heavy, stable, cutting board.  You don't want it slipping around your counter while you have a sharp knife in your hand, and you want it big enough to hold that 18lb brisket.  Get a nice one and you'll be surprised how often you use it.

I find a new use for my BBQ Grill Mat almost every time I use it.  Here it is in action, with a mess of sliced onions in oil, salted, and smoking away in the corner of my BBQ pit.  These mats withstand some extreme temperatures, they're non-stick, and they keep food from falling through the cracks.  How versatile are they?  I've "fried" chicken wings on mine, cooked bundles of asparagus, mushrooms, fajita peppers, and I've even smoked corn casserole and other food that you wouldn't ordinarily plop onto the hot grill grates to cook.  Mine just "lives" in the grill.  I don't take it in for washing, simply because it heats up to 500 degrees every time I use it.  Wipe it down once in awhile.  You can also cut it down to a small size or "round it off" to match your grilling surface, if you want to.  Find them on Amazon.

Last on my list is non-stick aluminum foil.  Grilling usually means "sticky."  Whether tis a dry rub with brown sugar or a bbq sauce that you mop onto your food, most things that come off the grill like to stick to other things.  Aluminum foil that has been treated with a non-stick surface is a miracle of modern technology!  Use this one time on a stubborn sticky food and I promise, you'll never buy regular foil again!  Want to bake/smoke your bacon on the grill?  Non-stick foil.  Don't want to leave your Salmon skin stuck to your grill-grates so that food from your cooker tastes like fish for the next week?  Non-stick foil...

Do you have a favorite tool you think I should be using?  Leave you comments here!  I'm always up for more!

Secrets of Salmon

Grilled Salmon is a very popular dish in restaurants, but it's feared at home.  Why?  Lots of reasons...

"Doesn't it stick to the grill?  How do you flip it over?"
"What about the skin?  Should you grill it or remove it?"
"How do I know when it's done?"
"A whole filet of salmon is too expensive to ruin on a hot grill!"

Fortunately, deliciously grilled salmon is super easy and I'm here to share a few secrets that will, hopefully, inspire you to try it!

You will need:

• 1 Whole Filet of Salmon (Skin ON)!
• Dry Rub for the fish (equal portions of each):
• Sea Salt
• Brown Sugar
• Smoked Paprika
• Fresh Dill (chopped fine)
• White Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Lime Juice
• NON-Stick Aluminum Foil

Stretch out a length of foil that is 2x the length of your fish, and double it over.  You'll want two layers of foil under the skin of your fish when you slide it onto the grill.  The answer to the question, "How do I turn the fish over without it sticking to the grill?" is simple; Don't turn it over!  Burp some olive oil onto the foil and lay your salmon (or any other fish, really) on top.  Slide it back and forth a bit to lubricate everything well.

Pour a tablespoon (or so) of olive oil into your hands and rub down the salmon filet.  You want enough oil on the fish to "hold" the rub, but you don't want so much that it saturates the fish.  Squeeze the juice of 1 lime into a small bowl and add a liberal amount of your dry rub.  Mix the paste well and rub it all over the fish.  The acid in the lime juice will actually "cook" the flesh of the fish a little bit, and color the meat a whiter shade than the surrounding area.  So; you don't want to have heavier concentrations of it on some parts of the filet, but not others.  Be as "even" as possible in your application of the lime & rub paste.

Now let the salmon sit, unmolested in a dark corner, while you build your fire.  The fish needs to be at room temperature when it hits the grill, so be patient.  It will darken in color and some moisture will leach out of the fish... this is normal.  You'd leach moisture too, if I covered you with salty lime juice!

Once your fire has warmed up and the grill is pre-heated, carefully slide the foil off of your cutting board and onto the cool side of the grill.  Grab the corner of the foil with some long tongs, and slide it over to the hot side.  You'll notice that non-stick foil is SLIPPERY, so it will slide easily all over the grill.  It will also slide right off of your cutting board, too, so don't drop the fish! Close the lid to the grill for 7 minutes.  Let the smoke flavor the fish and let some heat build up to "bake" the filet. 

