26 May 2013
It's time for our Grillstock Bristol 2013 report! Sorry it's been a while coming all you Backyard Brummies fans.
Cutting to the chase: we exceeded our own expectations and came 5th overall, with an outrageous win in the brisket category! Yes as the man Dr BBQ described, the hardest meat to cook! Here's a link to the final points and positions at the Grillstock 2013 Bristol King of the Q competition.
The weekend started on a wet and windy Friday 9th May (wet and windy would aptly describe the rest of the weekend so I won't mention it again). Dave and I arrived late afternoon and bagged a pitch next to the reigning champs Bunch of Swines, Ed and Emma (who, contrary to their moniker are in fact jolly nice people). I wanted to learn some more competition BBQ skills from them, having had the luck of pitching with them last year. They even kept an eye on our smoker! Perhaps some of that champion form would rub off on us? As it happens they retained their title, so maybe pitching with the Backyard Brummies was a good omen for them. What you think Ed?
Also sharing our pitch were two new teams; the Bare Grillers and Becky's BBQ Shack. Who we were glad to share our andouille and war stories with, no longer being BBQ compo virgins. This year’s Grillstock King of the Q competition appeared on paper to be lot tougher than last year. In the line-up were two ex-judges, Andy Annat's Crackerjack team and Enn Tobreluts as well as veteran US team BBQ Guru who actually design the electronic fan system used by Champion BBQ teams around the world. We were in no doubt that a good finish this year would be doubly difficult than last.
Set up and ready to go on Friday evening, but wait, where is Nick, I hear you murmur? Well Professor Smokey Brisket didn’t make it to the party until 8:30, leaving home later than planned and in his own words having to turn back four times because of stuff he forgot to bring. Only he will know how far he got down the M5 each time. But more importantly the winning brisket was travelling with him and that big of lump of fatty Wagyu* should have been inspected and be marinading in its first salt rub hours before he actually arrived on site.
* A little aside on Brisket, in what I will newly term The Wagyu Wars. Nick being the laid back gent he is, decided to contact Jeanette (from our meat sponsor, Alternative Meats) only two weeks before the competition. He was told that the only two briskets available had been taken by none other than Ed of the Bunch of Swines! Actually living up to his team name for once. The git! But after much reasoning and charm, and only minor blackmailing and guilt-tripping, Nick managed to persuade her to part with one of the briskets. So we ended up cooking the same meat from the same animal as the Champions. A direct head to head in which we beat them into second place - hugely satisfying! More on this later…
The Friday evening at Grillstock for the competition teams mostly involve drinking beer which I can report we did successfully, interspersed with the occasional rubbing down of spare ribs and brisket injection. At the stroke of midnight, after what we felt was only just long enough in the dry cure, the brisket went into one of our ProQ smokers. Compared to the set-up the Swines had; thermal blankets and electronically controlled fans on their Weber Smokey Mountains, our hand-vented smokers were looking distinctly stone-aged. So we prayed to the ProQ gods and left it overnight for the smokey magic to work with vague instructions to the Bare Grillers, who were valiantly camping out all night, to "open the vents or something if it looks like it's going to go out".
The running order for Saturday was Chef’s special, ribs, lamb and brisket. So Saturday morning Nick and I were up before 6am to tend to brisket and ribs. It was a pretty sleepless night anyway, due to some Bristol clubbing idiots running up and down the corridors pissed as newts, but anyone serious about Q knows what it’s like to check on your coals half asleep at the break of dawn. If you sleep, you dream nightmares of fluctuating temperatures and coals dying out. Only at Grillstock though are you joined by two dozen teams doing exactly the same thing and only at Grillstock will Dr Sweetsmoke offer you slug of bourbon for breakfast. Four racks of St Louis cut pork spare-ribs went in around 6:30 for a 1:30 turn-in. I figured a slow smoke for 4.5-5 hours or so, before holding in foil and finishing them on the grill. I had plenty of time to kick back for a few hours before I needed to think about my Chef’s Special turn-in at midday.
Dave had an easy day Saturday so had a lie-in and rolled up just before our brand new team member Dom turned up at 10am, staying up after working the night shift at Loaf bakery here in Brum. Fuelled by adrenalin and beer at his first Grillstock, Dom did some spectacular work in his category. Legend!
It was around 10am that I started to get a little worried about the ribs. The slow smoke I wanted hadn’t happened with the smoker running unusually hot. With ribs you can tell how done they are by the amount of pull back from the end of the bone. I aim for 5mm of pull back, ribs that have much more than that are to my mind overcooked. Ribs that are falling off the bone are seriously overcooked. Well by 10am my ribs were done. I’d been spritzing them for the past hour to cool them down and by now they were nicely burnished, a good ninety minutes ahead of schedule. There was no choice but to foil them and sling them in the coolbox to keep until turn-in time, a three hour rest – unheard of with ribs.
