It's Smooooookin'!

4th of July wouldn't be complete without throwing something on the grill or in the smoker, so we did just that.    We fired up the smoker with cherry and hickory wood chips, and got it nice and warm for our brisket.  For our smoking liquid, we filled the pan with a mixture of water and beer.  While the smoker heated up, we prepped our brisket.  We started with a dry rub, consisting of all these tasty spices:

R to L: black pepper, thyme, red chili flake, garlic powder, brown sugar, paprika, mustard powder,  chili powder, salt, white pepper, cumin

We really just poured and mixed until it tasted great.  We ended up with about 1.5 cups of the spice rub, which was plenty to rub on the brisket and add to the sauce, while still having extra for next time.  Our rub had a subtle heat that came at you from the back.

We poured a bit of vegetable oil on the brisket, and rubbed him down with our spice mixture.  Be sure to massage it in to help tenderize the meat too.

Then you're ready to throw it on the smoker.  As it cooks, make sure to periodically check on it.  We didn't have a sauce mop, but we did have a squirt bottle with some apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire, and a dash of soy sauce and liquid smoke,  which we used to keep the meat moist and give it a bit of added tang.  We put our meat on fat-side up.  Conventional wisdom from the pit dictates that by smoking fat side up, the delicious beefy drippings permeate the meat and wash over it as you baste it.

Now with good BBQ, the meat should be the hero (aka Michael Jordan), but a winning sauce is like your Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman; they provide some flavor and allow the star to shine.  If you've been following along, you'll know we're huge fans of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  They make the most amazing brisket I've ever had.  It just melts in your mouth!  So we turned to them for inspiration on the sauce, and found a recipe online for a variation on their wango tango sauce.  We started by mincing up the onion, peppers and garlic.  You could use a food processor to get tiny pieces, but I like chopping by hand.  In this step, we substituted an anaheim pepper for the green pepper, and we used 2 habaneros so as not to overpower the sauce with spice.  We also toasted up some mustard seeds before adding in the peppers and onions to saute.

Once the peppers and onions had cooked for about 15 minutes, and really softened, we added in the garlic. While that's all cooking down, we mixed together the remaining ingredients.  We stuck pretty close to the recipe, but used slightly less ketchup, added a couple shots of bourbon, and a few tablespoons of our dry rub.

Just pour the wet ingredients into your onion/pepper/garlic mixture and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Bring it to a boil, add in your liquid smoke, and let the sauce do its thing. The flavors really developed the longer the sauce simmered.  It has a nice heat and sweetness to it, without being overpowering.

Now, for the hard part...the waiting! A general rule of thumb for smoking time is about 1.5 - 2 hours per pound of meat.  We had a nice 3 pound brisket so we had it cooking for about 5 and a half hours.  You'll often hear about people smoking meat for 18 hours, and there is much debate in the BBQ community about this, but they use hunks of meat the size of a chevy suburban.  The important part is to get a nice piece of meat with a uniform fat cap on it.  If your smoker has a thermometer, try to keep your temperature at about 220-250 degrees.  You'll know it's done when the meat is firm and has a nice smoky crust on it.  Then just let it rest for at least 5 minutes, and slice it up.

Then toast up some buns and start piling on the meat!  For sauce, we used some of our wango tango-inspired sauce, and also mixed some in to our vinegar basting liquid to have a vinegar-based sauce as well, to keep things NC-style.  To round out the meal, we baked up some sweet potato fries, grilled up some asparagus and corn, and make some jicama slaw.  We'll be back later this week with details on the slaw and corn.

Glen's Garden Market

If you live in DC, or are planning a visit, you need to make your way over to Glen's Garden Market, just north of Dupont Circle.  It's a great neighborhood grocery store, offering "good food from close by".  And where else can you grocery shop while sipping beer or wine?

Everything in the market comes from local vendors, in DC and the surrounding areas.  The meats are cured and smoked in-house, along with a variety of salads, prepared foods, and stocks.

The piece de resistance is the curing box.  When we stopped by this past weekend, it was filled to the brim with a variety of sausages.  The great thing about this box is that it has climate settings that can be set to mimic the climate of a variety of regions around the world.  And since I happen to know the chef that's curing and smoking all of these meats, he tossed me a link of finocchio sausage, as well as a bite of the smoked pork loin he was working on.  Both were amazingly delicious.

In addition to the grocery items, they have a bar serving up $4 pints, and a wine dispenser that offers two-, four-, and six-ounce glasses, so you can taste wines before purchasing.  If beer or wine isn't your thing, they also offer coffee and tea to sip while you shop.

Since we couldn't leave empty handed, we walked away with some pork spare ribs, collards, and sunchokes.  With the weather warming up, we fired up the grill, and threw the spare ribs on to slow cook.  We simply rubbed the ribs with some Dinosaur BBQ cajun rub, applewood smoked salt, and a liberal brush of Dinosaur BBQ sauce mixed with a touch of grapeseed oil and honey.

We cooked them on the rack of the grill so they got indirect heat.  After about 10 min, we brushed on more sauce and gave 'em a flip.

While they finished cooking, I thew together the sunchokes and collards.  The sunchokes were par-boiled and then pan fried, much like we've done when we've made the kale & farro hash.  Once they were crisp, we tossed in some thinly sliced red onion, minced garlic, and the collards.  We deglazed the pan with a splash of sherry vinegar, and in minutes, our side dish was complete.

