Southwestern Style Eggs Benedict

I have Pablano fever right now, or "P1N1" as its known in the educated circles of history. The only cure....Eggs Benedict with a Roasted Pablano Hollandaise! Drop it likes it hot! (but don't actually drop it).

So Eggs Benedict consists of a half of an English Muffin topped with Canadian Bacon (or just regular bacon), poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. We altered the classic recipe slightly by adding a piece of roasted Pablano Pepper to the mix, and flavoring our hollandaise with the roasted pepper as well. We served it with a spicy little potato hash.

(I did this yesterday and it was super easy and took less than an hour, so I'm going to keep the internet blogging short and sweet )

Step One: Roast Pablano Peppers. Just put them on the grill or under the broiler and "char 'em up good". When completely black, put in a zip lock and set aside. Wait 20 minutes and simply peel off the skin and rinse under water to remove the seeds.

Video!

Step Two: Make the Hollandaise. Ok everybody, I have an admission to make. We made lazy man's Hollandaise rather than classical french "slave over a double boiler" Hollandaise. I know everyone is dissapointed in me....but I can live wth it becasue I had essentially perfect Hollindaise in like 6 minutes! Heres how you do it. Cut up a stick of butter and put it in the Microwave. It needs to be pretty darn hot.

Get two eggs yolks out of the eggs wrappers (shells) and put them in a blender along with the juice of one lemon. We used a Meyer Lemon, which is an awesome Lemon native to China. (who knew?)

Pulse the egg yolks and lemon juice with salt, pepper and cayanne from Pendery's 5 or 6 times, and slowly pour in the piping hot butter into the mix while the blender is running.

It should look like something like this (not my picture ps, but this is what it looks like). I'm not actually sure how this works, and yes I have made Hollandaise the old fashioned way, but I'm pretty sure the scalding hot butter, essentially cooks the egg yolks slowly and evenly due to the motion of the blender. It like a self tempering swirl of chaos. Any curdling that goes on is hidden by the thrashing blades. Anyway, it came out great...tasted just like regular old Hollandaise and it took literllay 6 minutes. From there simply add the meat of one of the roasted pablano's and blend until smooth. It takes on a great green color and really brings out the flavor of the pepper.

Hash: Put a rough chop on several red creamer potatoes, a few sweet potatoes, and drop them in a cast iron with some olive oil.

Let them cook until tender, and then add some red onion, some garlic, peppers, scallions, etc etc. finish with some Thyme, and there you go.

Also, heat up some ham in the pan. ("Ham in the Pan" is the name of my two piece rock band. Just fyi....internet)

Poach an Egg: Bring a large amount of water to a boil, and lower to just below a boil. The trick is to put a teaspoon or so of vinegar in the water, break the egg into a coffee mug or a measuring cup and then, with a handle, swirl the water and slowly submerge the egg. Don't touch for 3 or 4 minutes or so, and then remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

(action shot)

Assembly:

We bought English Muffins from Central Market and toasted them up. Quite simply they are the best English Muffins I've ever had.

First add a small slice of roasted Pablano to the base, then the bacon, and the poached egg.

Next, cover with the Hollandaise and get ready for a mouth party....in your mouth. Also dont forget to spoon on some Hash,

What did it taste like? Imagine riding a golden unicorn through the galaxy at, or near, the speed of light. Yea...thats what it tasted like.

Thank for reading everybody!!! Peace! More to come soon!

-Smokehopper

Dr. McBreakfast...Or How I Fell in Love With A Sandwich

To begin, in the past we have stated that this blog is not for certain things (boiling water, putting chicken on cookie sheets, telling time, etc), but probably have not been clear what it is in fact for. This post is to bring my disdain for the fast food "restaurant" Jack in the Box and their fearless yet narcissistic leader simply known as Jack. Just about everything in his "restaurant" bears his name except for his breakfast sandwich, especially the "ultimate breakfast sandwich." If that is not the sweet sound of defeat, I don't know what is. From what I can tell, since Jack was a young boy he knew that his "ultimate breakfast sandwich" would be bested and decided to keep his name off it. You chose wisely fast food magnate, because you have. Been. Bested that is. I give you the Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich or as I call it, "EL ULTIMO SANDWICH DEL DESAYUNO."