Well at least the long rest gave me a nice long prep time for the Chefs Special; jasmine tea-smoked scallops with ikura and ponzu. Aided by Dave we shucked ten juicy hand-dived scallops - special shout out to Brad Carter of Carters of Moseley for supplying these beauties (big up Brum!). These were smoked then seared off and presented on top of shredded daikon. Dressed with thai basil, Ikura (salmon roe) and ponzu. I was really happy with how the dish turned out in that it was executed as well as it could have been. Scallops were succulent, smokey and sweet, salty from the roe with ponzu giving the umami kick. Presentation was exactly how I intended. It was down to the judges now, good reactions in general but one screwed face “ugh I don’t like fish eggs!” meant we narrowly missed out on a top 5 finish and a failure to retain the title. Ah well I think I’ll hand this category over to Dom next year!
Before the next turn-in of ribs, the brisket was checked. Nick prodded and grumbled, we obsessed that maybe it wasn’t as good as last year’s brisket (which came 2nd) that we thought was the best brisket we’d ever eaten. He sliced the point off for burnt ends and gave the flat another grumbling prod before foiling it all up and holding it in the coolbox. One of the major problems with brisket cooking is that you just don’t know how good it’s going to be until just before you serve it, when you actually slice into the thing. And it's too late to fix anything then. We had our fingers crossed that the long four hour rest would do the trick as it slowly reabsorbed its cooking juices. Anyway, we had ribs and lamb to worry about before brisket.
Pulling the ribs out of the cooler and unfoiling them, they looked good and I could feel that the meat was tender and juicy. Just a case of lacquering the ribs with sauce and searing it on the grill to finish. Slicing and choosing the eight best ribs to present in the box was easier this year, experience helps with consistency and I was satisfied with what I put out to the judges. A nice even smoke ring, juicy chewable meat with a layers of sweet and spice from the rub & sauce and a little pepper kick at the end, my idea of the perfect rib. (Nick's edit: They were absolutely epic.). Good reactions from the judges, with most taking second and third bites without visible complaints (that is the best you can hope for with some judges). The four main meat categories; ribs, brisket, chicken and pork shoulder are always going to the most competitive at Grillstock with some teams offering only token efforts in the three side categories and some not putting an entry in at all! So to come 6th in ribs was very satisfactory. Feeding everyone the extra ribs is also very satisfying as the crowds at Grillstock are what make it special. They gather like bees around honey at the turn-in times watching the teams perform and hoping for the chance to eat some competition standard BBQ. They know that the best food at the festival is going to be at the competition area! They also seemingly went down well with legendary and jolly friendly London food bloggers, Helen Graves from Foodstories, Donald Edwards and Chris Pople from Cheese and Biscuits. Aw yeah!
So with the first two categories down, I kicked back a little and let Dom assisted by Dave work on the lamb category. Being a food obsessive and ex-chef I knew Dom would be super-organised and execute his dish of lamb sliders superbly. He’d baked perfectly cute slider buns so grilling/hay-smoking his lamb rump to medium rare was all the cooking that needed to be done on the day. The lamb was expertly sliced by Dom and dressed with BBQ sauce, it was thickly layered onto the lightly toasted buns and simply garnished with pickle and lettuce. A skewer and a sail of wax paper through each bun finished the presentation beautifully. It got a great response from the judges too, with head judge Dr BBQ purring at how cute they were. We got 2nd place for them! Which in a funny way Dom was gutted about, I’d rather come 10th he said. I told you he was an obsessive eh? Props to newcomers Bare Grillers, our neighbours, who won this category with their lamb kebabs and flatbreads.
So we come to the last category of the day, brisket. It’s a big deal brisket, the most elusive of all the BBQ cuts and definitely the hardest to get right. It takes practise, something we were lacking as Nick had cooked only one brisket this year and, well, that hadn't been a stellar success honestly. Most teams are hampered by the quality of the meat but we, along with Bunch of Swines, had sourced the best we could get our hands on for Grillstock. Fatty wagyu brisket. Ours got a double rub and an injection marinade before hitting the smoker. Real low and real slow. Maybe ideally we’d liked to have cooked ours for around 20 hours but we had to do with around 17 hours in the end. Some teams only started their brisket in the morning, favouring a hot and fast 6-7 hour cook time but c’mon, really? Has that ever produced a nice brisket? Our brisket flat alone was rested for about 4 hrs! We finished the point on indirect heat on a Weber kettle with more smoke to make the best burnt ends we’d ever tasted. Seriously these were gold-standard burnt ends that exploded in your mouth with fatty beefy spice.
But ... the first slices taken off the actual flat when we unfoiled it and sliced it were a disappointment. It was slicing well enough but we all remembered, misty-eyed, the brisket from last year and the slices just weren’t as juicy or tender as that one. Nick thought we might have undercooked it, I thought he was undercooked for not practising more. (Nick's edit: WHAT??). I toyed with the idea of presenting a box just of burnt ends! In the end, using all the mystical BBQ powers we had and something akin to muscle memory (literally), I made 7 slices out of the middle of the flat which felt better to cut. Nick dressed them with extra sauce and I laid them neatly in the box above the amazing burnt ends. We sent it to the judges. But none of us were actually that happy with what we put out. Especially not me because I tried Bunch of Swine’s brisket soon after and it was truly awesome. Perfect smoke ring, deep flavour and just the right tenderness. It made me cry a little.
