El Smokeador y Smokehopper

Tamales of the Candy Cane Brisket Variety

2012-01-13T19:53:00.012-06:00

You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. And I will eat Tamales. - Davey Crockett

Greetings from beyond the internet void that was created in the past months with the lack of El Smokeador Y Smokehopper posts. You have no doubt been trying the various restaurants on the Fort Worth Restaurant List that Smokehopper compiled. Thank you for doing that Smokehopper. Fuzzy's truly is a gem in our small corner of this great state. We have been busy in the lab since the FWRL post coming up with new ideas that will mark 2012 as a banner year for our blog posting, meat smoking, most important, unimportant, little corner of the web community known as the internet. A taste of what we plan to bring you in 2012:

1) Chocotaco with brisket as the taco - brisket formed into a taco shell and filled with chocolate.
2) The Brisket - a silent brisket that is the best silent brisket since the silent brisket era. Film buffs will like this one.
3) Karaoke Brisket featuring a Wolf Parade reunion and BBQ Beans
4) Untitled Brisket Music project collaboration with Dan Auerbach and the Ghost of Lightnin' Hopkins
5) A how to on microwaving a brisket and ribs. From scratch.
6) Another turkey sandwich from Smokehopper.

Exciting. On to tamales.

Since we are the number 1 internet stop for confectionery BBQ, we have been toying with the idea of a Christmas brisket for some time. Candy canes certainly had to be involved, but ended up playing a minor part in this. Kind of like Tea Leoni in Deep Impact. In this sites opinion, that tidal wave should have ended her storyline in the first 10 minutes. Just a terrible movie.

Back on topic. I crushed up a bunch of candy canes with a hammer, rubbed it with paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, etc. and the crushed candy canes, smoked it and it was good.

It is time for a new smoker. The New Braunfels that has treated me so well for the past 3+ years isn't doing it for me anymore. 7lb brisket took almost 14 hours. Also, I need to take better pictures of the sliced brisket. This looks rubbery and tough, but that was not the case. The candy cane added no flavor to the meat. I was disappointed after the success of the butterfinger brisket, but I guess that was to be expected. Long story short, after making a sandwich I still had half of brisket leftover. Luckily, I saved the drippings from the smoking process and had stowed them in the freezer. Couple of days later LSmoke and I conversed and decided that brisket tamales are not featured very often and it needed to be done.

We started by soaking the husks for 45 minutes in warm water. No pictures of this. Put the husks in a pot and turn on the water from the sink. Add it to the pot. Let them soak.

Chopped up the rest of the brisket. This is only some of it.

Took the layer of lard off the top of the frozen drippings and put the drippings in a pan and heated it up.

Added the chopped brisket and a beer to the drippings. Let it simmer for close to an hour while adding some water and another beer.

Moved meat to a bowl to be strained.

Strained the meat and this was leftover.

Added that to this along with some of the lard (maybe a quarter cup) and mixed it up.

Could have used a Cornballer here. Made the mix into golf-ball sized balls of corn.

Next part is a little tricky. Grab two husks, put a ball of the corn mix in between the two and mash it down until its flat and resembles something you could roll up and put meat inside of. Then add a scoop of the meat and roll it up.

Pack them into a steamer.

And let it sit for about an hour.

Celebrate like you're at a dirt bike rally at the AAC when they are done.

Finished product.

You can see the brisket in there. I am not the best at plating. We had an idea of making a white queso and an ridiculously red salsa to make a candy cane looking bed of stuff on a plate to put the tamales on. But I was hungry and didn't. Next time maybe, but probably not. Tamales all look the same from the outside anyway, right? Reconstituting the brisket in the drippings and using the strained juice in the masa added so much flavor that it was really like eating a tamale filled with brisket. I don't know how else to describe it. Delicious? Smokey? Candy caney? Yes, yes, no.

We also made tamales with rib meat. Post forthcoming.

Fort Worth Restaurant List

2011-08-31T09:08:00.014-05:00

OK Everybody. We were all tired of not having an adequate Fort Worth restaurant list...SO I BUILT ONE.

The criteria for the list is as follows

1) The restaurant cannot be a "chain restaurant". (Although there are exceptions)

2) The restaurant must be inside the 820 loop. (Although there are exceptions)

Here it is. Please let me know of any restaurants that I missed. This list is ever changing and I need everyone's help to keep it current, and accurate. As suggestions are made, I will update the list under this post heading. Please use it!!!!!

Also, there is no ranking going on here. It will be up to you to determine if these places are worth going to.

Updated: 9/12/11

Fine Dining:

1. Del Friscos

2. Grace

3. St. Emilion

4. Ruth’s Chris

5. Bob’s

6. Chop House

7. Schula’s

8. Eddie V’s

9. Bella West

10. Bailey’s Prime

11. La Piazza

12. Silver Fox

13. Lonesome Dove

14. Ellerbee’s

15. Bonnell’s

16. Reata

17. Lambert’s

18. Lanny’s

19. Pop Safari

20. Ray’s Prime Steak / Seafood

21. Piola

22. Fort Worth Club/Petroleum

23. Various Country Clubs

24. Six 10 Grille

Casual Dining:

1. Cat City

2. Lilly’s

3. Nonna Tatta

4. Patrizios

5. Tillman’s Roadhouse

6. Fireside Pies

7. Brownstone

8. Michael’s

9. The Tavern

10. Sapristi

11. Grady’s

12. Rufino’s

13. Taverna

14. Buttons

15. Winslow’s

16. Bricks

17. Cafe 1187

18. Shaw’s

19. Simply Fondue

20. Italian Inn

21. Yucatan Taco Stand

22. Texas De Brazil

23. Lucille’s

24. Magnolia Motor Lounge

25. Ferre

26. Cowtown Diner

27. Daddy Jack’s

28. Paco and John’s

29. Milano’s

30. Sardine’s

31. Spiral Diner

32. Mama Mia Italian

33. Café Bella

34. Pappadeaux

35. Margie’s Italian

36. Fortuna

37. Mancuso’s Italian

38. Cattleman’s

39. H3 Steak House

40. Charleston’s

41. Vidalia’s

42. Zambrano’s

Even More Casual:

1. Mellow Mushroom

2. Rock Bottom

3. Hoffbrau

4. M&M Steakhouse

5. Williamson Steak House

6. Fuzzy’s

7. The Point

8. Zeke’s Fish and Chips

9. Buffalo Brothers

10. Perroti’s

11. Drew’s Place

12. Mama’s Pizza

13. Texas Grill

14. Boomer Jack’s

15. J & J’s Oyster Bar

16. Lone Star Oyster Bar

17. Flying Fish

18. Cabo Grande

19. Red Cactus

20. Blue Mesa

21. Parton’s Pizza

Fine Mexican:

1. Mi Cocina

2. Gloria’s

3. Cantina Laredo

4. Hacienda San Miguel

5. Revolver Taco Lounge

Tex/Mex:

1. Joe T Garcia’s

2. Chimey’s

3. La Familia

4. Pullido’s

5. Esperanzas

6. El Rancho Grande

7. Rio Mambo

8. Chuy’s

9. The Original

10. La Playa Maya

11. Tres Joses

12. El Asadero

13. Salsa Fuego

14. Tortillandia

15. Dos Gringos

16. Benito’s

17. Pappacitos

18. Mi Cocinita

19. Uncle Julio’s

20. Mercado Juarez

21. Los Vaqueros

22. Mi Charito

23. Los Mier

24. Don Juan’s

25. Fiesta Mexican

26. La Playita

27. Dos Molinas

28. Mexico Real

29. Cancun Restaurant

Sushi:

1. Axiom Montgomery

2. Axiom Hulen

3. Blue

4. Hui Chan

5. Piranha

6. Tokyo Café

7. Edohana

8. Sushi Q

9. MK Sushi

10. Hammerhead Sushi

11. Wasabi Sushi

12. Sanjuku Station

13. Temaki Sushi

14. Japanese Palace

15. Taste of Asia

16. Sushi Yoko

Thai/Viet/Korean:

1. Thai Tina’s

2. Thai Orchid

3. Pho Nam

4. Sam Won Garden

5. Thai Rice and Noodle

6. Thai Select

7. Pho’s Saigon

8. Jun Suree Thai

9. Bangkok House Thai

10. Sikhay

11. Sonny’s Diner

12. Tu Hai

13. Pho Noodle and Grill

Foreign Flavors:

1. Maharaja

2. Bombay Grill

3. Byblos

4. King Tut

5. Chadra Mezza

6. Terra

7. Greek House

8. George’s Specialty Food

9. Greenwood’s

10. Eddelweis

11. Bavarian Bakery

12. Sczheuan

13. Pei Wei

14. PF Chang’s

Lunch /Breakfast Only:

