oh no

I've Been Letting This Idea Stew For Awhile

Those bags of beans at the store have been eyeballin' me for awhile now and last week I succumbed to the pressure.  Bean pressure.  Beans are a relentless force that will not deny or avow their greatness, even facing McNulty and Bunk in room 5.  However, some beans are cocky and will tell you how great they are, some many times over, like in a stew that you can keep in the fridge for a week or so.  These were those beans.  Fortunately enough, mine didn't last a whole week.  I had visitors (that will be receiving my Atmos bill in the mail shortly) in from sunny California this past week.  After a long couple of days on the road, they needed a hearty handshake, laurel and a good meal to fight off Winter Blast 2009, the Second Coming. As a sidebar, I had the immense pleasure of seeing M. Ward at the Horchow Auditorium in the Dallas Museum of Arts on Sunday.  He played this and it was fantastic.  If you get to see Matt this week at SXSW, do it.

Beans soaking overnight (24 hours is best) - 2 quarts of water

Beans pre-rinse

You can see here that I rinsed them because this is a picture of a strainer (is that what you call it).  After rinsing, add beans back to washed out (no soap) pot with 2 new quarts of water.

Cubed up some Earl Campbell hot link (singular, not the kind you buy 6 in a packet but those will work too.  If you aren't a master stewer.)**

Add sausage to a boiling pot of beans and turn to medium until you have a good simmer goin. A good simmer is 2 or 4 columns of little bubbles coming up from the bottom.

Other stuff to add (its on the back, but I freelanced a little and threw in some piquins, jalapeno's and smoked paprika.)

After a good two hours (you can do 3 if you want) add the chopped ingredients and squeeze the lemon in. Salt and pepper accordingly.  I used and have almost used up my peppercorns and colored sea salt.  A tablespoon of each should suffice.

Add in a can of stewed tomatoes when adding the rest of the stuff too.  You can stew your own if you want, but I didn't.

Once all of the ingredients are in the pot, let them simmer for another hour.  I brought the heat up to a near boil because it was still kind of watery.  I wanted more of a stew, so it reduced down nicely.

Finished product, Dallas Cowboys glass for wine not required but suggested.

Moral of the story, took about 3.5 hours to make and was quite delicious. Made about 12 bowls of stew and cost about $10 American since water is cheap.  Since it's SXSW week, here are some bands we think you should check out:

The Heartless Bastards

Blitzen Trapper

Elbow

The Avett Brothers

and the guys that will be paying my March gas bill

Austin Hartley Leonard (Golden Opportunity is a jam)

** I am not a master stewer

~El Smokeador~

The Gloucestershire Union

Stop! Chicken time. Every time you see me, the chicken is so hype. Its chicken go chicken M.C. chicken go chicken, and the rest can go and play, can't smoke this. (BANG!)

Before we start, has anyone else seen the Central Kia Obama lookalike? Its super creepy. "Buy a Kia". No thanks.

Smokeheads, a wedding is a beautiful thing. I went to one this weekend, went to another the weekend before that and I have another just a few weeks away. As I attend these functions I can’t help but notice the simple elegance and design of the services. The clear aim of the ritual is all geared toward the idea of a union, a merging, the creation of something new, something greater than the sum of its parts.

This dynamic is also a useful way to describe the hobby, nay art, NAY LIFE DECISON of meat smoking, in which animal flesh is united with pecan smoke, heat and spice. Pretty much here’s the deal. You’ve got some chickens sitting around, not really doing anything. They're worried about the economy. They're not sure if they paid the water bill. Pretty standard really. Then all of the sudden there's a fire in the closet and god reaches down and rubs spices on the chickens. He then murders them with smoke.

I'm not sure where that was going, but I smoked some chickens and I think that is important. Or should I say "blogportant". (I shouldn't have) Anyway…the idea was turkey legs but Central Market was out. (Gasp!) The infallible has failed me. But they had chicken so I got that instead. With my drumsticks and two whole roasters in tow, I took them home and fired up Lupe, my smoker. Thanks to Msmoke for the name suggestion. It is both meaningful and nonsensical on several complex levels. I love it.

The Chicken:

The Rub:

Weddings weekends can lead to being lazy, and laziness breeds mentally hampered cooking creativity. Using this mathematical equation I was able to determine several things. First, I forgot to pay my water bill. Second, instead of making a new rub, I'd simply mix all of the old rubs stored in my spice cabinet to make a SUPER RUB which of course is purely non sexual.

Anyhow, for anyone who wants to know what was actually in the rub I don't really know. It was spicy and sweet and delicious. Some amalgamation of chile piquin, cinnamon, onion and garlic powder, salt, sugar, dried herbs, etc etc. But I have no real idea. The data has been lost. There's no turning back now.

I put the remote thermometer, or my “thermo-remo” into the center of one of the chicken breasts, and pretty much let them sit. I put a few of the drumsticks close to the fire box so we could have some appetizers. It was a beautiful day at the house.