The ingredients for the USDD can be found at any grocery store and you do not need to go to any of the fancy ones around town. That said, I wish I had gone to Jimmy's Food Store to purchase some of the below items.

Look, this is going to be a quick pictorial of sorts and I am going to assume you the beloved reader knows their way around a skillet and knows that when stuff starts smoking, you need to take it off of the heat. I did not and ruined 3 pieces of bacon.



Also, it should be noted that there are probably a couple of steps in here that can be interchanged, I happened to do it this way since I don't have a lot of burners that work and had to make do. Start frying up the bacon and a couple sausage patties.



Cut up some tomatoes and put them in whatever device you plan on mixing your eggs in and mix it up. Tomatoes are key because they are the one single healthy item in this cornucopia of grease, fat and generally bad for a human delicacies.



Make a hamburger patty and add a liberal amount of salt and pepper. Okaaaaaaaay.



Again, this blog is not for scrambling eggs, but this is the beginning of eggs being scrambled. Note the tomatoes. There they are.



Cook up a hamburger patty in the same pan as the bacon and sausage from earlier. At the same time cut open the package of hot dogs and carefully wrap two in a paper towel and microwave them for however long it tells you to on the package.



This is what you should have when you are done cooking everything:



Assembly:
One slice of Cojack cheese on one side and grated Mexican cheese on the other.



Alright, shoot. I forgot to say there was ham involved. This blog is for telling you how to cook ham in the kitchen. Throw it in a pan and let it cook until you think its done. There.
Add a slice of ham to each side of the bun.



Add an even amount of bacon and sausage to each side.



Cut hot dogs in half and add them to the rest of the stuff.



Now, this is the absolute most important least important part of the process. Eggs on the inside hamburger on the inside. Separate sides.

It should be noted, I used a roll that I found in a bag that I bought at the grocer. You will see it in a minute. Like a good cheeseburger sometimes the roll/bread substance you use really brings out the taste. The USDD could have really used a couple of things to enhance the flavor. Hot sauce is the biggest of these things and I consider this a huge failure on my part, but I got so giddy with excitement as the cheese started to melt and this monstrosity was staring at me that I had to dig in. That said, I only had half. Trying to loose some LB's. I can hear the internet buzzing with excitement so,

THE USDD:

Was it good? By no means was it good. Was it bad, no. Will I make this again, probably not. Will I eventually attempt something similar but take more time with it and not try to throw a bunch of S together in a sandwich at noon on a Saturday, yes. This USDD was a creation of boredom and should not be attempted by those that have things to do on Saturdays. Ok, thats all I have to say on the USDD. Tell your friendsnotfriends.


Other things. If you like comedy, you really need to check out Patton Oswalt's latest album "My Weakness is Strong." Also, Iron and Wine's latest album The Shepherd's Dog has been getting a lot of play lately because of the cold weather. It is good.


~El Smokeador~

Sandwich Quest One Million

Every once in a while, we all have to take a journey. For whatever reason, we must quest against the darkness to find the PRIZE. For instance, Gary Patterson from time to time quests against his shoe laces. Everyone knows who wins this battle.

For me, the last couple of weeks has been one of those times. For reasons I don't believe I'll ever fully understand I decided to make a homemade Reuben sandwich, and I do very much mean "homemade". The quest took three weeks and involved many co-adventurers, including Steph-Smoke and L-Smoke. And yes, we attained the Prize.

You may be saying "3 weeks!? Why!?" Well I knew you'd say that, and I'm more than prepared to explain myself via web log. So here's the deal. A traditional Reuben is heated pastrami, on rye bread, served with Swiss cheese Russian/Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut. It takes roughly three weeks to make all of these things. (we did not make all of them)

The first step....make Corned Beef. (This step takes 3 weeks. So get ready.) Pretty much corned beef is brisket which has been "cured". By curing I mean packed in salt and spices and left in a cold place for weeks. You can cure with a super salty brine as well, but I did not do that. I did the former. The reasons it is called "corned" is because the salt pellets used in the olden times were roughly the size of a kernel of corn. We all learn something new everyday.

CORNED BEEF:

Step 1: Break a Light Bulb


(you just got to)


Step 2: Get a Brisket.

Step 3:Get a lot of salt, mix in a bay leaf, cracked pepper, allspice, juniper, paprika, and what have you, preferably from Pendrey's, put in a bowl for a beautiful picture.