1. Jazz Café

2. Carshon’s Deli

3. Montgomery Street

4. Vickery Café

5. Paris Coffee Shop

6. Paul’s Doughnuts

7. Old Neighborhood Grill

8. Yogi’s

9. Galligaskin’s

10. Café Brazil

11. Park Hill Cafe

12. The Lunch Box

13. Pack a Pocket

14. The Great Outdoors

15. Zoe’s Kitchen

16. Mi Cocinita

17. Carniceria dos Hermanos

18. Black Rooster Bakery

19. Bluebonnet Café

20. McKinley's

21. Swiss Pastry Shop

22. West Side Café

23. Day Break Café

24. Ol’ South

25. Central Market

26. Blue Bonnet Bakery

27. The Gardens Restaurant

28. Montgomery Antique Café

29. Emi G’s Sandwiches

30. Star Café

31. Blue Tower Cafe

Burgers:

1. Fred’s

2. Charlie’s

3. Dutch’s

4. Love Shack

5. Tommy’s

6. Kinkaid’s

7. Pappas Burgers

8. M & O Burger

9. Five Guys’ Burgers

10. Smash Burger

11. Chubby’s

12. Jake’s

13. Your Way

BBQ:

1. Railhead

2. Angelo’s

3. The Smoke Pit

4. Sammies BBQ

5. Smokey’s BBQ

6. William’s BBQ

7. Risky’s BBQ

8. Coopers BBQ

9. Cousin’s BBQ

Tacos:

1. Taqueria San Luis

2. Tacos Don Miguel

3. Melis Taqueria

4. Taco Heads

5. Salsa Limon

6. Yes! Taco

7. Yum Yum Truck

8. Tortas La Hechizera

9. Granny’s Tacos

10. Quickway Burritos

Bars with Food:

1. The Pour House

2. The Flying Saucer

3. Fox and the Hound

4. The Ginger Man

5. Baker Street Pub

6. The Aardvark

7. Lucky Strike

8. 8.0’s

9. Embargo

2011-08-24T11:39:00.003-05:00

Real quick plug here for a blog friend. If you have literally 10 seconds free sometime today, or tomorrow, or in the next couple days, please follow the link and vote for our friend Daniel over at Full Custom Gospel BBQ in the CBS Dallas/Fort Worth Most Valuable Blogger Awards thing thats happening right now. Here is the link:

http://dfw.blogger.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/blog/1679-full-custom-gospel-bbq/

If you haven't had a chance to visit his blog that's listed over on the left or right here, check it out. Daniel has eaten at and reviewed almost every BBQ joint in Texas, its pretty great. Not Smokeador and Smokehopper great, but who is really? Bwahahahahhahahahaha.

Here is a picture of a monkey with a mustache.

-ES

BBQ Bagel Sandwich-Pizzas

2011-07-20T21:23:00.029-05:00

To begin, we apologize for the hiatus. We are back. Here is a picture of us:

Secondly, there are 11 things that a man needs to know before he dies. One of them, for instance, involves math. Another involves BBQ Bagel Sandwich-Pizzas. Today we learn about the latter.

What is a BBQ Bagel Sandwich-Pizza, you ask? Its exactly what you think it is, but more delicious somehow. Anyway, check it out below as we post pictures and talk about it (web logging).

However, before we begin, a quick comment about the current heat: My Goodness. Truly… it is hot outside. Am I right? Or what?

(Finfrock don't play no shit. Finfrock ain't never been about playing no shit.)

The meal:

So you start by smoking a delicious brisket. It’s pretty easy. Check out every other blog post we've ever made to see how to smoke a brisket. Here is a picture of what it looked like when we smoked the brisket.

It was excellent. Smokeador made it.

Next, make delicious bagels. Essentially you mix up some yeast, and flour and water and mix it up and then let it sit, and then bake it. Its literally that easy.

Not really. Its really complicated and very hard. StephSmoke does all the baking. I would suggest using a recipe of sorts. Here are some pictures of what it looked like when we made the bagels.

(mix it)

(rest it)

(rise it)

(split it up)

(shape them)

(boil them)

and after you bake them...Tadaaa: Bagels.

Next, make delicious BBQ sauce. The BBQ sauce we made was Kansas City style. Which means a thicker sauce with more sugar than acid. In my opinion all BBQ sauce has essentially the same four ingredients, with different flavorings. There always seems to be sugar, vinegar, tomato base and water. Vary their proportions and you get different styles. This could be totally false though. Anyway, here is a picture of the BBQ sauce and a little bit about how we made it.

Ok, we started by heating up some beef fat that had solidified on top of the refrigerated brisket juices. (When you smoke a brisket and you wrap it in foil for a few hours, a whole lot of juice and fat seeps to the bottom of the foil. If you save this liquid, the fat will rise to the top and solidify in the fridge. Remove the fat and use it as you would any other fat. The reaming juices are chalk full of smokey flavor and gelatin. Culinary gold!) If you think it looks gross its because....it looks kinda gross. But its not....its awesome smokey lardy delicious goodness.

(it turns into a liquid quickly)

(saute onions and garlic in it)

(add some Pendrey's chili powder)

(add dijon mustard, worschesrctire sauce, some molasses, brown sugar, etc...you get the idea)

(and about a cup of Ketchup. Not to brag, but we used a homemade ketchup. Suck it Trebeck.)

(add a healthy dose of the brisket stock)

(it dissolved quickly)

(Boom. Its done.)

(Strain it and that's it. It was delicious.)

Finally, take the leftover brisket that you have, and make chopped brisket. This is done by taking the fatty delicious pieces, and chopping them with extreme impunity. EXTREME IMPUNITY. Am I using the word “impunity” correctly? Unfortunately, there is no way to know that. Mix in a little bit of the BBQ sauce to keep it real. Here is a picture or two of the process.

Next buy delicious American Cheese. Captain America Cheese.

Now combine everything up like a pizza. First, you cut the bagels in half and add the delicious sauce. Then add cheese and meat, really in whatever order you wish. Put them in the oven for 10 mins at 350. Or whatever. I made those numbers up just now. Cook them until they are hot is what I should have said.

At this point we knew that it was going to taste good because of basic food math. If you take one delicious substance and combine it with other delicious substances, as long as they are compatible, the flavor quotient will increase with extreme impunity.

The Final Product:

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehawwwww! They were very good. They had the look of a sandwich, but the soul of a pizza, and the heart of a BBQ sandwich.

Thanks for reading!!!

Sorry again for the long hiatus. We will be back soon with Yoda Ears and Eskimo Farts.

P.S. Please take some time to support the Fort Worth Food Park, here:

http://www.facebook.com/fwfoodpark

There is a hearing coming up on August 3rd, and the foodies on Fort Worth need to unite! Thanks.

P.P.S. here is the best song of 2010 (No it's not - ES):

Fajita Grilled Cheese. It's a Grilled Cheese with Fajita Meat Inside

2011-03-08T20:30:00.023-06:00

This TexMex treat first originated after a long day on Lake Austin in 2003. A somewhat ravished and raucous crew of lakegoers ventured to Maudies for some post lake drinks and a hearty meal. Good times led to good drinks which led to a yearning, nay a hankering, for a grilled cheese by a younger El Smokeador. Originally met with quite a bit of "we can't do that" and "tell me again" my hunger (and quite a bit of the El Smokeador Y Smokehopper trademarked unadulterated gumption) prevailed and the waiter/cook finally agreed to make me a grilled cheese with fajita meats on the inside.

I have tried to make this for the blog twice in the past 3 years to no avail. Turns out as El Smokeador gets older the ratio of good drinks to bad pictures has a direct relationship in which the correlation grows closer and closer to 1 as amounts of both variables in the test are increased. Never thought the MBA would make an appearance on the ol' blog. Statistics!!

It should be noted that I cooked all of this on the stove top in the house I am currently leasing. Gas grill with a cast iron skillet. Here are the spices I used for the chicken. I am not going to go into great detail on certain amounts of what that I used because everyone likes it different, but lets say it was two tablespoons of olive oil and about a teaspoon of the rest of what you see in the picture. NOT THE METAMUCIL AND OATMEAL. THOSE ARE FOR A FORTHCOMING BRISKET. But the salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, coriander, garlic powder and olive oil were all used.

Bought three chicken breasts from the store. Washed. Patted dry and sliced into fajita like strips. Put them all in a bag with the spices and olive oil.

Found a couple of small limes, halved them and added the juice of both to the bag. I did this at lunch today and let them sit until about 7. So thats 7 hours if you are not counting along at home. I am pretty sure and hour or two would have been ok.

Bought this stuff for the toppings to go inside the sandwich with the cheese and chicken. Cut it all into 3-4 inch strips and tried to keep the onion in a circular manner. No real science to that.

Before slicing all of that up I threw the skillet on high heat and it got hot. Once everything was sliced in the most meticulous manner and the skillet was hot, I dumped the whole bag of chicken on (no oil as there was already oil in the marinade) and let it brown until the juice had simmered off. This is what we in the business of food call the wise mans gambit meaning its always better to have a little bit dried out chicken than the alternative of undercooked chicken. A wise man told me that once as I was huddled over a trash can nevermind. A little stream of consciousness folks. Tip your waitress.

When your chicken is thoroughly cooked it will look like this. Off of the skillet and on a plate so you can add the red pepper, white onion and jalapeno slices.