After 7 minutes, lift the lid and check on it.  Several things are happening at this stage:

• A light crust will be developing on the top of the filet, and the rub will darken in color
• The oil will be bubbling around the edges of the fish, this is normal!  The double layer of foil and the skin on the bottom of the filet will protect the meat from searing or burning.
• The meat is slowly coming up to temperature.

If you want to cook it a bit more slowly, and you want to add some more smoke flavor, simply slide the fish over to the cool side of the grill and close the lid.  The inside of your grill should come up to 400+ degrees and now you're essentially "baking" your salmon in a nice smoky environment.  Check the fish's temperature every 5 minutes or so.

When the inside of the fish hits 140 degrees, it's time to pull it off the grill.  Slide the filet off of the foil and back onto your cutting board.  gently, slide a knife under the skin on the bottom of the filet.  The meat should slide right off of the skin, in one whole piece, easy peasy!  Slice the filet, cross-ways, to portions of your choosing.  The meat should be firm, opaque, tender, and DELICIOUS!  Serve with a slice of lime and some fresh dill to garnish.

My New Smoker

Recently, I bought a new primary oven/stove for the house (out of necessity), to replace an older model that finally gave up the ghost.  I weathered quite a bit of anxiety about it (good ones aren't cheap) and we finally chose a nice model and got it installed.  A couple of months later, I was looking at my bbq pit-smoker/grill that was sitting outside on the deck and I thought, "It's time."  Looking back,  my wife and I agreed that I (we) cooked more food on more days outside in the smoker than we did inside with our oven, so it was easy to justify the "need" for a new smoker, but the justification for the "expense" of a new smoker took a bit more doing.

My old grill, "Old Faithful"

I spent almost double the amount of money on an outdoor cooker than I did on our nice indoor stove/oven (the "good" one, with two levels of convection and a steam cleaning cycle).  Why!?  Well, let's walk through the process.  Hopefully, this will help guide you if you're in the market for a grill or smoker.

What I needed:

• I needed something that could get hot enough to sear a steak, and to grill burgers, chicken or salmon.
• Something that could support enough hot coals to get a cast iron skillet white-hot so I could blacken steak and fish, and cook pizza.
• Multiple chambers so that I could slow-smoke briskets, pork shoulders, racks of ribs, or whole chickens, turkeys, or other big hunks of meat.
• Something that could stand up to heavy use (multiple times/week) in all 4 seasons.
• Enough surface area to cook for 50-100 people at a time (because that's how I roll at least once a month).

What I wanted:

• Something that could calm the fires of my testosterone occasionally, without sending me to prison.
• Enough surface area and head-room to cook for a thousand people at once!
• Something I could fit an entire animal on, at one time, like a whole pig or a lamb on a spit!  Perhaps some Woolly Mammoth ribs...
• A completely efficient wood-burning smoker that ran forever on one stick of wood!

What are my options?

Start looking around and you'll discover that every home improvement, hardware, and appliance store is excited to sell you a grill.  I mulled over options from four categories, the Kettle, the Egg, the "Classic" grill, and the Offset Smoker.  I've described the advantages and disadvantages to each of these in a prior blog post, so I won't belabor the point again here... I decided on an offset smoker from Yoder Smokers, in Yoder Kansas.

What did I pick?

The most economical cooker that satisfies every single one of my bulleted "needs" above (as well as half of my "wants") was a Yoder "Wichita" model (loaded).  Sure, it looks just like the offset smoker you can buy at Walmart for $149.00 but there are a few significant differences... First, this is hand-welded 1/4" steel, and it weighs in at just under 660lbs.  It has a lifetime guarantee against burning out the bottom.  The stamped tin/steel grills you find at Walmart won't last a single summer of heavy use, and they leak heat like crazy so, you'll use 10x the charcoal or wood to cook the same amount of meat.  Besides, who wants a grill made out of metal so thin you can bend it with your bare hands?  Other goodies in the Yoder package:

• The firebox is easily large enough to function as it's own charcoal grill, with over 340 square inches of grilling space.
• The main cooking chamber has over 1,300 square inches of surface area to pack with meat!  Most "Classic" propane grills max out at about 600.
• A heat-dispersion plate diffuses the direct heat from the firebox and distributes it more evenly throughout the cooking chamber to eliminate hot-spots and to turn the chamber into a predictable "oven" without the need to constantly rotate everything to get heated evenly.
• Multiple thermometers allow you to keep a very close eye on the space around what's cooking.
• The counter-weight on the door makes sure the heavy door won't slam shut on you, and it makes an awesome place to stick your magnetic food thermometers, or to hang your hat.
• A Probe-port allows you to use a temperature probe during the cook without having to prop the door open.

In the end, what drove my ultimate decision to buy this particular pit, were the people at Yoder.  I visited the factory (20 miles outside of Wichita, KS).  I was impressed.  Here's a hard working group of folks welding and creatively building a quality product in America's heartland, and they each had time to stop what they were doing to shake my hand to talk about what their role was.  It was obvious to me that they took pride in their work.  Welding up all kinds of cookers from small pellet smokers to huge trailer-mounted custom rigs for restaurants or other businesses, Yoder has been around BBQ for decades.

I'd spoken to them on the phone a number of times prior to my visit, and upon my arrival I was excited to see that they'd built my custom pit, and had it all ready to load (complete with a custom ash-rake with my initials welded into it) into my truck.  They didn't even require a paid deposit... There is still a business in America that builds products here with American steel and American labor, who will still do business with a telephone-handshake?  Yes, there is... and it's the people at Yoder Smokers!  More pics from my visit, below.

It glows in the dark!

Damper Control

Firebox grill grate

Multiple shelves

Hand Welded, excellent seal

My own personal ash-rake!

Custom giant

Another giant!

Oxtail Chili

Before I give you my latest award winning Chili recipe, I feel the urge to gather my soapbox and to say a few words about Chili.  I believe with all of my heart and soul that the first person to put beans in his chili, did so because he ran out of meat.  Sure, beans are "traditional" now, but they shouldn't be.  A "Chili" is a pepper, after all, not a bean.  Season a pot of meat with enough Chili Powder, and eventually you'll taste more chili than meat so, the dish is really all about balance (and the chili peppers).  On a purity scale from 0-10, a pure-bread Texan would rate a "10" if he were to slice the meat up into chunks so tiny, it would almost cook completely away, leaving a bowl of deeply flavored thick red chili "sauce" (this is where the phrase, "A good bowl of red" came from).  A Vegan bowl of "Meatless White 3-bean Chili" would earn you a zero. 

If you ask me, a hearty bowl of chili turns into a mild bowl of soup as soon as you drop a bean into the pot.  So, don't do it... I fall somewhere around a 7 on the purity scale.  You'll never find beans in my chili, the meat should always play 2nd fiddle, but I will add some onions, tomatoes and other spices to the mix to bring a bit of texture.

Here is the recipe that recently won me a "1st Place" in the "Beef" category, as well as "Best Overall" at the cookoff:

You Will Need:

• 5-6lbs of Oxtail Medallions
• 56oz of canned diced tomatoes, (I used the “Fire Roasted” kind)
• 4 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 Large yellow onions, diced
• 2 Red bell pepper
• 1 Green bell pepper
• 5 Heaping Tbsp (yes, TABLESPOONS) Chili powder (I like homemade)
• 8 Cloves garlic, minced as fine as possible
• 2 Dried Chipotle chili peppers
• 6-8 Cups beef stock from your oxtails
• 4 Slices of uncooked bacon (chopped into tiny tiny bits)
• 2 Tsp Mexican oregano
• 2 Tbsp paprika smoked
• 2 Whole jalapeno chili peppers, diced

Oxtails can be tough to find.  Ask your local meat cutter for a source if your store doesn't have them.  They're fantastic for making beef stock, and the meat is similar in texture to Barbacoa.  It's very flavorful.  The only hassle is, there is a LOT of connective tissue to deal with and, of course, bones.  I bet you didn't know a cow's tail had so many bones... Before you even think about chili, you'll have to cook the meat off of those bones and build some stock.  This takes time.  LOTS of time.  Your patience will be rewarded!