Step 4: Trim the Fat from the Brisket

Step 5: Pack the Salt and spices into the Brisket and put into Zip-Lock

Step 6: Put in Oven tray and weight down with something heavy, I used flour and some cans. Put in the fridge and flip once a day.

Step 7: Wait 3 weeks.


Step8: Uncover, get out of zip lock, and wash thoroughly.




Step 9: Rinse and set aside (no picture) This blog is not about setting things aside.

And that's, that! Tadaa, you got corned beef there fella.

PASTRAMI:

Ok, so the next step is to make Pastrami. And as we all know, (I didnt know this) Pastrami is smoked corned beef. And we're off....

Step 10: Fire up the Smoker:



Step 11: Spice up the meat. I bought some new chili's! Fruity and spicey and great. Just a dash.

I blended up the pepeprs, and lots of black pepper for a mild Pastrami rub.

Rub the meat well, add some Kosher salt and put on the smoker at 225.

I don't know if this was traditional or not, but I just smoked it like any other old brisket. See pretty much every other post on this blog for information on how to smoke a brisket. This blog is about smoking briskets and such.

Step 12: Remove from foil, let rest and slice! Boom! You got Pastrami.





RYE BREAD:

Ok, so the next step is to make rye bread with lots of fennel and caraway seeds. To tell you the truth, making rye bread is a hell of a process and takes a lot of steps. Generally speaking, we used all of the ingredients shown below, jump started the yeast, slowly added rye and bread flower, kneaded until lots of gluten had formed... we let it rise, we pushed it down etc etc etc, and we baked it. If you want a better recipe check out www.google.com, I hear it s great. Anyway, I'm going to let the pictures and videos speak for themselves for this process.

And Boom Goes the Dynamite, you got Rye Bread.

THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING:

Ok so thousand island dressing is mayo and ketchup mixed with crunchy delicious vegetables and such.

Step 78:Make Mayo (see Oyster Po' Boy post for directions)


Step 83: Add chopped capers, green onions, delicious pickles, and random herbage. Mix with ketchup and and put it jar.



SWISS CHEESE:

Step 56: Milk a standard Texas Dairy Cow


Step 65: Just Kidding, I bought the cheese at Central Market.



SAUERKRAUT:

No Steps. Just Buy it. (which is a little sad because I bet its not that hard to make) Anyway I bought it.



ASSEMBLY:





Finally, after weeks of prep we were ready for assembly. We cut the Rye as thin as we could, and buttered it and placed in a cast iron skillet. At the same time we slowly heated our pastrami, (which was still warm from the smoker) and heated the sauerkraut in another pan. When all was hot we added the items thusley:



And the final sandwich turn out like this:



Here is what the sandwich tasted like:




VICTORY! (that's at Clemson by the way)

Anyway, the sandwiches were delicious, and I'd like to thank Lsmoke and Stephsmoke for all of their help. I feel like I've made some glorious accomplishment. Perhaps, they'll let me in to the Sandwich Championship Series (SCS). Probably not. F**king Boise State.

Thanks for reading everyone. More to come soon.

-Smokehopper

Some have asked if it was worth it?

For the learning experience and fun I had while doing all of this, of course it was worth it. Every cooking venture which is a little bit above your level is always worth it. It was a lot of fun as well. Was it the best reuben I've ever had...no. I've had better before, mainly because at a deli, the pastrami is cut with a meat slicer. Smoked corned beef is tough stuff and there is a reason it is cut so thin. Our pastrami was a little chewy but not terribly so. the end.

Oh Hatch Chile's

You bring me joy.

You Bring Me Joy from Zach Galifianakis

It is Hatch Chile season. Last night was my first foray into the greatness of the Hatch and I must say I am ashamed that I was not told about this neat little green pepper earlier. I have read about them for a couple years and did my studies (on my own time, MY OWN TIME) to figure out the proper way to cook these big little guys. This post might have a lot of consecutive contradictions. (This blog is not necessarily all about grammar). Here we go.

Do not confuse these peppers with Anaheim peppers like Smokehopper used in his Ranchburgers a couple posts back. The store last night had them right next to the Anaheims and a smart notsosmart Smokeador would have grabbed them. Luckily I am a smarter Smokeador. This is what they look like:

(Not my pic. Don't tell the site I took it from.)