When the onions are carmelized to your liking and the peppers are soft enough for you, add the chicken back in. I don't know why but pretend your Nike. Hello Nike.

Based on previous posts you would think that buttering bread is not something this blog is about. Wrong.

In an ideal situation I would have used a nice thick piece of bread but I didn't have any and Stephsmoke is saving up her bread making abilities for Bagel Bites that will be made soon. That said, there is some cheese at the store that I have been enjoying, I think its New York Cream and Habanero Pepper-jack. I used two slices here. Could have used more to get a really cheesy sandwich, but I had a turkey sandwich for lunch and there is such a thing as too much cheese in one day.

Added the peppers and chicken to both sides of the bread and combined them into a singular being. Put the whole thing on a new non stick skillet and let it cook for about 2.5 minutes per side. You can do it longer if you want to burn your sandwich but I don't particularly care for burned bread. Toast on the other hand is delicious.

Finished product with a side of Guacamole. The guacamole was just avocado, half of a smallish tomato, some red onion, garlic and lime juice with salt and pepper. Couple of different views for you.

All in all it's a pretty cheap, somewhat healthy meal. No it's not healthy at all, but not much that tastes good is. If you try it at home please send us a pic and we will post it.

Also, from a musical standpoint if you don't have the new J. Mascis album get it. It's fantastic.

And there is this:

~El Smokeador~

Chili Sunday

2011-02-08T19:34:00.029-06:00

I made chili on Sunday for three reasons.

First, its been really cold lately.

Second. This guy told me I needed to make Chili.

Third. The greatest sporting event in the World was being played that day.

Runner Up Reasons include “Chili is Awesome” and “Meat is good”. Also the Super Bowl was on.

Long story short, the Chili ended up being a megajam. The Super Bowl was not bad either. The commercials I liked are as follows:

The one where the Aztecs created a dimensional warp to steal the Kia from the aliens who stole it from Poseidon. (Oh yeah.....I went with Poseidon rather than Neptune. I roll like that. Hardcore.)
The one where the monkeys crashed into the guy's car.
The Super 8 preview looks amazing.

Thats pretty much it.

Also, there was some sort of luxury prison ad that I didn’t quite get. What was going on there? Feel free to comment if you understood it.

Anyway, Next Stop: Chilitown, USA.

Chili:

Caveat: This is not your standard Chili. StephSmoke and I kind of modified a pork stew recipe to make this chili. So all you chili purists out there can suck it. Because it was delicious.

Boom. Roasted.

We really just braised some beef in a vegetable rich liquid and added chili powder at the right time. It really was good. Here's how we did it.

First, we seared off some beef chunks. Beef chunks is a technical culinary term. Set aside.

Next, we seared up some ground beef.

Remember to get the pan really hot.

Set Aside.

Next, we made the braising liquid. We pureed cilantro, garlic, tomatoes, jalapeños, tomatillos, and some chicken stock.

It was good enough to drink. (and I did).

Step 11: Sweat some vegetables.

We chopped up an onion, some garlic, and 3 different types of chili peppers. I just grabbed every kind they had at the store. One each. It cost under a dollar.

These are just some of the peppers.

Next we put in pan with oil salt and pepper and heated it up. (aka cooking)

When it started to get translucenty we added 4 or 5 quartered tomatillos, browned them, and then we added a few of the remaining cherry tomatoes and let them break down.

When it all was soft and delicious, we added two or three tablespoons of the chili powder. We added this brand because it is amazing. We let it cook for 5 - 10 minutes on low to absorb the flavor.

Mix it up NICE.

Next, we added all of the vegetable stock puree to the pan.

And added back in all of the meat. Make sure to pour all of the oil and juice from the container back into the pot. That's where the healthiest stuff is.

Then we brought it to a boil and reduced it to a simmer.

Then we added some tomato paste for a little extra flavor.

We covered and cooked for two hours. After that we added the bay leaf we forgot to add originally and cooked for another 30 minutes.

And thats pretty much it. The chili is cooked. The stew chunks have all broken down and the tomatillos and tomatoes have released all of their goodness into the mix, and the cilantro stems and leaves have dissolved, and the chili powder has rehydrated and the whole thing has gone delicious. We let it cool and went to work on some extravagant toppings, including chopped red onion, jalapeño, fresh chopped cilantro, sour cream and sharp cheddar cheese.

We used this type of Cheese. IT WAS INTENSELY SHARP.

We put it all on top of the piping hot chili.

Boom. Delicious.

That is where the flavor is. Right inside there. But really, it was amazing.

Thanks for reading everyone!!!!

Kangaroo Tacos coming soon!

(not really)

Welcome New Reader

2011-01-27T21:17:00.002-06:00

You read my book you magnificent bastard.

Found Treasure and Habanero Jelly

2010-12-11T13:40:00.022-06:00

I'm pretty awesome...so its needless to say that I had TWO vegetable gardens this year. We planted a ton of peppers and herbs and miscelaneous home depot plants in both of them in April/May'ish. One garden got a lot of attention and the other was left to waste away and grow wild. One was enough work.

Anyway, I was taking a look at the basil chaos that had become of the second garden last week and low and behold, I struck pay dirt. The Habanero had survived the insanity and made a bunch of peppers. See above.

Habaneros have great flavor, but they are very very hot. Burn the mouth. Singe the nostrils. If I was to take payment to rub one in my eye, the minimum payment would have to be $4,300. What is the minimum amount that you would accept to rub a habanero in your eye? Think about it.

So I had all of these peppers, and I had no idea what to do with them. A freeze was coming, so I got them all off of the plant. Luckily, Kimistry Kitchen was in town and she and StephSmoke both wanted to harness the flavor of the habaneros in a long lasting jelly. I thought Jelly would be more fun than rubbing them in my eyes. So, we immidietly had the helicopter come pick us up and we went to the store for provisions.

Apparenty you need:

1) Peppers
2) Vinegar of some sort
3) Red Bell Peppers
4) Sugar
5) Pectin. Which is like bone marrow for plants.
6) A Helicopter

Mix it all up and you've got Jelly. Heres how its done:

So you start out by chopping the lid off of the peppers. Do this.

Next you put them in a measuring device. As you can see from the picture, I wasn't really being serious about measuring an actual quantity of habanero. Here, I believe the recipe called for a certain amount of habanero, but I just went ahead and used what I had. Its not an exact science.

Then you put em in here. (This is why I didn't chop them up and measure. I didn't want capsicum hands if the machine was going to chop them up anyway).

Next measure out a quarter cup of vinegar. We used Rice Vinegar.

Next seed a red bell pepper.

...and put it all in a blender.

Again, dont get this in your eyes. It would really hurt. Its not often that a toast spread can double as a rape defense weapon. Not sure what else to say about that idea.

Mixing.

The Smell.

Very Intense.

Pur the mix in a pot.

Add a few cups of sugar.

Mix it up.

This is Pectin. It comes in a box. Its like gelatin, but from plants.

Pour in one package.

Kick it up to a boil, whisk, and reduce to simmer.

While that is going down, chop any leftover red bell pepper or jalapenos that you might have. You can drop them in the finished jelly product and it looks much more festive.

(it finally boiled)

(cooking action shot)

After 5 mins or so, let it cool, and skim off the foam on the top.

Some people would strain it here. I call those people less lazy than I am. So we didn't strain ourselves and we just put it in the jar. It was wicked wicked hot for a really long time. Be careful.

Add the festive pieces.

Mix in the bits i.e. GET FESTIVE

Finished Product!

Keep it refridgerated, and use it as any other jelly. We've been adding it to sauces instead of sugar. I also used some in a cocktail the other day, and its pretty good on sandwiches. Good glaze for pork. It's also good at parties, poured over cream cheese. On one occasion, I actually blended it with some left over cream cheese, spread it on toast, and made a turkey cilantro sandwich. Amazing.

Thanks to Kimistry for coming out of retirement and teaching me how to do this, and help with the blogging. Your audience misses you. Restart the blog, we implore you.

Sorry for the long gap in posting everyone. Should have more soon.

Thanks for reading!!

-SmokeHopper

Be on the Food Network...or At Least Try To

2010-11-16T18:44:00.006-06:00

Got this email in the Smokeador inbox today. Smokehopper and I should do this right? If you want to also, it would be cool to see some other people at the casting. That is if we do it. I think we should.

Here is the email:

We are looking for charismatic and outgoing two person teams with pre-existing relationships, who have always dreamed of running their own restaurant. Applicants may have lots of restaurant experience, no restaurant experience, or some combination of both. One member of the team will run the “back of the house” and one member will run the “front of the house”. As a team they must have the skills to open and run their own restaurant!

The details of our event are as follows:

Sunday, December 5, 2010

10am-1pm

Westin Park Central

12720 Merit Drive, Dallas, TX 75251

Click below for enlarged info:

We should do this right?