None of the results were actually announced until all the rounds had been completed on Sunday. So we had no idea of how we’d done so far. We could only really compare what we’d done to our own standards. On day one we were happy with the first three categories but not the brisket. So it came as a shock to us when chatting to judge and chef Neil Rankin of John Salt (previously Pitt Cue) later that day that he thought that the only two briskets worth eating were the Swines and "Team 11"… Well we looked at one another in disbelief when we told him we were number 11! “Great guys, those burnt ends were like my burnt ends!” he declared, we knew they were good but we told him that we didn’t think the slices from the flat were up to scratch. I actually let out a little squeal when he responded “It was great, it must have been the way it was sliced!”. (Nick's edit: Lap sliced the brisket.) Just goes to show that you can’t eat those seven slices you give to the judges, they must have had all the magic in them. So we finished the day happier knowing we actually did ok with at least one of the judges.
We drank quite a lot of beer again on Day One, Dom crashed around 7pm having been up all day after a night shift. I was pretty relaxed in the evening as I only had to do the dessert in Day Two. Dave was moving up through the gears as he was chief of chicken and pork so had to prep those for the next day. This year Dave decided that he’d cook three different shoulders, a small Tamworth from my favourite butchers, a mystery one that Dave sourced in Bristol and a massive one supplied by Grillstock. Dave injected the marinade and rubbed them all down before sticking them in the smoker around midnight again. Before going to sleep he brined his chicken ready for an early morning smoke, it was his turn to get up early. Before Nick called it a night he smoked some clotted cream, made a salted caramel and combined them to make a smoked salted caramel custard. This was to be churned into ice-cream the next day to accompany the chocolate pecan pie.
Day Two run order was chicken, dessert then pulled pork before the grand ceremony when the top 5 in each category were announced and the Grand Champion decided. So it was my turn to have a lie-in, when I turned up about 9:30am everybody was in full flow. There was a concerted effort this year to do better in the two categories that let us down last time, chicken and pork. A big responsibility for Dave who was the team lead for these two.
The chicken category is a funny one, we’ve all smoked good chicken at home but there’s a style of BBQ competition chicken that as a team we just don’t buy into. The uniform pillow-looking chicken thighs. I tried them last year without much success but that may have been down to the unusual jerk seasoning I used. This year we went with smoking whole chickens in a conventional BBQ rub, presenting the breasts sliced and the legs pulled. Dave cooked an absolutely spectacular one at a practice session a month before, perfectly juicy moist breasts and succulent dark meat, we all hoped he could repeat the same feat. When it came to the turn-in the birds looked glorious. Dom tried to crisp the skin up separately in a pan, to disprove the BBQ dogma that this is impossible, but added another burnt casualty to the list of failed attempts the world over. So ended up discarding the skin and just presented the chicken as planned. Tasting the chicken breast naked without any sauce we realised that it wasn’t quite up to the standard we’d set ourselves. It was a tad under-brined and not as juicy as it had been. The pulled dressed dark meat tasted great, but apparently not good enough to boost us from a disappointing 17th place with the judges. Not much better than last year. Dave has vowed to perfect the competition style BBQ thighs for next year. The chicken round always sucks!!
Back to work for me, chocolate pecan pie with smoked salted caramel ice-cream. Nick was the churning the custard in his ice-cream maker as I made up the pie filling. The sweet buttery shortcrust tart case was prebaked and waiting on the baking stone in one of the smokers. All I had to do was pour the filling in, arrange some more pecans nicely on top, close the lid and keep an eye on the temperature. Half an hour at around 190C should do it. It turned out beautifully, along with the smoked ice-cream it was a dessert I’d be happy to pay for in any restaurant. The base was perfect, the filling just set and the ice-cream was bold, unusual and delicious. Like with the scallop dish, I thought we’d executed the dish brilliantly and it was down to the judges now. I took a peek at one of the judges scorecard and saw that he’d scored 100 out of 100 for it. I wheeled away from the judging tent delighted but was less so when the actual results were announced later in the day. A bit of a palaver with the dessert results as first place was given to a team that hadn’t put a dessert in! An on-stage recount was ordered and we still didn’t make top 5, coming in 8th. That pecan pie was scrumptious, maybe the other judges couldn’t get their heads around smoked ice-cream? Well there’s no accounting for taste, though I still think the scores are wrong!
Pulled pork, the last category and the one we did dreadfully on last time. Dave had put some serious effort into improving this dish and we had been well pleased with the results at the previous week's practice. We had three shoulders to choose from this year, all from different sources. I was fairly convinced that the rarebreed Tamworth pork that I’d supplied to him would be the best and I was proved right. It was simply the tastiest of the three. Unfortunately it was the smallest cut of the three so there wasn’t much money muscle to serve up as chunks. We pulled as much of the Tamworth pork shoulder as required for the judges but had to sub in some inferior chunks from the other shoulders. But still it tasted really good. The judges agreed and gave us a very respectable 7th. We picked up some useful hints from Ed on alternative ways to pull the pork that we will try next time.