It was a great, summertime meal, from a great new grocery store.  So get on over to Glen's and check it out!

*pictures of the market sourced from Glen's Garden Market, Urban Daddy, and The Washingtonian

Southern Hospitality

Tonight's dinner was quick and easy, and took me back to my days spent in NC.  Surrounded by bbq, this is where I learned to love cole slaw on my bbq, and vinegar-based sauce on my pulled pork.

Luckily, we already had everything we'd need on hand.  The pulled pork came from this week's share.  It already had some sauce on it that was slighly sweet, so we just threw it into a pan to reheat, along with some Dinosaur Bar-B-Que roasted garlic and honey sauce to balance out the sweetness.  I'm sure by now you're tired of me blabbering on and on about how delicious Dinosaur is, so I'll spare you the spiel, but I can't help it.  Its just THAT good!

We finally put some of our cabbage to use by shredding a few leaves, along with one of the carrots we got yesterday, to make some coleslaw.  For the dressing, we just mixed together some red wine vinegar, whole grain mustard, cumin, and a little grapeseed oil.  It had a nice tang to balance out the sweetness of the cabbage and carrot, and the cumin gave it a nice depth of flavor.

And our bbq meal wouldn't be complete without some fries...sweet potato fries!  For seasoning, we went with some truffle salt, roasted garlic salt, parsley and rosemary.  We tried to emulate the village fries at Good Stuff Eatery, adding our own twist with the truffle and garlic salts.

This was probably one of the easiest meals we've put together, and we even have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!  I can't complain about that!

Today's Forecast: Chili with a chance of deliciousness!

With the impending inauguration tomorrow, we're hunkering down at home, avoiding the crowd and all the out of town escalefters (for those not familiar, an escalefter is someone that stands on the left side of the escalator, preventing you from walking up/down the escalator).

So with a Sunday night of football, what better meal to make than chili?  Plus, it means I get to try out my new crock pot that Justin gave me for Christmas.  Oddly enough, this is my first go-round with a crock pot.

We started with half a package of ground turkey (the other half from when we made burgers), and some ground beef.  We also threw in a chopped white onion and let it all cook up.  For spices, we tossed in cumin, cayenne, and chili powder.

While that was browning, we threw some tomatillos, a huge clove of elephant garlic, an Anaheim chili, a poblano chili, and a habanero into the oven to roast.  The oven was set at 350, and it only took about 20min for everything to get roasty, toasty and charred.

Once they were cool enough to handle, I chopped them up so they could be added to the pot.  We also drained and rinsed a can of kidney beans, cannellini beans, and corn.

After the meat browned, we added the roasted peppers, tomatillos and garlic, and the beans and corn.  There wasn't as much liquid to our liking, so we threw in a can of whole tomatoes.  With a good toss, so everything got coated in the spices and juices, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, we put the lid back on and let it simmer so all the flavors could meld together.

 

While the chili was simmering, we threw together some honey hush cornbread, ala Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  I know I've said it once before, but I'm going to say it again...if you find yourself in Harlem, Syracuse, or Rochester, NY, you MUST find your way to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  They have the best, melt-in-your-mouth brisket you could ever imagine!

Anyway...the cornbread.  We just followed the recipe I linked to above...mixed up all the ingredients, popped her in the oven and let her bake up.

The chili was topped with some shredded cheddar, a dollop of cilantro lime crema, and some freshly chopped cilantro.

From New Orleans to New England

With our fresh Rappahannock River oysters and clams, plucked from the ocean on Monday, and in our fridge on Tuesday, we wanted/needed to use them right away.  Naturally we opted for oyster po' boys with a homemade aioli, New England style clam chowder, and sweet potato fries.  Here's what we started with:

While I started working on the chowder, Justin went to work on shucking the oysters.

Thankfully there were no injuries while shucking oysters.  The only casualty was my paring knife, who lost its tip.  But it didn't land in the oysters :)  The clams cooked up in no time, and although they didn't require much time to steam and open up, they still left a really flavorful broth that we used in the soup.  We pulled out some McGyver skills in straining the oyster broth.  Since I don't own a fine mesh sieve, we used a coffee filter to separate the sand and grit from the clam broth.  It helps to have an extra set of hands for this part.  We also kept the oyster nectar, and threw some into the chowder and some into the aioli.  Once the clams opened up, I set them aside while making the rest of the chowder so they wouldn't overcook.  We kept the breading on the oysters simple...a little cornmeal and a little Dinosaur BBQ cajun seasoning.  *Side note: if you're ever in Rochester, Syracuse, or Harlem, do yourself a favor and go to Dinosaur BBQ.  They have the best brisket you'll ever have.  It just melts in your mouth.  I may have started drooling a little just thinking about it.*  Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

To top the po' boys, we used some of the homemade sauerkraut we had in the fridge (leftover from when we made buffalo pastrami reubens, another CSA meal!) for some tangy crunch, and a homemade aioli.  Justin has perfected the art of making small batch of aioli with an immersion blender.

In the aioli we threw in some of the oyster nectar, sriracha, lemon juice, garlic powder, and some whole grain mustard.  It gave the po' boys a bit of a kick!  A few clams were thrown into the bottom of each soup bowl and we poured the chowder over it to warm them up again.  We even managed to not burn the sweet potato fries, and time everything pretty perfectly.  

It was the perfect way to end the week and get ready for the weekend!