Place all of the oxtail medallions into a stock pot and add enough water to cover them by ¼ inch. Add a cup or two of red wine if you have some handy (who doesn't?).  Add a few heavy pinches of salt, bring it to a boil and reduce that to a simmer.  Let the oxtails simmer for at least 6 hours, until the meat will fall off of the bones.  Pull the meat off and save it in a bowl, discard the bones and keep the stock.  Skim the fat off the top, these beauties will produce copious amounts of it.

Now, for Chili!  Sweat the bacon in your stock pot. When the bits are nice and brown and crispy, remove the bacon and leave the fat. Add all of the powdered spices (except for the oregano). Stir it into the bacon fat and cook over Medium High heat for 1 minute to wake up the oils in the spices and Chili powder. 

Add the onions, peppers, jalapenos and garlic.  Saute all of the veggies, stirring frequently for 15 minutes or so.  Add tomato paste and keep sauteing.  

Pour on your diced tomatoes. Stir.  Add the Oxtail stock and bacon bits to pot.  Stir.  Add the ox tail meat, along with the chipotles and oregano. Continue to heat until boiling, then reduce to a simmer and let it simmer there, with the lid OFF, for about four hours.  Leaving the lid off will allow some of the liquid to boil off and the sauce to thicken.   

After 4 hours or so, everything should have come together very nicely!  Remove your Chipotle Chilis, as their flavor has now been imparted to the mix and you don't want your diners to eat a whole one of those... As a final step, I like to Cool the chili when it’s done so the fat will solidify into a disk that is easy to remove.  Chili is always better when it's reheated the second day, right? 

Since this recipe calls for two "Cool Down" periods, I recommend starting it a day earlier than you plan to serve it.  If you're wondering if it's worth it, I promise you; you've never tasted anything like it in your life and it's fantastic!  Spicy, but not too much so; smoky, soft with a bit of "bite" for your tooth, and deeply flavored.  You'll need a block of cornbread to sop up any leftovers.

Pulled Pork

So, I tried Quinoa for the first time this week; Heads Up, people.. it's VILE!  I did some reading on Quinoa and found that since the U.S. demand for it has accelerated beyond the speed of light, this poor little grain derivative has been taken from it's Peruvian mountain soil and been mass produced in other, less hospitable places, making it the vile nasty dirt-filled fungal mess that you can now buy at the local grocery.  These facts failed to deter a pitch-fork wielding mass of Vegans from yelling at me and calling me names.  Sticks and stones... For all of their posturing and whining, all they managed to do was to convince me it was time to cook something very muscular and very big; Pork Shoulders!

Pulled Pork is a heavy favorite at any BBQ restaurant and while you could certainly achieve tender pork goodness by slow cooking it in a crock-pot, why would you want to let such a pinnacle of porcine purity cook by simmering it in its own fat?  Infuse it with smoke, I say!

You Will Need:

• At least one 8-12 whole "Bone-In" pork shoulder
• A squeeze bottle of yellow mustard
• 1 Cup of Dry Rub per shoulder, equal amounts of:
• Fresh Chili Powder
• Brown Sugar
• Kosher Salt
• Black Pepper
• Paprika
• Cumin

Notes: Let's talk for a minute about how many shoulders you should consider smoking.  A healthy pork shoulder should weigh in around 10lbs. You'll render at least 2lbs of fat out, and the bone weighs a bit, so let's say that you end up with 7lbs of meat to serve.  According to reason, that should serve 28 people a 4oz pulled pork sandwich.  However.... if you put a tray of 7lbs of this glorious dish in front of 5 hungry teenagers, it will completely disappear.  So, purchase accordingly.  Also, it's important to find bone-in shoulders.  If the shoulder has been de-boned, it's been fileted open so the bone can be removed.  You can roll it back up and tie it, but it just won't behave the same way in your smoker once it starts to cook and swell up, and render fat, etc.  Find a bone-in shoulder, it's worth the effort!  Warehouse stores (Sam's, Costco, Restaurant Depot) usually have bone-in pork shoulders available.  They come two to a pack and that's a perfect place to start.  It's funny to me that the shoulders in each pack obviously come from different pigs... how does that happen?