The crowd lining our pitch were drooling at the amount of extra pulled pork we had and they were well fed that day. Many comments, including one from Jon the King of the Q organiser, that it was the best pulled pork they'd eaten. I think in general we make BBQ that we like to eat and like to feed our friends and family with. But if we want to win next time, do we need to change it up and try to please the judges at the expense of our own tastes? That's a debate for next time around.
After we picked up the brisket award I overheard Nick say to his dad, "You can take the boy out the Ashkenazi, but you can't take the Ashkenazi out the boy!" Too true, brisket is in the blood.
We had a blast at Grillstock again and we are very thankful to everyone that supported us, from our dutiful wives and girlfriends who put up with the inevitable disruption, and to our friends and fans who came to support us on the day or sent us good luck messages via Twitter. Special thanks also to Jon, Jon, Ben and the other organisers of Grillstock who put on another slick event (despite the counting cock-up!) and of course Dr BBQ who is just such a legend and makes time to speak to everyone on the day.
Bring on 2014!?!
05 Apr 2013
Let’s be clear about this, pulled pork means smoked barbequed pulled pork. In fact we say that pulled pork that isn’t barbequed should be banned or at least renamed slow-roast pork. Putting a barbeque sauce on mushy overcooked slow-roast roast pork doesn’t make it pulled pork either. You culprits know who you are!
So where do you start with pulled pork? Well with a pork shoulder of course. Now this is where things can get confused and where this guide can help you. Most BBQ blogs about pulled pork will be American and will talk a lot about Boston butts or picnic hams, cryovacing at Trader Joes or the Duroc crosses at Niman Ranch. None of which mean anything to your average UK butcher. They understand what shoulder, neck, hock and hand are. Most BBQ blogs start with a perfectly trimmed Boston butt but this blog will show you how to get to that stage.
In the photo below is a whole shoulder, it’s basically the front part of the pig called the front primal. Most butchers cut this using the first three spare ribs as a guide. This primal has been taken from the right side of the pig and the head, were it still attached, would be on the left of the photo. At the bottom of the primal you can see that the trotter and hock have been removed, equivalent to removing your arm up to the elbow (yes get over it). The other side has been skinned and a thin layer of fat left on:
You could BBQ this whole of course but much better to take the neck bone off along with the ribs so the spice rub and smoke will penetrate the flesh. Follow the bone around with a thin boning knife and the whole lot should come away easily in one piece. In this next photo you’ll see that I’ve done this and I’ve also separated the top section to show you what British butchers call the neck. If you are BBQing you should not separate it like this, keep it whole, this is for demonstration only:
Butchers like to sell you neck, it’s a common cut. When cured like bacon it’s called collar bacon. Cantonese cooks like it because we make Char Siu from it. It’s a perfectly acceptable cut for pulled pork but it’s a bit small and the loin end tends to dry out a little. What’s the loin end? Follow the neck back down the spine and the next section you’ll get to is the loin where you get the standard pork chop. So this end of the neck will tend to dryness because there’s less inter muscular fat and no connective tissue and it’s this stuff that makes pork shoulder so juicy and well suited to low and slow cooking. When a British butcher has separated the neck out the rest is usually called the shoulder, it’s often boned and rolled and sold as a roasting joint. This is fine for pulled pork too. Just get them to skin it for you first.
Below is a close-up of the neck, where I’m pinching is what competition BBQers call the money muscle. We like to separate this slightly and serve it sliced. This muscle stays really juicy and properly cooked melts in the mouth. A good way to demonstrate to BBQ judges that you know what you’re doing:
Ok now this first shoulder I’ve been demonstrating on is not ideal for BBQ because I’ve separated the neck too much. Good thing it’s being used for carnitas! So here’s another shoulder, this is what’s known as the Boston butt in the US. This is the basically the upper half of the shoulder primal and twice as big as the neck. To get to this piece I’ve sawn straight across the front primal in half through the base of the shoulder blade. The top of the shoulder blade should still be buried in the Boston butt. You can bone it out but I like to leave it in because when it comes away clean after smoking you know your pork is perfectly cooked. The top of the pig is on the right of this photo, you can see that I’ve separated the money muscle out competition style but you don’t need to do this at home.
The Boston butt or upper shoulder is the ideal cut for pulled pork as it’s big enough to stand up to a long slow smoke. The ratio of bark to juicy meat will be perfect. So now you know what you need, go forth and ask for it with confidence at your nearest quality butcher!
20 Jan 2013
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19 Aug 2012
Well we had a corking evening last night as the guest cooks for SDS: Fire. The weather finally raised its game and we enjoyed a quite lovely balmy summer's evening by the canalside. In the end about 40 came along and we had a very nice time serving you guys, so thank you for making it fun. We're really grateful to Tom Baker and Dom Clarke, of Loaf Enterprises for their help, and for Carl and the rest of the SDS team for putting on the event.