It's imperative that you roast these bad boys on an open flame until you get a nice black char on the skin. I didn't take pics of the roasting process because I wasn't sure that this was going on the blogosphere. BUT, after you get a good char going put them in a big ziplock and immediately put them in the fridge so they can sweat. This really makes it easier to get the skin off (thanks Shag) and saves some time peeling.

(In the bag after the fridge)

It should be noted at this point that Smokehopper told me that I needed to take the seeds out. I didn't take the seed out and it ended up being kind of spicy and delicious. Next batch seeds will be removed and we will see what I like better. Probably going to be no seeds, but again, first foray into the Hatch Chile.

(Peeled and sliced for the blender)

I roasted about 6 last night and only used 4 for this chicken. Saved 2 for my eggs this morning and they were glorious. Anyway, after they were peeled I threw them in the blender with some olive oil and tried to blend it up into a nice paste. Long story short, I didn't have enough in there for it to blend properly and I ended up with mostly more chopped not chopped peppers in the blender. Poured them back on a cutting board and went to town with a large knife.

Had a nice bowl of fresh crushed peppercorns and crushed pink Hawaiian sea salt and mixed it all up into a nice salsa'y, pasty kind of substance.

(Peppers on top of salt and pepper)

(Mixed up real good not good)*

I had three chicken breasts that I halved and put on foil on a cookie sheet. This blog should not be about putting chicken on cookie sheets but I just made it that way. So it is now I guess. More to come on that.

(Salsa'y substance applied to chicken)

Left it alone in the oven for 45 minutes on 350 and checked periodically. Ovens. I know. I am not impressed either.

Finshed product:

(Still on said cookie sheet)

(With a salad too because we all need our greens)

All said, this was a fantastic meal. I can't wait to dive in feet first into more uses for these awesome peppers. I have been experimenting with different kinds of chicken in the oven lately. Made a chipotle meco pepper baste a couple weeks ago that was fantastic as well. It is probably reasonably but not very ideal to make lots of chicken in the oven with various types of stuff on top of it. I still have a few of these peppers left and will probably buy more to maybe dry out for a brisket rub later in the year. I don't know if we'll have enough time. Anyway, it was good and you should all head to Pendery's to get some spices, and New Mexico for some Hatch Chile's and make some stuff. Good, old fashioned stuff.

Here are some tunes you need to check out too.

The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa

The Avett Brothers - Incomplete and Insecure

The Avett Brothers - The Perfect Space

Throw Me the Statue - Hi-Fi Goon

Girls - Hellhole Ratrace

Panda Bear - Bros

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's - Home

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's - Janglin

Patton Oswalt - Rats

Eels - That Look You Gave That Guy

and

All of Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" Its great.

~El Smokeador~

*Real good not good is henceforth a copyrighted term to only be used by El Smokeador y Smokehopper.

Oyster Po' Boys!

Here at the blog offices located in downtown Houston (we don't have an office) we ourselves must eat from time to time. When that time comes we eat fried oyster po' boys. Lsmoke and myself found ourselves in this situation last week. Below are the results.


(not a real place)

Since we were making "poor boy" sandwiches, I used a "poor boy" phone camera. Its a blackberry, and not an Iphone. I bought it at an Amish fair in Grandview, Texas. Terrific woodwork.

Anyway, let's talk about this sandwich. I think Robert Goddard, the father of American Rocketry, would agree that "the devil is in the details". You gotta know that when rockets are involved. You just GOT TO.


(Dr. Robert Goddard, the Father of American Rocketry)

And if the devil is in the details, then, the trickiest part of a really good sandwich is in coordinating all of the peripheral items that make up that sandwich. Pretty much all of the sandwich parts that are not the meat.

What's in a po' boy sandwich anyway? Well let's start with the bread. Traditionally you want a piece of French bread, so that's what we used. Its has the right texture and chewiness for the job. The loaf we got had a little too much bread in the middle, so we split a big piece of the bread and removed the excess uhh bread. Bread Bread Bread Bread!

Furthermore, it needed to be toasted correctly. To do this we melted a teaspoon of butter in a shot glass, and spread it on the bread, placed it under the broiler for about 2 minutes and removed it.

Next are the vegetables. According to Sophocles, the father of Greek drama, vegetables make up around 62% of a sandwich, so you'll want to use quality items here.