El Smokeador BBQ Catering

2010-11-10T15:15:00.008-06:00

Hello there. I've made it known to a few people but not everyone that I am going to start a small catering operation sooner rather than later. I need to say right off the bat that this is an El Smokeador venture and not Smokehopper. He has offered to help, but has too much on his plate (food pun!!) to do it as frequently as I want to. That said, if you have a need for a couple briskets with sides for a holiday party you have coming up, let me know.

I have provided briskets for a couple functions in the past that have gone really well and it's something that I can do a lot cheaper than your standard BBQ caterers. I can provide the following:

1) Brisket (Butterfinger/Candy Cane optional)

2) Buns, onions, pickles, etc

3) Sides (Potato salad and beans)

4) Dessert

5) Servers

6) Plates, utencils, etc

7) A garden hose if you require drinks. I will hook it up to your house.

More or less anything you need me to provide, I can provide it. If you think you will be hosting anywhere from 15-75 people I can accommodate. If some of them require a fish or chicken meal, I can provide that as well. I can accommodate a family dinner if thats what you require as well.

Here is a picture of a satisfied customer.

If you think you have something coming up that you want people to eat at, shoot me an email at elsmokeador@gmail.com and we can work something out. If you know anyone else having a party that you think would like to have some BBQ catered in, please pass this along. Parents, co-workers, etc. Or if you know someone that isn't having a party but wants to have a nice brisket for the holidays, please pass this along.

Thats it.

Thanks.

El Smokeador

For the Sake of Content.....Turkey Neck Soup

2010-11-08T14:43:00.007-06:00

We had a lot of leftover turkey products from our QITS (Quest into Turkey Stardom), the most interesting being the package of neck pieces. Other than wrapping them in bacon and stuffing cheese and jalapeno into the middle we couldn't really come up with anything extremely interesting or edible, so soup it is.

Ingredients:

Carrots

Celery

Garlic

Jalapenos

Onion (red and white)

Chicken Broth

Sliced up half the white onion, garlic, jalapenos, celery and carrots and added to the crock pot. Washed and patted the turkey neck pieces dry, added them to the pot and covered with chicken broth and water. This was all to make the stock for the soup which by itself was amazing. The jalapenos gave it a great spicy tinge that really brought out the flavor of the hot Chiturkey stock. Chiturkey stock is a good recipe for the common cold that dates back to the early 400's. When unicorn horns couldn't be harvested and hippo teeth had rotted out, the natives turned to Chiturkey. Enjoy it like they did.

After 6 hours in the crock pot (low temp) we reconvened and began finishing up the soup. Smokehopper had already pulled the turkey from the bones and strained the vegetables out of the Chiturkey stock. We sliced up the red onion, another jalapeno, garlic and celery and cooked them in a little oil in the pot until soft.

Added the Chiturkey stock and the turkey parts that Smokehopper separated earlier and brought to a simmer.

Smokehopper making a bowl of soup. Important for future posts.

In the end, you cant really see the neck pieces and this might appear to only be a bowl of off colored water with cilantro floating in it and a lemon wedge on the side of the bowl. But it was more. The turkey tasted like turkey. The broth in the soup was delicious and the cilantro/lemon really brought out the essence of the Chiturkey stock. In the end it made for a delicious warm meal that was easy to construct. Make it yourself sometime.

Hatch Chile Corn Dogs (featuring LSmoke on the Bass)

2010-08-31T23:19:00.017-05:00

Sit back and relax, this is gonna be a long one. But first, corn dogs.

The day began with a round of golf that never happened. For that I would like to say something to Pecan Valley Golf Course in Fort Worth. No one wants your rainchecks. Just give the money back if the golfing experience is not good after one hole. Thats all I have to say on that.

When Central Market announced that they would be having another Hatch Chile competition a couple weeks ago, we began brainstorming some recipes that would both be delicious and have not done before as that is sort of our deal. We don't like making things that have been made before. Still waiting on those butterfinger brisket royalties to come in.

Smokehopper would not be in town for this delicious endeavor, so I called another culinary contributor to the site and thankfully LSmoke was available. We talked and decided that the best way to win both the competition and a delicious Saturday would be to make homemade sausage corn dogs stuffed with Hatch Chiles. We won. The delicious Saturday part, not the Central Market deal. But thats ok. We don't need justification from places that do not even carry the supplies we need. Onto that portion of this raucous tale.

Here is an interesting fact that you need to know when making sausage for the first time....you need sausage casings to make sausage. This is a list of places in Fort Worth that do not currently sell sausage casings and have no plans to:

1) The Mexican meat store on Granbury road

2) The Supermercado on Hemphill

3) Central Market

4) Alberstons

5) Kroger

6) and one other place that I can't remember

You can however find them at Academy of all places, so thanks Academy.

It should be noted that you should buy the hog sausage casings. They smell up the kitchen something fierce, but its worth it. This is what they look like in a bowl getting ready to soak for 30 minutes or so.

While they were soaking and making the kitchen smell mostly like a pigs insides, we started roasting the chiles. LSmoke has a badass KitchenAid convection broiler so this was a pretty easy process without having to fire up the grill just for some chiles.

Once the chiles were roasted and peeled, we put them in a large ziplock with a damp paper towel to help them peel. It worked. But sorry no pics. They should be blackened when you pull them out of the oven or off the grill. LSmoke has a sausage grinder and luckily has made his own sausage once before. He knows the ins and outs of his kitchen, but we still tried a couple of things. Here we go. This is all of the parts to a sausage grinder. Cleaned and oiled.

At the first Mexican meat market we were certain they had some kind of casings for the sausage in the back, but we decided to let sleeping dogs lie and picked up 3 pounds of pork meat instead.

As you can see, we have assembled the grinder and set it up. We figured out very quickly that it takes a lot of effort to grind sausage and it needs to be bolted down to something or you can add an hour or two to the process.

We got this far before we figured out a better way to use the grinder.

We changed up to a thicker cut of sausage and bolted the grinder down on the right side of a part of LSmoke's leftover fence. This way he was able to sit on the board and feed sausage into the grinder while I cranked. Worked out a lot better.

And we got roughly 2.75 pounds of ground pork parts out of it. Success.

Once this task was completed in a little more time than we had planned it was time to prep the chiles. Like I said earlier the skin pretty much peels right off. We deseeded the chiles too, for the most part. We figured that sausage sometimes has a few seeds in it, so we left a few of them in. They didn't add or detract anything away from the dogs.

We sliced them up into smallish sqaures and added them to the meat.

Sauteed up some garlic for the meat too.

And added healthy amounts of this stuff to the pork. In a bowl. Please put it in a bowl.

I mixed it up with my hands. You have seen countless number of pictures of me mixing things with my hands before, so you don't need a picture of this process. LSmoke added a piece to the grinder and we were ready to start forcing the pork into the casing.

Aaaaaand sausages. Please note the green parts inside. Those are the chiles.

We cut them and stuck skewers in one side and prepped the skillet for cooking.

While the oil was heating up we began the batter for the dogs. Used the following in unmeasured amounts until we had a consistency that would stick to the outside of the dogs without running all over the place during the transfer from batter to skillet.

Sausages in the skillet cooking in oil. We figured that they needed to be cooked rather than just fried. We were right about this as it didn't take too long to fry them up.

Once the oil was at the right temp (350 degrees) we dropped these guys in. Carefully. Hot oil burns. See you have learned a couple new things today.

And for the finished product.

All in all, these were a great success. Making corn dogs from scratch is a relatively difficult and time consuming task, but it was more than worth it on a Saturday afternoon. Add Hatch Chiles to the equation and the greatness increases exponentially. We thought at one point that it would take only a couple of hours, but when it came down to it I would say it was closer to 3 or 3.5. Regardless, more than worth the time. The sausage turned out fantastic and the batter was not too sweet but rather served as a good compliment to the salty consistency of the sausage. I regret to inform you that some old man named Jimmy Dean has stolen my idea of breakfast sausage fried in pancake batter, but that is for another day and another time.

Try this out if you like. I think you will enjoy it. LSmoke, thanks for your hospitality and effort in getting this done.

~El Smokeador~

Turkey Champions....We Are

2010-07-29T11:15:00.004-05:00

Thank you to everyone who voted, who told their friends to vote, who didn't vote but thought about it and voted for someone else, who thought about voting for someone else but then decided not to but still thought about it, etc..... I'm sure I forgot someone. We had some stiff competition, the other Texas guys again proved that our great state has the best backyard food to offer in our great country. Thank you Honeysuckle White for somehow finding our neat little culinary/literary venture and including us. Its been fun and you truly make a fine, fine product. We highly recommend turkey products from Honeysuckle White, they are a top notch little organization.

Thanks to the Delta Spirit, of montreal, Band of Horses, James Murphy, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney (the Black Keys who are apparently aware of the blog and what we do....big things coming...hopefully) and everyone else that provided turkey inspiration while we filmed countless hours of footage that was left on the cutting room floor. LSmoke and SmokeNor especially for helping with the filming and justifying our creation before we submitted it.