There are some brilliant photo galleries if you are interested to see what it looked like, check out the sets from Jack Spicer Adams, Yen San Li (@ysl807) and Hannah.
The menu was: Donald Link's cajun boudin balls (pretty much as per this recipe, but with the poblano chile swapped out for a scotch bonnet) followed by Lap's carnitas served with pineapple salsa, pickled onions and his "no gringo" naga chile salsa. Then we had Pecan-smoked jerk ribs followed by smoked wagyu brisket, baked beans and cornbread. For puds we had apple pie, with smoked ice cream which seemed to go down a treat.
Well, that's probably it from the Backyard Brummies this year in terms of public appearances. I go back to work in a couple of weeks and, truth be told, am looking forward to cooking some non-BBQ things for a little while. But no doubt by the time grilling season comes along next year, we'll be raring to go again! :)
15 Aug 2012
Like Team GB, we are still floating on air from our amazing results at our version of the Olympics - Grillstock. To recap, 1st in Chef's Choice, 2nd in brisket, 2nd in beans, 2nd in dessert and 6th in ribs!
But we are also sad. So, so sad. Because the Backyard Brummies have never yet done a proper gig in Birmingham! And after all, we're brummies (well, one of us is).
So we are very excited to reveal that we have teamed up - for one night only - with the Secret Dining Society and will be providing our meat-based treats at a very special event this Saturday the 18th August 2012 starting at 5pm.
The weather forecast is filthy, but I can reveal that luckily we are under cover. The weather forecast is now very fine! What could be nicer ...
This will likely be your last chance in the 2012 season to get your mitts on some of our smokey treats, as well as mingling with the team where we will happily chat to you about BBQ for as long as you like.
The menu is of course a secret, but I can reveal that we will be serving some of our greatest hits!
Drinks are fully included for your £30, and virtually all the ticket price is going on meat, so you won't go hungry.
Head over to the ticket sales page to reserve your place which are strictly limited!
Really hope to see you there, do spread the word!
Photos by @ysl807. Thanks!
06 Jul 2012
One of the more amazing - and unexpected - achievements of last weekend's Grillstock King of the Grill competiton was placing 2nd in the brisket category, behind the legendary Dr. Sweetsmoke. In this video from Homegrown Films, I give a little rundown on how we prepared our brisket. Our high placing may have something to do with the fact that we brought our own briskets - in this case two superb pieces of Welsh Wagyu from Alternative Meats. The other thing that we did was start our briskets very, very early - 1am to be precise for a 5.30pm turn-in. I was surprised to see many teams not starting their briskets until breakfast time the next day. Although you can do brisket "hot and fast", around 275-300 F, I much prefer to do them low and slow, unfoiled until they reach about 200 F and then give them a good rest. In fact this is really important for Wagyu brisket as you want to render the fat, which in turn helps baste (well, more like confit!) the meat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDFUzhIGoNg&feature=plcp
02 Jul 2012
Here's a lovely little video by Homegrown Films showing the preparation and serving of Lap's grilled lobster and alphonso mango dish which won first prize in the Chef's special category.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4fm2WqgOBM&feature=youtu.be&a
01 Jul 2012
Part 1
Chef's special
1. Backyard Brummies
2. Dr sweetsmoke
3. Newman's own
Dessert
1. Gurmee Gala
2. Backyard Brummies
3. Bodean's
BBQ Beans
1. Bodean's
2. Backyard Brummies
3. Bone stock
Spirit of BBQ
Barbecue shack
Best dressed stand
Braising saddles
Ribs
1. Bunch of Swines
2. Dr Sweetsmoke
3. BBQ Fanatics
Brisket
1. Dr Sweetsmoke
2. Backyard Brummies
3. Butt Rub
Chicken
1. Gurmee Gala
2. BBQ Shack
3. Mad Apple
Pork shoulder
1. Bunch of Swines
2. Butt rub
3. BBQ Fanatics
King of the grill
1. Bunch of Swines!
2. Butt Rub
3. Dr Sweetsmoke
4. BBQ Fanatics
5. Gurmee Gala
01 Jul 2012
And lookin' mighty fine!
01 Jul 2012
Here we go, grillstock day 2. Pork has been on since last night, although our smoker ran out of fuel by the morning and lost some temperature. Nothing we can't handle, we hope. Lap has laboriously prepped his brined chicken, skins defatted and subsequently replaced. These are now going in the smoker, to turn in after midday. I've got my beans bubbling away in some ham stock, smoking over pecan. The sun is coming out. Now if I could just rid myself of this hangover it could be a perfect day!
30 Jun 2012
Alabama 3 are just finishing their set (play some sopranos already!) and there's a double rainbow in the Bristol sky. A good end to a great day here I'd say. Although we're not quite finished here. The pork has just gone on the smoker and I'm starting my BBQ beans preparation. Lap's marinating the chicken with his trademark jerk sauce. We were very happy with everything we sent today, particularly lap's lobster dish, the apple pie and the brisket. Hoping for good scores tomorrow. Couldn't blog the brisket because was too busy putting it out but thanks to all the crowd who were very vocal in their support! But will post more on that tomorrow!