All in all the chickens took around 3 hours to get up to temperature. I tried to keep the fire around 225-250, but in all honesty I wasnt paying all that much attention. Here are some pics. It all turned out delicious.

On a related side note Smokeheads, when I was done carving up the chickens I found a shimmering pool of chicken fat, cooked spices, and juices all over the cookie sheet I had used to transport them. I’m not sure what this fluid is called or what its good for but lord knows I wasn’t going to throw it away.

Perhaps, just maybe perhaps, I’ll heat it up and use it as an oil substitute in a vinaigrette for a smoked chicken salad….Muhahaha! Fear me world! I’m crazy enough to do it! If anyone has any ideas of what to do with the fluid please let me know in the comments section. I’m sure vegetables sautéed in it wouldn’t be terrible either. Oh cooking with Lard, why must you be so naughty?

Anyway, thanks for reading again smokeheads, and thanks to all of the wonderful couples who have invloved me with their wonderful weddings. Turkey Legs soon.

-Smokehopper

PHEASANTS!

This past January I finally bit the bullet and ventured north to Nebraska to join my uncle and his friends for a week of pheasant hunting. It was a blast and I am disappointed that I haven't been going the past 5+ years.

Long story short, I got 6 birds (4 roosters and 2 hens) but not pictures of them. Before we came home the birds were cleaned and frozen. They have been in a Han Solo/Masturbating Bear-like state since then.



I was able to pick them up last Friday on the drive back from a long work week in Houston. Being the smallish bird that they are, it doesnt take too long to smoke them, so I pulled some beef ribs that I had been waiting to smoke out of the fridge for the requisite overnight defrost. Haven't done beef ribs before and didn't quite know what I was doing, so figured I would stick with the 3-2-1. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Started the morning off right with homemade egg mcmuffins and blueberry pomegranate juice. Gotta keep the vitamins and anti-oxidants flowing when dealing with long exposure to the smoke that el smokelito puts off. Lucked out at the grocery store as they had bags and bags of Big John's Wood on sale for $3 a bag. I got two, one hickory (unused) and one pecan (unused) to add to my other bag of pecan (partially used). Wood is easily the biggest expense on a smoke to smoke basis, so this made my day.

Started making a brine for the pheasant at 11, so it would cool by noon and I could put the birds in. The brine consisted of about 4 tablespoons of Himalayan pink salt and Hawaiian red sea salt (2 parts each), some cinnamon chips, fresh peppercorns and a metric s-ton of water. Since we dont really deal with exact amounts, it wasnt really a metric s-ton, but closer to a full sauce pan.


Once it was ready I let it cool and put the birds in. Ideally, I would have let them soak up the brine overnight, but I didn't consider brining until I woke up, so four hours would have to suffice.

Onto the ribs. As stated above, I never cooked beef ribs before but they looked good coming out of the freezer.

I used the same rib rub as before, not once thinking that I should maybe use the brisket rub since these were beef. It didn't end up mattering because I didn't use enough anyway. They call that rubfail in the business.



The ribs went on at 2pm stayed in the smoke for a few hours (3). Here they are when I pulled them and wrapped them in foil for the oven. So far so good.

At 4pm I salted and peppered the outside of each of the pheasant and added them to the smoker around 4:30.

The ribs went back in the smoke at 7pm, so here they are together. At this point, the pheasant were holding an internal temp of about 120. I moved them to the oven for one last hour; because I was hungry.


My smoker is not in good shape and if anyone has any ideas on how to fix her, let me know.
(Imagine this times 10. It's everywhere and almost sealed the lid shut.)


When it was all said and done the ribs could have used some more time in the direct smoke I think because they came out with a great smoke ring, but way too much fat on the bottom half of each rib. The bites of meat, sans fat, were delicious but the fat was too much to deal with. Really greasy, but they looked great at least.


The pheasant on the other hand, I don't think could have turned out much better considering it was my first time. The texture is not unlike a Thanksgiving turkey (Not the kind you buy at the deli. You should know that the stuff you buy at the deli is liquid turkey. Puke.) The brine really soaked into the meat but I think would have been a lot better given a few more hours. I ended up pouring a little Stubb's BBQ sauce over some of the breast meat and I will be damned if it wasn't delicious. There aren't many pics of this part because local spirits had begun to be imbibed at this point.

I want to give the beef ribs another shot. I think they could be really good if I can figure out the right process. Pheasant was good and I dont think I would cook it any other way than in the smoker.

In recent posts, Smokehopper and I have been ignoring the cardinal rule of the blog and have been using ovens. For this we apologize. However, I will say that we will make up for this with Christmastime in July. Check back for updates.

~El Smokeador~

I Was Wrong

This blog is in fact about boiling water.

Step 1) water in tea kettle


Step 2) put kettle on stove


Step 3) whistle blows, water is ready

Ribs and Pheasant today. Post tomorrow. If you know where I live, come on over whenever.