We really liked the idea of filming blog posts and have a couple other vignettes that we will be posting throughout the rest of the year. You should expect to learn about the origination of our blog and its true ownership. We have other turkey recipes that didn't make the cut that we need to edit and post eventually. There will also be a Texas BBQ symposium in the near future that we are overwhelmed with excitement about. Our friends over at Man Up Texas BBQ, Full Custom Gospel BBQ and others will be in attendance. Please visit their blogs via the links on the left hand side of the page. They are good people and have good stuff to say. Or write. Something.

On a serious note, thanks again for reading and showing your support for our fun little corner of the internet, you know for meat. We both wanted this really badly and hope you enjoyed the video. We promise to keep raising the bar when it comes to ridiculous food creations for many years to come. Maybe months. Probably weeks. Ok, the blog is done.

Not really.

~El Smokeador~

The Turkey Whisperers in The Mailman Always Rings Like Eleven Times

2010-07-15T09:54:00.010-05:00

Dearest friends and smokeheads...voting begins today on what will no doubt be our springboard to international BBQ stardom. Please head over to Honeysuckle White's Take on Turkey and vote for us and our Thanksgiving Burger video. We promise when we win and are retired on the beaches of South America that we will not forget you, the humble reader. We might forget you, but we wont forget YOU.

Here is the link again. Click it and think of home.

CLICK HERE

OR HERE

While you vote, here is a little enjoyable music for you.

Thanks for your support. We really appreciate you reading the blog.

~El Smokeador~

The Sandwich that should have never been....but then for some reason was somehow.

2010-07-13T19:22:00.034-05:00

(Don't look directly into it...)

The words "wicked awesome" are thrown around a lot these days. Not really, I guess.

Anyway, I made a sandwich the other day that you WOULD NOT BELIEVE! I was hungry on Sunday night and there was no sort of dinner planned, so I raided the pantry/fridge and I ended up with pure magic. Here begins the story:

Last week was a good culinary week, and there were lots of fantastic ingredients laying around. I will list them and tell the story of each ingredient. Remember them, because at the end I'm going to put them all in sandwich form. If you can image each ingredient indiviudally in your mind then you'll have a better understanding of how good this sandwich really was.

1) Scratch Made Roasted Garlic Rolls

(Imagine the smell)

StephSmoke got a Kitchen Aid for her birthday and it smells like a bakery almost every Sunday at her house. She was nice enough to give me some homeade roasted garlic rolls. (She made them the same day I made my sandwich) Super fresh and delicious and filled with roasted garlic. Absolutely amazing. Thats rosemary on top. It smelled like rosemary. Close your eyes and imagine the smell of fresh baked bread mixed with earthy roasted garlic and rosemary. Culinary high five!

2) Fresh Basil/Cashew Pesto

(looks like goop, tastes like good)

Uhhhh, I have a pretty awesome herb garden. I'm kind of a big deal. I mean...people know my garden. Famous people. Carbon Footprint. Urban Guerrila Gardening. Hybrid Cars. Solar powered zero point energy, but I digress. A few days back from the sandwich date (SD -3) I made an unbelievable fresh basil pesto. Pesto is herbs, in this case basil, and pine nuts, in this case cashews, and garlic and olive oil and salt and pepper. All mixed up in a blender. Its like The Rock of flavor. I mean the wrestler the Rock. But more like 1999 The Rock. Not Disney The Rock.

3) Grey Poupon and Itasca Texas Chevre

(this is where flavor is)

I had gone to the Fort Worth Saturday Farmers Market (which is awesome) and got some goat cheese made in Itasca. I dont know how to describe the flavor but I'll try: wicked awesome . The Dijon mustard came from France I'm assuming.

4) Blurry Tomatoes

(tomatoes are a fruit)

I also bought some tomatoes at the farmer's market. Parker County. I also got these minitaure peaches from the same guy. Awesome.

5) Hass Avocado

(Avocaodos from Target.)

I'm sorry that there is not a good story to go along with these avocados. Did you know that all Hass avocados originate from a single tree!? Its the truth.

6) Toaster

(I own a toaster)

7) Slow Smoked, applewood roasted, duck fat braised Turkey. Or just packaged turkey. Its all I had. Don't get all high and mighty on me Geoff Zakarian.

(Turkey in a Bag)

Again no story here....but Turkey is good. Especially when you heat it up in a pan prior to adding to the sandwich with a little butter and some fresh thyme. Again I have an herb garden......Renewable Energy.

ASSEMBLY:

Avocado on Toast

Added the Pesto

Added the Turkey

Sliced tomatoes next

Mustard and Chevre next

I finished it up with some Sabbanna Blend, which is my Dad's homeade BBQ rub. I went to Pendrey's with him when he bought all of the ingredients, but I cannot even begin to tell you what all goes into it, or in what amounts, but I know it had smoked hungariqn paprika, chili de arbol, garlic powder, onion powder, mustard, salt, brown sugar, fresh ground pepper etc etc. Its awesome. Its not for sale....YET.

(Sabbanna Blend - mixed by hand on the banks of the Sabbanna River in Commanche County, Texas)

Almost there:

Final Product:

(Oh' Sookie!)

Let me be serious for one second here. Top 11 sanwiches of my entire life. Imagine all of that good stuff all rubn up on each other in one delicious sandwich. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!! Victory was had!!! I wish you all could have been there to try it. All seven of you. Yes...even you there in the red shirt.

We've got a giveaway contest coming soon! Minatuar Legs! Etc!

-SmokeHopper

Winning Guest Post!

2010-06-08T14:58:00.009-05:00

Thanks so much to Ishmael for this awesome post! He is the Winner! BOOOM Kapow! Welcome to the WinnerDome! Thanks to everyone who entered. We will be contacting others with guest post requests soon! Thanks for reading!

So without further adieu....

Cedar Plank Rockfish

Call me Ishmael. (I’ve been called worse … today even.) In the land of El Smokeador y Smokehopper, everyone needs an alias. What follow’s is Ishmael’s tale of fish conquered, grilled and eaten. Let’s do this.

I like to do things in reverse. This story ends – and begins – with fresh rockfish, having been grilled on cedar planks. And with that mouth-watering teaser, I realize you already desperately want to know how to copy my magic. Read on. There is no shame if you are overcome with awe – I’ve most certainly had that effect on better men than you. (Right, Smokehopper?)

Take a look at those pictures. Study them. Second, you better believe that’s real charcoal. No briquets or propane or other girly-man cooking methods; Ishmael throws down old school. First, you’ll want to soak the planks for a few hours in advance, and get a good, hot fire going. Finally, once that’s complete, it takes no time at all until your fish is perfectly done – white, moist, flaky and no risk of burning from the charcoal below. Stay with me here, we’re moving fast and not always in a straight line. You’ll be okay.

And you know Ishmael (that’s me, remember, aka ODB, aka Dirt McGirt, aka “The Fishmonger” … okay, I just made that last one up, but I think it sounds cool anyway) keep’s the cuisine fresh and simple. Bring on the fish. (Where did you get the fish, you ask? Patience, grasshopper, and all will be revealed in time as we skip backwards towards many revelations.) Rinse the filets, and pat them dry. A sprinkle of Old Bay – you’re cooking on the Eastern Shore of Maryland now, folks, so get used to it and embrace our customs – and just a touch of fresh-ground Himalayan salt. (Frankly, if you’re still using regular table salt for your cooking, you are excused to go visit Red Lobster or Long John Silver’s. Go ahead. Good riddance, really.)

Now buckle your seatbelts, ‘cause I’m about to pump another 1.21 gigawatts through the flux capacitor as we go back a bit further in time to the very genesis of this grand experiment …

That’s right: It’s morning, and I'm on a boat (sing along, if you know the tune). Even better: it’s not my boat. Ishmael might be a charming wordsmith capable of challenging Smokehopper’s culinary commentary, but he’s also a cheap ol’ dirty bastard who’s always up for a free fishing trip and not ashamed to say it.

As stated before (or later? this time travel storytelling is confusing even to a man of Mensa intellect) it’s okay to be jealous of me and my wily charm; you’ll get used to it. You see, grilling up some nice, fresh rockfish fillets for dinner is the reward for life on the Chesapeake Bay. All told, it was another tough day at the office, as you can see. (Tomorrow I’m off to film another Dos Equis commercial – it is a blessing and a curse to be the most interesting man in the world.)

Sadly, our journey into the past has served its purpose and we must now transition Back to the Future. So, how’d the cedar plank rockfish taste? Let me assure you that planks almost always provide a reliable, easy and tasty alternative to shake up your backyard barbeque routine. Stock up on grilling planks in advance at the local hardware store, or at specialty stores for a better selection … they are excellent for cooking a righteous pork tenderloin, among other uses. In fact many fish – salmon being a great example – are really excellent off of a plank, which imparts a subtle smoke and guarantees a moist, indirect heat.

Unfortunately, today revealed that rockfish may be the exception to this rule, it’s flavor being just a bit too mild. My masterpiece looked excellent and cooked up perfectly done (no, I’m not showing the picture again – time travel your ass back to the top of this post and refresh your memory if necessary). But, just as I used my manly musculature to bully that fish from the sea, the planks and charcoal similarly overpowered the filets with a bit too much smoky flavor. It wasn’t bad – I ate it anyway (there was no plan B for dinner). But it could have been better. It should have been better. Dammit.