30 Jun 2012
Too hectic to blog for a while there ... We sent our dessert of BBQ apple pie and smoked ice cream at 13:30 and then it was on to the ribs. These meat rounds are judged by BBQ experts and the judges are completely poker faced when presented with their boxes, so it's very hard to gauge their opinions. One more round to go today: brisket!
30 Jun 2012
Grilled lobster with Alphonso Mango
Ingredients
One Live lobster
For the mango salsa
1 Large Alphonso Mango - diced
2 small vine tomato - concassed
3 inch daikon - part diced (reserve some part shredded)
Coriander & Mint
Dressing - Fish sauce, lime, sugar, water, chillis (finely minced one large mild red, one quarter scotch bonnet)
3 or 4 Lemongrass stalks lightly bashed and tied together to form a brush, soak in oil
12 Lime leaves
Split lobster in half and separate claws. Discard the head sac and intestinal tract.
Place lobster bodies shell side down into a flexible grill basket on a bed of lime leaves. Drizzle oil over the flesh side using the lemongrass brush and grill flesh side down first for 4 minutes. Flip and grill the shell side for a further 4 minutes, baste with more lemongrass oil. The claws will take 2 more minutes to cook than the bodies but be careful not to overcook them.
Let the lobster cool a little. Combine the salsa ingredients.
Remove claw meat, remove tails & portion, place shredded daikon in shells to give the meat lift and dress with a little of the salad
replace the meat and dress with the rest of the salad
30 Jun 2012
Here it is, recipe to follow!
30 Jun 2012
Take for example, this guy!
30 Jun 2012
We've just about managed to wake Lap up and now preparation is underway for the first two courses up today; chef's special and dessert!
30 Jun 2012
Well my brisket has fared quite well overnight, although one of my flats is nearly cooked and it's only 9am (serve at 17.30!). I've rigged up my temperature probes and we'll see when it's ready... In other news, apples are prepped and the ribs just went in!
30 Jun 2012
A lovely fresh morning, and I can smell the heady, sweet smell of smoke from 500 yards away. Hope that's from our stand!
29 Jun 2012
Overheard earlier: "Is your pineapple juice fresh, or from concentrate?"
Well it's time to have some rest. We seem to be the only team that put our briskets on already, but that's because they are uber - and massive. And there's nothing worse than an undercooked brisket. Some teams are threatening to turn up at 3am or 4am to start theirs off. Anyway, Ozzy - one of our ProQ's is on and I'm leaving him to it. Night night!
29 Jun 2012
We've rubbed our ribs and brisket. I'm a bit disconcerted to see the team next door forensically trimming the fat from his brisket, whereas I just lopped off the bit which was about 3 inches thick. And he's even made it so it will fit the competition box and everything! Anyway will be interesting to see what the final result looks like....
29 Jun 2012
We've lit the first chimney of the weekend, tunes are playing, it's not raining .. and we're about to cook some sausages!! Bring it on grillstock!
29 Jun 2012
We seem to have brought about 15 million times more stuff than the average team. Also we are surrounded by meat but seem to be starving hungry!
29 Jun 2012
We're in DrBBQ's cook's meeting. Shock news is that the competition boxes are a bit smaller than the KCBS regulation 9"x9" size. We've had a good 10 minute discussion on that so far. Will Lap be able to fit his 7 ribs in the box?! Find out tomorrow at 3pm. Now we're talking garnish! Can you put a pickle in the box? Can you put a sprig of rosemary? (yes)
29 Jun 2012
Our meat has just been inspected by the legendary Ray 'DrBBQ' Lampe and has been declared fit for competition use!
29 Jun 2012
We're here! After a slow crawl in traffic we've unloaded our gear and will now set up our pitch. Excited to be neighbouring Bunch of Swines, Newman's own and Bodeans!
07 Jun 2012
A few questions I want to answer with today's practice:
- how does brisket cooked without the "Texas crutch" compare with foiled brisket?
- can I cook a 3kg brisket in under 10 hours this way?
- how does Lap's smoked andouille work with beans?
- does adding coffee to the rub improve it?
Beans:
280g pinto beans, soaked overnight
1 large onion
1/2 green pepper
andouille links
tomato paste
molasses sugar
worcestershire sauce
chipotle ketchup
beef stock
cumin (whole)
cinnamon (ground)
So my killer, secret ingredient here is Lap's smoked andouille links ... and it's only a secret because he won't tell me the recipe! I got some chipotle ketchup from Man-food.co.uk and bunged in a load for heat.