(Sophocles, the father of Greek drama,)

We used butter lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, Texas grown sweet red onions, and bread and butter pickles, placed on the bread in that order.


The other major player in the po' boy sandwich universe is the dressing. (Some do not use dressing here, and we understand this). We chose to use a homemade chipotle mayonnaise. Its very easy to make. You take an egg yolk, add a pinch of salt, sugar, and dried mustard, add a dash of vinegar and lemon juice, and whisk thoroughly. When it looks creamy, slowly add in a cup of corn or saffron oil. You need to whisk your ass off during this process, and/or use a mixer. I suggest watching an internet tutorial before attempting, but its really very easy. And that's it. Next I added a tablespoon of ground chipotles from Pendrey's and let it all sit in the fridge for an hour or two. The chipotle powder rehydrates and blossoms as it sits. We slathered this delicious concoction on the Upper side of our toasted bread.

Finally, the oysters. As always, the fresher the better. (Which means central market in this City). Not much to it. We bought a pound. First, you let them soak in milk and an egg for about 20 minutes. As you wait, in another bowl combine corn meal, salt and cayenne pepper. Put a healthy amount of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet, bring it to temperature (we fried at 370) and fry em up.





Video!

At this point, and we are adamant about this, you really want the oysters to go from the fryer to the sandwich in under a minute or two. A quick stop in some paper towels to lose the excess oil, but then directly onto the preassembled sandwich. The heat of the oysters plays an important role here. Anyway, load that sandwich up with oysters, fold the bread over and give it a good press.



(My lordy ) (so delicious its blurred)

Anyway the hot oysters mix with the smokey dressing and the quality crisp vegetables, all wrapped in the chewy bread. Great sandwich, and it only took 2 hours from thinking of it in my bed, to putting it in my mouth.

Thanks for reading everyone! More to come soon. There is a rumor that a special magic meatsmith is in town and may be selling a very special meat which will be featured on the blog. Lets just say its "fit for a king".

-Smokehopper

BUTTERFINGER BRISKET

This Brisket is REEEAAAALLLL!

I'm chewin on a brisket, doin flips and Sh$%.

Kidding of course, we were not doing flips and Sh$%. All attemps failed. Other than that, this weekend was a huge, gigantically awesome success. Ingredients for a successful 30th birthday afternoon /2 days, are as follows:

(This is Smokeador's post, but I, SmokeHopper, will be commenting as well. As an ardent communist, I will be posting in Red.)

2 kegs of American beer (Shiner Bock and High Life)

24 pounds of American brisket (2 12lb'ers)

50 American people (or visitors or what have you)

2 bags of fun sized Butterfingers (American Butterfingers ONLY)

Butterfingers? And only 2 bags? Butterfinger brisket, holla actha boy. **

Enough with the dialogue. Alright, we runnin this.

Start:

Remove individual delicious candies from bag and wrapper. It should be noted we found out pretty early on it will not work if you try to crush them up in the bag and dump it into the bowl.

Put about 20 of them in a big bowl and start mashing that S up with a can of Bush's Best Baked Beans. DO NOT USE ANY OTHER CAN OF BEANS. You don't have to use beans.

It should look something like this or even a little finer grained if you like. We were in a hurry and didn't really care that much. It's a Butterfinger brisket after all.

Remove trusty spice grinder from storage and start grinding. These are chile piquins. You might remember them from previous posts like "We make awesome ribs" or "How to cook a delicious brisket," featuring Troy McClure.

Add piquins and other spices to the Butterfinger base. We added garlic powder and onion powder much to my chagrin. But it worked in the end.

Mix it up with your hands. Smell it with your mind.

Briskets should look like this. Got these at Costco. Costco, if you want to give us some of that Costco money, we are listening. Get Sexy Costco.

Rub is applied like any other rub, but with a lot more patting to get the bigger chunks of Butterfinger to stick. Thats what she said. oh my god, POW POW!

Hands will get caked in a buttery, spicy, fingery mess; so make sure you wash up before prepping the other brisket. Two Butterfinger briskets in one smoking is really too much.

Rubbed down and ready to sit for an hour before she meets El Smokelito.

Sealed with a handshake, Steph's voice and some radiohead. This handshake finalized our blog profit sharing agreement. (There are no profits.)

We will keep the second brisket post easy since there are better pics to come.

Cinnamon, piquins, paprika.