Let's get started!  Open the pack and rinse and dry your pig using cold water and a clean towel. Use a sharp knife to cut away any obvious chunks of fat.  Keep in mind, the thing is riddled with fat and that's a good thing, so don't spend time trying to cut it all out; you'll lose.  Just cut off any large pure nodules that you might find offensive.  Remember, as the fat and connective tissue slowly dissolve and render away, it will leave the meat with the glorious flavor and texture we're looking for as BBQ providers!

Squirt the shoulder generously with yellow mustard.  Smear the mustard all over and into the shoulder with your hands.  It will be messy... do it anyway!  Rinse your hands and shake on a generous amount of your dry rub.  Cover all sides and surfaces.

Wrap your shoulders in plastic-wrap and let them "marinate" in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.  This is when the magic happens!  The salt (and other spices) in the dry rub will dissolve into the mustard, and the meat on the shoulder will react by leeching out some fat and moisture and a gooey "bark" will form.  This gooey bark will eventually become the dark and smokey crust that pulled pork is famous for!  On the day of the smoke, pull the shoulders out of the chill-chest and let them rest on the counter while you build your fire.

Empty the grease bucket under your smoker, things will get messy and you do NOT want an overflow!  Your dogs do... you do not.  Place your shoulders on your smoker, and make sure the temperature is 225 degrees.  I strongly suggest the use of a temperature probe because of the "Stall Factor!"  Your target temperature is 200 degrees.  This is when the last of the collagen and connective tissue will finally break down and melt away.  How long will that take?  That's the million dollar question because pork shoulders are stubborn!  Some are more fatty than others and they take longer.  You'll see them come up to 160ish degrees fairly quickly, but then they'll stall!  They'll stay at 163 degrees for hours, and you'll swear that your fire went out, or that your temperature probe is broken, or that God made a mistake when he gave you dominion over the animals.  Stick with it!  Be patient, for it is during this "stall" that the best of things is happening!  Fat is rendering away, unwanted chewy tissues are breaking down, lean meat is cooking up, etc.  Just let it stall... eventually, she'll climb up over 170 and continue on her quest for 200.

If you take your shoulders off the smoke during the stall, thinking, "It's been 8 hours, these MUST be done," you won't be "pulling" your pork, you'll be "chopping" your pork with a cleaver or knife.  The meat will be done, but it will be very chewy and it won't have that "melt in your mouth" texture that will set you apart from the competition.  Patience.

When you take the shoulders off, cover them with foil and let them rest for an hour or so.  They'll be too hot for you to pull anyway, so you might as well let them rest for awhile.  Take the foil away and the first thing you'll want to do is to remove the bone.  If things are as they should be (internal temp. is 200, pork is well-rested), you should be able to grab the end of the bone with two fingers and literally slide it right out of the shoulder.  It should come out cleanly and neatly, and your dogs will want it, BAD!  I let my dogs have one each, after all; their noses have been driving them crazy during the cook for the last ten hours or more so...  Grab a fork and simply start pulling the meat apart, using a knife if you want to chop it into smaller pieces.

Personally, I like to heap a pile of this stuff on a fresh bun with a bit of coleslaw and honk it down!  Some like to cover it with BBQ sauce and some like to "hover" near the cutting board, just to steal pieces and eat it, right out of the pan!  It freezes well, so you can portion it out for future lunches.  Nothing tells the rest of the office, "you're missing out," like a re-heated pile of pulled pork!  You'll be the scourge of the break room, and that's a good thing!