Brisket:
3.1kg- very fatty
Rub:
paprika
brown sugar
salt
bay
fresh garlic
coffee
cayenne pepper
injection:
apple & pear
worcestershire sauce
salt
white sugar
| 9am |
- |
fridge |
100% |
| 11am |
200 |
145 |
100% |
| 11.30am |
240 |
- |
100% |
| 12.15am |
250 |
- |
50% |
| 13.30 |
235 |
160 |
90% |
| 14.00 |
225 |
169 |
100% |
| 15.00 |
240 |
170 |
100% |
| 17.50 |
260 |
180 (thickest) 200 (thin) |
80% - opened |
| 18.20 |
260 |
195 (foiled) |
|
28 May 2012
This weekend, as part of our intense Grillstock practice regime we set ourselves a slightly different task - mass-catering.
We decided to serve a diverse menu which would all be (relatively) straight-forward to serve to such a large number of people. Although this did require a fair amount of prior preparation - the spare ribs were smoked the day before, and the pork shoulder was smoked overnight.
The menu was:
- grilled chorizo
- asparagus with rapeseed oil mayo
- smoked jerk chicken
- pulled pork sliders with coleslaw
- meaty ribs
- baby back ribs
12 May 2012
In a parallel universe, or maybe just in another part of Birmingham, two full racks of pork spare ribs have been rubbed down with the special Hall Green blend of spices and herbs. One rack is from a Gloucester Old Spot and the other from a Berkshire. Hopefully I'll be able to tell which one is which when they've been smoked tomorrow.
One whole chicken has been cut into two and is in the brine to ensure moistness. I'm not doing chicken portions or the ubiquitous chicken pillows. The chicken category has caused me many sleepless nights. Grillstock being our first competition I've read up on what is expected in this category and the general consensus is that chicken thighs is the way to go. It seems that everyone has jumped on the boneless chicken pillow bandwagon, a kind of bland uniformity which I feel goes against the spirit of good que but more importantly there's just no skill in reproducing what everybody else is doing. I'm going whole chicken, the breast will be moist and the legs juicy. It'll all be served together and you see that chicken will look and taste like chicken!
Luckily for me I don't need any overnight smoking, so see you in the morning.
10am
The fire has been built, the smoker is up to temperature., the ribs go on for 5 hrs with oak and hickory doing it's magic. The ribs will get the occasional spritz of apple juice to give it a nice glaze but that's it. I'll make the sauce later, I'm having a nice relaxing Sunday morning.
12:30pm
2:30pm
Finished Product
12 May 2012
Grillstock is only seven weekends away ... eeek! So we need to start practicing our competition dishes; brisket, ribs, pork shoulder and chicken. However, unlike regular barbecue - "it's done when it's done" - it's now imperative we keep half an eye on the clock. The dishes must be turned in at a particular time. If you don't turn in, you can kiss your chances of winning goodbye!
But you can't start cooking too early. The Grillstock rules demand that the meat cannot be touched until 5pm on the Friday before. No cheeky marinading, curing or brining. That's fine, but it means you only until Saturday at 5pm to achieve the perfect brisket, from a standing start.
Is 24 hours enough time? It's tight. Some changes need to be made to the usual routine. Usually you'd apply a dry rub, perhaps even after an initial brine. The dry rub would be left overnight at a minimum. But more crucially for brisket to be perfect it needs to be slowly smoked to a high temperature, much higher than ribs or pork shoulder, to around 190-200F in order to encourage most of the collagen to turn to gelatin. This is probably a 12 hour task for a large piece of hard-working meat like this.
We've decided to start smoking overnight. So that means the dry rub step needs to be curtailed.
7pm
Tonight I will start prepping a brisket and pork shoulder, smoke them both overnight and serve them to friends tomorrow afternoon ... follow this blog for live updates :) Just got to go have dinner first ...
8:50pm
Ten to nine! And I've still got to tidy the bloody kitchen before I can get started...
9pm
Let's get this show on the road. I'm doing two meats tonight; pulled pork and brisket. Lap already butchered me a pork shoulder, think it might be Tamworth. One half gives the"picnic ham", pictured. The other half would be the "Boston butt". Both are great for pulling because this cut has plenty of nice tough connective tissue. This gets rendered into melty gelatin through the cooking, allowing it to be shredded by hand.
Plus I've got some brisket - this is from a Hereford breed and has some vital marbling and a good layer of fat to help keep it moist after the long cooking has extracted much of its water content. It's a bit of a funny cut, I think it's from kind of half way up the flat end.
For the dry rub: I favour a simple dry rub for pork consisting of paprika, salt, celery salt, pepper (lots of pepper), cayenne pepper and brown sugar. For the brisket we get a bit more fancy, adding oregano, bay leaf and garlic powder. Rub it in by hand and then cover tightly in cling film whilst we get the fire going.
10pm
This is only the second outing of my new smoker, a ProQ Excel 20. This is a water smoker, like the Weber Smokey Mountain. But it's a little cheaper, it's got an extra stacker and more capacity, as well as eyelets to put your thermometer to monitor the temperature. And most importantly, it's British! It's quite a beast really. You can stack up to three rings which gives it a huge capacity. I'll only need two rings for my two bits of meat.