Rubbed, salted, peppered and ready to go.

It's really important to let the meats sit out at room temp to bring the internal temp down before you introduce them to heat. This is probably common knowledge to most, but if you don't know this and put them on cold the juices will expand quicker and leave the meat. You don't want that. You will get a dry byproduct that would only be good served at any number of Dallas BBQ joints. If this offends any Dallas BBQ joint owners, please contact us. We would be happy to provide some ad space for your fine establishment.

This was going to be a long undertaking and we thought it was necessary to say a little pledge to the greatness of the smoke and to these two fine beasts who gave their upper chest/shoulder areas for our consumption. Sorry we cooked you guys. I'm not sorry.

In El Smokelito, and individual shots.

Please note that at this time in the evening I left and Smokeador did all of the rest of the work.

After 3 hours

(this is what I see when I close my eyes....always)

Gotta wrap them up when they hit 140 degrees.

After they were wrapped.

I had a few of these and waited until about 3 to go to sleep. Sometimes El Smokelito is an ornery SOB and puts the fire out. This time he didn't, and I got a full 3 hours sleep. It was great.

Left out some pics here because they stayed wrapped and in the smoke until around noon. All said they had about 16 hours in the smoke. After we peeked and collected some of the BSB (Brisket Substance Butterfinger) I wrapped them both in seperate beach towels and put them in the cooler until 5. This lets the juices continue to cook the inside slow, and helps the meat harden up a little I have found. This is not my trick, but its our blog so we will take credit for it.

Brisket Substance Butterfinger

I swear to God I drank some of this. For real. I had to know...I just had to. Not bad.

At 5 we pulled them out of the cooler and started slicing. The bark was as black as I wanted it to be and surprisingly darker and crustier than in an oven. Not really surprising to me, but some on the blog still contend that keeping the brisket in the smoke has nothing to do with the bark on the brisket. I would like to think that I proved my point. I didn't.

I f#$cking dare someone to prove to me that the cooking environement for a post smoke-ringed brisket wrapped tightly in foil and placed in a an oven at 225, is different than a post smoke-ringed brisket wrapped tightly in foil and placed in a smoker at 225. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. The debate rages on. There might be some confusion on the debate. That post will soon come with photographic proof that I am right. Something about keeping the brisket wrapped in foil gives it a better bark than wrapping it and putting it in the oven. That is the debate. I know that technically its the same cooking environment.

I only got to sample this time around. I sampled the ends of the Butterfinger brisket and it was tasty as S. The spices went really well with the understated sweetness of the Butterfinger rub. All of these look a little dry but its the camera and lighting, and not the meat. Many can attest to the juiciness of the flat and the moistness of the cap. After doing several briskets in my day, I can humbly admit that these are the first two that I was able to actually slice all the way through the cap and not just make chopped out of it. It was GD delicious.

It really was a fantastic f'ing brisket. I am convinced now that you could really put anything on a brisket and it would turn out delicious. Well, not everything. But I bet a Peanut Butter and jelly Brisket would be just fine. I'm not sure about a pizza brisket though...that is still under debate. Anyway there was a choclatey spicey toffey sweetness in the bark that was really great.

I ate this piece with my mouth. I put it in my mouth and I ate it. This is eating.

These are pics of the non Butterfinger brisket. To attest to the greatness of both of them, I didn't get to make a sandwich. I finished slicing, got another Shiner, had a brief conversation about nonsense and the un-Americanness of the DH and it was gone. Last I saw of the brisket it was being formed into a taco that I wanted a bite of.

Ummmm, I ate the S out of a sandwhich and it was great.

Brisket is our game. Hoo!


Long story short, Smokehopper and I had a great time cooking everything for everyone and I thank everyone that stopped by. We made ribs and turkey legs for the record, but there is starting to be a shortness of space in the cache for pics and we need to save. There are great things coming up that might involve chickens. Lots and lots of chickens. And grape drink. And Guinness.

Again, thanks everyone for coming by. We had fun.
(Click the pics for higher res)
**Do not "holla atcha boy" - We don't know where that came from or how to get rid of it.

Sorry there was no mention of gay wizards in this post. We'll get back to the formula asap. PS Smokeador did all of the work.