We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcast with El Smokeador y Smokehopper.

Ishmael out.

Contest Is Over

2010-06-07T16:35:00.002-05:00

Winner has been selected and the post will be up soon. Thanks to everyone for contributing. We will be doing this again soon.

Look for a huge update/post in the coming weeks.

Contest Update

2010-06-02T10:15:00.002-05:00

We have already received several entries from qualified contestants. All it takes to qualify is sending an email with your submission to elsmokeador at gmail dot com. The deadline for submitting your entry is going to be this coming Sunday at midnight. That is June 6th at 11:59. Monday will work as well. Maybe even tuesday if you have something but havent had time to write it up yet. Let us know.

- El Smokeador

Guest Posting Contest!

2010-05-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

SmokeHeads,

As was mentioned a few posts ago, we are now holding our first Guest Posting Extravaganza Contest for Winners and Losers Alike!!!! Get ready for HUGE CASH PRIZES and NO CASH PRIZES! (there are no cash prizes)

Here are the rules:

1) Take a picture of some food you have cooked.

2) Write a little paragraph about how you made it.

3) Email it to elsmokeador(at)gmail(dot)com

Thats it.

We will pick the one (or two) most creative and/or most delicious and/or most smoketastic entries and contact you regarding the guest post. What we are looking for, is food that emulates the style and charisma of http://elsmokeadorysmokehopper.blogspot.com/ (whatever that is). Foods can range from BBQ to Kimchi. (From BBQ to Kimchi is the name of our first cook book.)

Here is a picture of a dolphin:

Lets Get Crackin People!

-El Smokeador y SmokeHopper

p.s. There may be a hat in it for someone. Also, no one has gone out and found the BBQ rub yet. Uhhh....there is only one hat left so...somebody needs to do something quick! Dolphin Quick! (the name of our band)

We're RoboCops

2010-05-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

You know.....just fyi.

Picnic One Trillion

2010-05-08T15:26:00.000-05:00

Its Spring time People! Lets get outside and do some stuff. You...you on the Couch! Get out there and be somebody. Punch nature in the face and take exactly zero prisoners while doing so. You may be wondering how to do this on a limited budget. The Answer is picnicking...TOO THE EXTRME. But really just going on a picnic will qualify.

For my picnic meal I chose to make BLT's. But after I went to the store to shop for the B the L and the T, I saw some other good stuff and decided to make BATAMO's. Which of course is a Bacon-Arugula-Tomato-Avocado-Mayo-Onion sandwich.

For my picnic destination I chose the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens because it is (1) awesome and (2) within walking distance. Anyway, we cooked some stuff prior to departure, and we assembled the rest on the garden grounds. Keep reading if you want to know more about this. I assume this is why you are reading a blog. This is what blog reading is.

Step 1: Buy some quality food gold (aka bacon). This is Cherrywood smoked bacon. I didn't buy Applewood smoked bacon because when I looked at it in the butcher's case, it reminded me of an Applebee's ad. Way too much talk about applewood smoked bacon these days. I mean, I bet its good but...you know. I'm just sayin.

I cooked it in the oven for a while and took it out and let it cool. There are no ovens in the wild, so you have to cook it before hand.

Step 2: Make Mayo. If you don't know how to make mayo, its time to get with the picture. Its roughly twelve parsecs better than store bought mayo. But truthfully, store bought isn't bad, but if you have the ingredients sitting around, oil, lemon, vinegar...then I just make it. Thats what I say. (Note that raw egg is dangerous . They have special pasteurized eggs you can use to avoid this danger.)

Chop up some tarragon.

Mix it up in the Mayo.

Now you have tarragon Mayo. POW.

Next, you have to toast the bread. These rolls that I bought were like little bowling balls. I took out 88% of the bread and toasted it. I show you the empty bacon grease pan next to the untoasted bread, because the bread surface may have taken a trip through the cherrywood smoked bacon grease prior to going under the boiler. (it did) Toast until thoroughly toasted.

Next, make homemade cream of mushroom soup. Definitely don't get it from central market. Its just way too delicious and easy to do that.

(I bought this at Central Market.)

Next, put these things in a bag, grab a knife a cutting board etc.

Heres the full load we packed up. Note the arugula, strawberries, rose sparling wine, orange juice, and the thermos with the soup. Note them because they are there.

Get a Picnic blanket.

Start Hiking.

We chose a spot not far from these trees. Pretty secluded. Not too crowded. Not too much sun, not too much shade. We pretty much found the goldilocks zone of picnic spots. I'm actually starting another blog solely dedicated to the picking of picnic spots. It'll be ready next never.

The Picnic:

Have some soup because you're hungry and you deserve it.

Make a Mimosa because you're thirsty and you deserve it. By the way, I got rose' sparkling wine at the store instead of champagne because they were all out of the little champagnes. I was a little worried about how this would mix with the orange juice and I must tell you that it turned out wicked awesome. I may never go back to standard mimosas ever again.

(its cool to drink mimiosas...right?)

Assemble Sandwich as follows. I assembled them upside down for some reason. Anyway at the top goes the tarragon mayo, then the arugula, then the tomato, then the red onion. I put more red onions on there than is shown.

Then the food gold.

Then the avocado on the base.

Press hard, and split.

POW POW POW POW.

Eat it all up and lay back and snooze in the sun.

This is the last thing I saw before I fell asleep.

Thanks for reading everyone! Yeeehawwww!!!!

Also much more to come very soon. A guest blog contest is in the works, and we may have tracked down some minotaur meat. Stay Tuned!

Also I don't want to hear any bullpoot about how I made a sandwich and put it on the blog. It was a great sandwich!

-SmokeHopper

Beercan Chicken With Guinness As the Beer

2010-04-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

First post in a while, sorry. We have a lot of ideas tabled and frankly rose the bar a little too high with what we did in 2009. Butterfinger Brisket, come on. Chicken Fried Brisket, right. So, this is going to be relatively short and sweet. Really sweet.....because the chicken turned out really sweet. Zing.

But really, this has been on the to do list for a while. We still plan on producing several other variations on this classic but its been hard to find time lately. Smokehopper turned 30. Pretty Wild is on E!. New albums from Band of Horses, LCD Soundsystem, The Delta Spirit, Sharon Jones, The National and Gorillaz. Etc. Etc.

Onto the chicken.

Started with a whole fryer washed off and patted dry.

Threw on some paprika, salt and pepper. Also, you should crack open a Guinness at this point. The cans are sold in 4 packs, so you can have a couple yourself. In fact, when you're dealing with a smoker that is not cooperating and maintaining a pretty constant level of heat it is suggested.

Chopin is a good addition to the Guinness when dealing with a smoker induced headache. Particularly this :

That is The Clientele - Strange Geometry and Dave Matthews Band - Crash on the table. Both really solid albums if you can get over the fact that its not cool to like Dave anymore.

Dave sucks.

Not really, just kidding. Zing x2.

This is the smoker we used at SmokeNor's house. The original plan was to cook the chicken for about 4 or 5 hours at about 225. Things we didn't have that would have been great:

1) Meat thermometer (we ended up getting one later, so disregard this).

2) An oven thermometer that told gave us an accurate reading on the temp inside the chamber.

We didn't end up needing a thermometer but instead a better understanding of how the smoker worked. We didn't use nearly enough wood starting out and the heat only got up to 175 for the first 3 or 4 hours. Ended up cooking the chicken for a solid 6 hours after we figured out that we had to get a good sized fire going in the firebox. Took about 3 logs at a time. Sorry for the rant. It's under control.

We did some ribs too, but only LSmoke's turned out good. Next time I needed to make mine a little more tender. I also tried out a Guinness inspired bourbon, coffee, heath bar rub that will not be posted. Good idea on paper but executed poorly.

Anyway, here are the results. Check out how the Guinness came out through the top and drizzled down the skin. Don't think that had any effect on the final product but the chicken was easily the sweetest chicken I had ever tasted. So, I have to think that the Guinness penetrated the skin and got into the meat. It was fantastic. Like two guys playing horse.

Not much meat, but like I said above it was really tasty. Consumed pretty quickly.

So we played ship captain crew. It was a fun night.

Also, there is this:

The end.

Where in the World is Carmen BBQiego?*

2010-02-20T23:56:00.000-06:00

*(worst possible title)

It was the year 1672 when Dutch-Spanish pirates marauded the waters of the Trinity River, near the modern day DFW metroplex. Gold was the businesss, and blood was her pay. Back then, there was no rule of law, there was only rule of cannon fire. Lives were lost at the speed of the horse.

From this time of intrigue and danger arises one of the greatest treasure stories that has ever been told. Of course, I refer to the tale of “The Texas Jewel Cat, and the Secret of Archimedes’ Treasure ”.

I’m not real sure where that was going but needles to say, we hid some BBQ rub in the wilderness, and we now challenge you, the reader, to venture into the wild, and retrieve this treasure.