It's quite important to foil the water container because otherwise, as I found out, all the fat and drippings burn and it's a devil to clean (so says Hannah anyway ;)). I'm putting some boiling water in to help bring it to temperature quickly, plus some (cleaned) gravel to act as a heat reservoir when the water has boiled away.
I'm going to use more wood chunks this time as last time the food came out slightly undersmoked. I've got some nice big wood chunks that I bought from Goulden's BBQ Smoking Woods. I'm going to use some oak and some cherry, and maybe a bit of hickory too. I like a mixture. For fuel we're using Cocoshell briquettes which burn quite long and importantly don't have any horrible additives which might taint your food.
Because I'm smoking overnight and don't want to have to get up to light more coals, I'm using Jim Minion's method which involves filling the smoker with unlit briquettes which should slowly ignite as the night wears on.
10:30pm
Just need the smoker to get to temperature, say about 200F so I can close down the vents and leave it to smoke overnight.
11:00pm
Smoker hit 200F. I've closed down all the vents to about 1/8 because I figure I want a long, slow burn and I'd much rather temps sitting on the low side than too high. And I'm tired and I want to go to bed :) Let's pick this up again tomorrow!
07:00am - the next day
After eight hours sleep, well more like four thanks to the efforts of a very wriggly baby last night, I awoke to a beautiful new morning! So what happened overnight? The temp on the ProQ was 175F which is promising, and the coals were still burning .. but what do we have inside?
Looking good! Pork probed at around 170F and the beef at around 165F. Pork can go in foil and be left for later. But more work to be done on the brisket .. time to build another fire!
08:00
I'm sluggish at this time of the morning. After a fortifying coffee I've summoned the strength to foil both pieces of meat and added a bunch more coals to the ProQ. The aim now is to get the smoker to about 250F, in order to persuade the meat to hit 190-195F and convert more collagen to gelatin. Foiling the meat will help hit the higher temperature quickly (not that I'm particularly in a hurry, I've got eight hours left until serving!). I'm pretty happy with the level of smoke this time so there may not be any need for any more smoking. But I may want to finish the brisket on the grill to encourage more "burnt ends".
10:45
Jeez, in this game you snooze, you lose. After bathing the baby (the actual baby, not the smoker) and putting some brioche dough on to rise I leisurely went back to check on the smoker. Still at 250F, this thing is rock solid. I tested the food temperature: the brisket had hit 195F with the skewer going through with virtually no resistance. The pork was around 190-195F and most of it was soft. Hopefully I haven't over-cooked it. I remove the still foiled meats and place in a polystyrene insulated box where they will rest and keep warm until serving this afternoon.
12:50
Time to shape the brioche dough, just in time for the F1! I double up the Smitten Kitten recipe, but substitute the water for full-fat milk to try and encourage a soft crumb. The idea is to make little buns for pulled pork sliders.
14:30
Fresh out of the oven, the buns are good! People will start arriving in an hour or so.
16:30
Time to unfoil the pork and pull it! First impressions are good - the bone slips clean out, and there's a decent bark and smoke ring.
After shredding by hand, it gets doused with a North Carolina-style vinegar sauce; cider vinegar, brown sugar, salt, Frank's sauce, cayenne pepper and black pepper.
Here they are, served! The brioche buns are a nice touch and the coleslaw just adds a bit of crunch. This is a very basic coleslaw recipe: equal parts cider vinegar and mayo, mustard seeds and salt.
Verdict: These were great! Pork had good smoke, good flavour, good colour. But being self-critical it could have been a touch moister, probably could have done with more fat mixed in. The meat would probably have benefitted from a brine or injection cure also. So next time we'll find a shoulder with even more fat, perhaps look into a fatter breed like Old Spot.
19:00
The brisket is finished on the grill to encourage some burnt end formation. It's very very tender -- too soft for competition probably, but great bark and smoke flavour. I'm really impressed with the ProQ! The interior is underseasoned - it probably needed an application of the seasoned cooking juices, or again perhaps an injection cure. Or just do what we did and put some Maldon salt on the sliced pieces. Bloody nice though, someone remarked (it might have been me) that you could have rubbed it into your skin as a kind of beef moisturiser.
Conclusion
Well we had a very good time tasting all the meats today. Lots of positives - the smoker seems to be behaving nicely and I'm not worried about getting it all done to time as the overnight smoke does the business. But there's still some work to be done on presentation and getting the interior seasoning bang-on. And timing on the brisket is still an issue. Foiling is great because it really speeds up the last part of the cook, but it also means you can overcook very easily. It may be that we can dispense with the foil stage to allow that section to allow better control. But it's potentially a risky strategy because undercooked briskets are a disaster, and no piece of meat behaves exactly the same.
In two weekends time we'll try again, but this time for 80 people!
Now head over to Lap's post to see how he fared with the ribs and chicken.
16 Apr 2012
Andouille
Smoked Hickory Chicken
Beef Short Ribs
Burnt Ends
Pork Spare Ribs - Full Cut
St Louis Cut Pork Ribs
Pork Baby Backs
16 Apr 2012
Oh yes they are!