- El Smokeador

Kanye West Burgers!*

*this post has nothing to do with Kanye West

I believe it was Burgers O'Shannasey who once pondered, "what makes a burger delicious?" Centuries later, men die daily trying to answer this hunger oriented puzzle. I too have attempted the feat, and after narrowly escaping with my mind intact, I have come up with a few theories:

1) The meat should be made of beef, and the buns of bread.
2) There should be plenty of extravagant TOPPINGS!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the delicious secret to well eaten burgers is toppings. All sorts of them.

Anyway I had ample opportunity to test my theory a few weeks a go at the Dirk's road land, where we all had a pre-dove season fire roasted test run.

Thanks to the Pates, as always, for their generous hospitality.



Anyway, the drill here, which we do every weekend during dove season, is to cook one hot appetizer, and burgers with plenty of sides and stuff. People hunt and we listen to the football games. In all honesty, I love that place very much. It has become special deep in my heart, and in my burger belly.



I must say, the few fellas who cook at these functions, myself being one of them, have made remote outdoor burger entertaining into a SCIENCE. If anyone is wondering, I'm going to teach you the secret to our outdoor kitchen burger success. Here we go.

The List:

Before you wander off into a field with some charcoal and a hammer, you really need to take a lot of items with you. This list has evolved over the course of two years, and is quite valuable to me indeed. For the sake of science, and science only, I requisition (real word?) it to the internet.

Appetizer:

Cheese, Crackers

Canned peppers

BBQ Sauce

Two large link sausages

Main Course:

Buns

Meat

Bacon

Cheese (deli)

Lettuce

Tomato

Red onion

Pickles

Anaheim Peppers

Red Beer:

Tomato Juice

Limes

Beer

Plastic Cup

Misc:

Oil

Salt

Pepper

Worcestershire

Zip locks

Charcoal

Lighter fluid

Hand wash

Cutting board

Knife for cutting veg

Extra Cheese knife

Spatula

Trash bags

Water

Paper towels

Mustard

Mayo (ground chipotles)

Ketchup

Cheap Plastic Table

Paper plates

Plastic silverware

To be completely honest, there is a lot that goes on with the above list, and the food preparation, including charcoal maintenance (we use charcoal in a burnt out old gas grill), food prep, wine parings, shotgun safety, beer math, wizard lore, andrew bird, etc etc...and i simply dont have time to go over it. Red wine also needs to be on that list. Anyway suffice it to say that the list is excellent, and that this blog is evener more excellenter than the list, which as i said before was "quite excellent".

Here's where I cook:

Here is where I keep items which need to remain cold (a cooler), and a card table which has become my workspace, (thanks, masonicsmoke):



Here is me, with absolutely no distractions:



Anyway, we start the cooking with link sausage which is warmed over the coals, and sliced, served with cheddar cheese, Premium Saltine crackers, canned jalapeños, bbq sauce, and mustard. This is what happens when you put those things on one plate:



Next we move to the burgers, which begins with, as i said so long ago, extravagant toppings. This time i decided to go with roasted Anaheim peppers. i start by cutting off the tops and trying to get some seeds out, cover in vegetable oil, salt and pepper, and slow roast:







Video!!!!!

Anyway, you grill em up nice and try to get as much of the skin off as possible. Grilled peppers have a great flavor on burgers and its just crazy awesome. I love em! Ugh! what what what what what what what what what what!?!? ya.



Next, we cooked up some bacon:



By the way, if you are going to do this, with the foil and such, you need lots and lots of heat. I didnt realize and it took quite some time to get the bacon to crisp up. You know, just fyi.

Then we did some lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sliced avacado, etc ETC ETC! aka toppings!



The whole shebang:



(oh and yes......that is homemade ketchup, thanks for noticing, more to come on that later).

You then pretty much, grill up the burgers, with salt pepper and wortscehtcisircserre sauce. Add the deli cheese, (Lsmoke has demanded deli cut cheese his entire adult life for burgers so thats how it goes down, always some sort of pepper jack or some "non kraft single" cheese)

Rock and roll Nation!:



Psmoke Jams a DirksBurger

I'd like to thank everyone who was invited for coming, especially Kanye West, who unfortunately could not attend, and was not invited.

In other news, Epic Monster Post headed this way soon. I can feel its mamothicity from here. Its going to Be EPIC.

Sorry for the long delay...more posts soon

-Smokehopper

Neat song to listen to:
Osaka Loop Line by Discovey