The TREASURE:

My standard BBQ rub in a jar.

Piuquin, Pendrey's Chili Mix, Cinnamon, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Paprika.

The Test!:

Anyway, If you're daring enough to go and find this BBQ rub, and return it to either me or Smokeador, you will receive the last El Smokeador y SmokeHopper Hat! All that we ask is that you take pictures of the rescue operation and email them to us so that we can put these pics up on the blog, along with pictures of the hat giving ceremony (which will be quite dramatic).

Also, please don’t eat or use the BBQ rub because there’s no telling who reads this blog, and would go find it and do weird stuff to it. So just return it to us. In exhange, well give you more rub as well.

Hints and More Hints:

There is only one clue which will lead you to the treasure and I’m afraid that you must use your brains. Remember now, this is the only clue:

“When chiming the doorbell in France,
One judges a man by his pants
Look into the sky, and squeeze your left thigh,
You have arrived at the party to dance.

There you go. That’s it. That should be enough to lead you to it.

Final Hint:

(it has to do with the number of fractal relationships between the odd numbered words!!)

Other small hints:

Here are the exact GPS Coordinates with a link to Google Maps:

+32° 51' 22.02", -97° 29' 9.96"

Also here are pictures of the area and final treasure hiding spot.

The Path of Destiny:

BroSmoke Tears a path:

You are very close at this point. (take a left)

Final hiding Spot:

Good Luck Treasure Seekers! Hopefully udaptes will follow at some point!

More to come soon!

-SmokeHopper

Chicken Fried Smoked Brisket ©

2010-02-01T21:21:00.000-06:00

Alright stop what you're doing, cause I'm about to ruin the image and the style that you're used to.

On January 30th, 2010 your fun little corner of the internet (you know for meat) changed the face of brisket making on a global scale. The results of our undertaking that fateful afternoon will no doubt shape the world of brisket smoking for years to come on a physical, nay a metaphysical, level.

Just kidding, we didn't change anything on a metaphysical level but we were the first people to chicken fry a smoked brisket in the history of the internet. We did several google searches (why google and not bing, because f bing thats why) and nothing came back. Quotes, hyphens, ellipses, nothing worked. I would most likely go out on a limb and say that no one with any brisket experience has ever done this. We are proud of our creation and hope you enjoy it. In fact, take some time to try it out if you must. We insist.

It was cold as all get out on the 3oth at 9:30 when we started things up. This is a neat little trick that Smokehopper showed me. Worked awesome and kept us warm.

This is a proper smoking setup if you live in Fort Worth. Please note the cup of coffee on the table. We made coffee because it was cold. There was also some jump roping involved.

Started out with 2 flats from the store. Some readers might take offense to the quality of beef that was purchased, but its a brisket and for the purposes of this post it doesn't matter that we didn't use your precious Kobe beef briskets. Picked out the flats because they wouldn't take as long to smoke and would be a ton easier to prepare for the pan than the point would be (point is the big fatty end and the flat is the flat end).

2 2.5 lbr's.

Rubbed the flats down in a chile piquin, cinnamon and paprika rub and added salt and pepper. Coated both sides like you should with a brisket.

On the smoker at 10:30 in the AM. Fat side up, not that I think it would matter in this situation.

This is what they looked like right before we wrapped them up at roughly 12:30.

Left out a picture here because I think everyone has seen a brisket wrapped in foil by now. It's foil. Here they are post foil removal at 2:30 in the afternoon. Internal temp was right at 190 when we pulled them and let them sit for about 45 minutes inside. Moved them to a pan to collect the stock when we took them out of the foil. You will see why later.

We did take one slice before we went to the store for the rest of the supplies. Slice against the grain if you want to pan fry smoked brisket.

The idea was to have some longer cuts that would resemble steak fingers, so we did that. I also wanted to have some chunks of brisket, so we did that too.

On to the potatoes. Smokehopper did all of the work on the potatoes. I did pour some milk in at one point, but am willing to forget about it. This is garlic roasting in the oven.

Bag of fingerling potatoes boiling to soften them up.

Boiled potatoes being mashed up with garlic and a little milk.

Back to the frying of the brisket. This was the bag that my rub was in but by this point we have added flour to the mix. Added the sliced briskets to the bag and shook them around until battered.

Used Crisco as the frying medium. It was a good choice.

Here is a little video of a few of the larger slices frying up. No sound, but it wasn't that loud anyway. It sounded like something was frying in a pan.

Results:

Single battered, first batch.

After the first batch came out we realized that it would be a much better idea to double batter the remaining pieces with the rest of the batter/rub. Cracked an egg and started rebattering what we had left. Do you see:

It is really important that you replicate this process. Look at that grease.

This is something else that we did that was pretty cool. Decided that chicken fried anything needs gravy and we should use the brisket stock leftover from when they were in the foil to help make the gravy. It worked. Gravy went as follows: pan from frying, a little flour and milk added, wisk wisk wisk, add some of the stock, little more flour, wisk wisk wisk, more milk, oh shit, we're losing it, little more flour, more stock, little more milk, ok good we saved it. Wouldn't recommend following the steps above to a t, but you know what gravy should look like. Also, I wouldn't add any salt in this process. The stock has a salty taste and you should have already lightly salted the fried briskets.

Now that everything was ready to be plated, I had a beer and let Smokehopper do the plating. Luckily he has fresh parsley in his back yard. What you see below is the worlds first chicken fried smoked brisket on a bed of roasted garlic mashed potatoes with a brisket stock gravy on top.

Cook time was roughly 5 hours when you count the time on the smoker and was worth every minute we put into it. I was really looking to prove my theory right that you can fry anything and it will turn out good, but I was not expecting this to turn out as well as it did. The batter/rub had a great taste when fried and the brisket did not lose any of its consistency in the pan. That little guy in the middle was delicious.

We have other ideas that are on the way, some that are still in the developmental stages (minotaur leg) and others that might not ever happen. But, if you have something you want to see us try out please feel free to leave it in the comments or shoot one of us an email. If we like your idea, we will send you a hat. We made hats.

~El Smokeador~

Brief Culinary Update

2010-01-28T21:34:00.000-06:00

I got a Smokey on my arm....

Greetings and Happy New Year Everyone! As is evident from our lack of posting, a grand hiatus was taken in December/all of January, so that life stuff could be had and bowl games and etc. You know the deal.

(A photgraphical reinaction of the Fiesta Bowl)

Wha Happen!

So, just as a reminder that we are still here and that triple awesome foodbloggin still courses through our veins in a most professional manner, I give you a brief culinary update and show you that cooking is happening, but just not over the internet. By brief update I mean a small series of pictures of food, and some comments. Hopefully it will be enjoyable for the reader. But mainly it will be enjoyable for me becasue I took the pictures. This is what blogging is.

Anyway, I learned some new stuff recently...

Bhaba Ghanoush:

Bhaba Ghanush is awesome. Deal with it. Also never spell it the same way twice. Its roasted eggplant mixed with tahini and lemon juice and herbs and garlic and olive oil. Oh yes it is delicious.

Hummus:

Hummus is also delicious. This is roasted pablano and dill hummus. Its chickpeas, lemon, herbs, tahini, garlic and oil, mixed in a food processor. The general rule is that you put this where you want it to be delicious and then delicousness is had.

I OWN A MEATSLICER:

Yea. You heard what I said.

So far all I've done is roast beef which is a beef eye round roast covered in oil and salt and pepper and baked in a 500 degree oven until it gets to 125 in the middle. The temp carries up a good 15 degrees. I'm just sayin. Note that the food geniuses at the government think the temp should be higher before eating. So you know...be safe. Dont do what I do. Then you put it in the fridge overnight, let it tighten up and then slice thin. Crazy Delicious.

Poached shrimp:

Poached shrimp is a good way to cook shrimp. Apparently poaching is "to cook in a flavorful liquid". Which made me wonder what it would be like to poach an egg in flavorded chicken stock. But thats getting way off topic.

Anyway, lsmoke cooked the shrimp shells and heads, and mire puax, and fennel in chicken stock for like an hour. We then strained it and brought it to a simmer and dumped the raw shrimp in it. The shrimp soaks up the flavor as it cooks. Unbelieveable. Served with avocado and grapefruit with a citrus vinaigrette.

Dishes of Note.

Breakfast:

This is my first breakfast stack attempt. Its roast beef on the bottom, spinach, caramalized onions, salsa, poached egg, cilantro. Yum. (you may be able to tell that there is a low carb thing going on right now)

Dinner:

This is spinach tossed with a vinaigrette of some sort, with the roast beef, hummus, and babaha ghanoosh as sides, with some cheese of one sort or another. Also there is a soy beans salad on top of the err other salad which is soybeans or edamame, with lemon juice, oil, herbs and garlic, and red onions and tomatoes.

Another Dinner:

Crispy skin salmon, served on top of warm Bhaba Ghanoush, with an aragula salad on top, with standard dijon vinaigrette all over the outer rim...near Romulan space. (if only a single person gets that joke then I will be happy). Also, roasted cherry tomatoes.

Other:

I burned myself wicked bad on the oven.

It was awesome.

I had hats made at the rodeo.

Coolest hats in the county. Let me know if you want one. There are six in this world.

Thanks for reading everyone! We are making CHICKEN FRIED SMOKED BRISKET this weekend. Oh yes. I did say that. So stay tuned!

(El Smokeador has no idea why Smokehopper didn't make a Smokehopper hat. This is the essence of Smokehopper....El Smokeador guesses.) Many props to Smokehopper starting the new year off with a bang. We have many great things ahead of us on the blog. Stay tuned for new briskets the likes the internet hasn't seen. Booby Flay has nothing on us. Booby was not spelled wrong. - ~El Smokeador~

Welcome Hole in The Wall Visitors!

2009-12-07T08:53:00.001-06:00

To all of those who have "linked over" from the amazing Fort Worth Hole in the Wall Blog, via the interent, or world wide web as the case may be, we welcome you to our amazingly professionsal, amateur cooking blog.

To give you an idea of what we are all about, we are couple of DFW based fellows, with culinary interests, and some cameras. We post seperatley on occasion, and together on occasion. Our interests range from delicious smoked meats on the one hand to egg in the basket on the other. There is even a post which tells you how to boil water. Also, WE DONT TAKE PRISONERS. We really don't. At no point have we even been presented with the opportunity to take prisoners so...pretty much there have been no prisoners.

I'm SmokeHopper, I'm the "wheelman" of this operation , and El Smokeador is the "getaway driver". Both of us just driving fast and crashing into stuff, and making briskets along the way. There is no "Brains" of the operation. (Coincidentally, "There is No Brains", is the name of my band) Please check out some of our greatest hits, and stay tuned for more posts in the future. CaberNog- Everyone's favorite Holiday mixture of Cabernet and Eggnog will be featured shortly. (gross? probably) Also, there will be cash giveaways and HUGE prizes. (there will be no cash or prizes).

Best Hits:

Butterfinger Brisket -
http://elsmokeadorysmokehopper.blogspot.com/2009/07/butterfinger-brisket.html

Sandwich Quest One Million - http://elsmokeadorysmokehopper.blogspot.com/2009/10/sandwich-quest-one-million.html

The Best Cheeseburger in Comanche County -
http://elsmokeadorysmokehopper.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-cheeseburger-in-comanche-tx.html

Southwestern Style Eggs Benedict -
http://elsmokeadorysmokehopper.blogspot.com/2009/11/southwestern-style-eggs-benedict.html

Thanks for stopping by everyone! And thanks to the Fort Worth Hole in the Wall Blog!

Fort all of our regular readers who have no idea what I'm talking about, please go check out the following link, and get ready to have your mind blown, via web log:

http://fortworthholeinthewall.blogspot.com/

Great Blog. Probably the best index of good restaurants in Fort Worth, accompanied by quality reviews. If you are bored on a Friday night in this city, you don't have to be. Just go check out this blog, find a place, and go there. And then eat. And then thats it.

-SmokeHopper

A Couple Ways to Cook Pheasant and How to Cure Pheasant Induced Stomach Ache

2009-12-01T18:28:00.000-06:00

Greetings friends. I hope you are well in this most glorious holiday season. It has been a couple of months since my last post, and for that I apologize dear readers. The hot dogs in the USDD proved to be too much, and I have only recently come to the realization that while it was not the entirely best idea, it certainly wasn't the worst. And that it needed more hot dogs. But I digress.

About a month ago, around Halloweentime, I took a couple people to Nebraska on a quest to defeather as many pheasants as possible while at the same time putting as much lead in the air as possible. Both goals were attained.

It should be noted that Maskell, NE is about a 12 hour drive from Dallas but is only 15 minutes from Vermillion, SD. If you ever go to Vermillion you will understand why this is such a vital part of the trips. Had I gotten waivers signed, I would post pictures to help with the narrative, but I didn't, so I wont. We really couldn't have asked for better weather for the hunts, I don't think it got below 40 at night and stayed right around 70 during the day and there was no snow, so hiking through 2-3 feet of snow wasn't an issue this time. Check back in January and I will tell a different story. Long story short, I think we all had a blast and most importantly limited out on pheasant (36).

On the way home it was decided that since we each had 12 birds that we should definitely deep fry some to see how different it was from McDonalds Chicken McNuggets. The next weekend about 20 people came over for a pheasant fry/smoke off. I have smoked some of these birds before, but this time was a little different. To begin, I got pressed for time and the brine did not turn out how I wanted. A brine can just be really salty water, or you can add fruits and whatnot. I have been wanting to add oranges to my cinnamon/sea salt brine since the last time I did this, but I ran out of time and didn't get a chance to get oranges. Improvisation.

(schepps makes the best orange juice for brining pheasants that don't turn out like they are supposed too)

It should be noted that when I was boiling the water to dissolve the salt/cinnamon chips in I got very tired. Once it was all dissolved I turned off the burner, added the juice and left it on the stove to cool. That was midnight and the plan was to add the birds at 1am to let them soak until about 1pm the next day. My couch had other ideas and I wound up sleeping until about 6 am with exactly zero birds in the brine. In the business this is called a brinefail (I think its happened before).

(Water, schepps OJ, cinnamon chips and salt. Cooling while I sleep.)

(3 birds a brining~roughly 6am)

About 2pm I put the six beasts (only 2 were beasts the other 4 were hens) in the smoke to begin their transformation. Bottom line, they cooked weird and I still don't know why. The last time I smoked pheasant, all of the meat was ready in about 3.5 hours. This time the breasts were ready after about 3, took them inside to carve out the feast and the legs/thighs were still bloody as all getout and not cooked. Threw them back on for another hour to see what that would bring. It dried out the breastmeats but not to a point that they weren't delicious as S.

So, I chopped up the 6 breasts, put them in a bowl and we made sandwiches out of them (sandwiches not pictured). But they were delicious. Smoked pheasant tastes not unlike a smoked chicken, it's just different. Same texture as chicken or turkey, but without the gamey taste as other wild birds.

The hit of the day was the deep fried pheasant. There are three really important parts to making deep fried pheasant.

1) Buy a deep fryer.

2) Use spoiled milk.

(Picture of spoiled milk not pictured.)

3) Fry the pheasant.

For reasons unbeknownst to me there was a 3 or 4 week old unopened carton of milk in my fridge that the preparer did not smell, or look at to see if it was old. I do not fault him for this as I should not have 4 week old milk in my fridge. It's my fault that they tasted great, you could say. Regardless we prepped the pheasant by cutting it into chunks, soaking them in said milk and battering them in a good mixture of flour and spices. It should be noted that I had nothing to do with this part and do not know what ratios of spices to flour they used, but it wasn't too spicy or too not spicy so.....I hope that helps. But seriously, many thanks to the preparers for spending an hour or so cutting up the birds and getting them ready for the fryer. Once they had a good consistency of potentially good crust we fried up about 4 batches. Each of which was devoured in a matter of minutes. Spoiled milk was the key.

No it wasnt. But it could have been. There really is no way to tell because just about anything you batter and deep fry is going to generally taste good. FORESHADOWING?

The last method that I was probably the most excited about was making homemade pheasant noodle soup. When it came time to make the soup I was not as motivated as I was when I began to thaw out the single pheasant that I was going to make soup with. Rule of thumb, use more than one pheasant.

I hesitate to call this a disaster, because it tasted great, but it is now in my trash in the alley behind my house. I don't know if it was the stock that I made overnight, the adding of rice or what, but lets just say that the soup was Elin and my stomach was Tiger. I didn't mention that I had planned on making homemade egg noodles too, but forgot all of the materials when I went to the store so I opted for pheasant and rice soup. Chicken and rice is a good soup, so this should have been too.

Begin things I didn't do right that you should do right if you attempt pheasant noodle soup and want to do it right, which I will be doing in a post sometime in the new year. NOT FORESHADOWING, STATEMENT OF FACT.

Salt and pepper pheasants and put them in water that has been boiled and reduced to a good simmer. I did this but only used one pheasant. Make sure you have enough water that they are both covered.

After simmering for a good 1.5-2.5 hours take the bird out and set it aside. This is what you should have remaining in the pot. Pheasants are pretty lean birds so there is not much grease floating on top like when you make chicken stock.

(Bird set aside for overnight storage)

Strain the dirty stock into a separate bowl, clean original pot and transfer back.

This could be where it went entirely wrong for me. I let the stock cool, put it in the fridge for overnight storage with the bird. I don't know if this did anything bad overnight, but it's entirely possible.

The bird and the stock sat in the fridge until I got home from work around 9pm the next night. I chopped up some carrot, celery and onion and set them aside.

Did the same with the bird meats.

Brought the stock back to a boil, reduced to simmer and added in the vegetables.

(Carrots sink.)

Once the onions and celery became somewhat translucent and soft I stirred in the pheasant. Added salt and pepper sparingly with a little garlic powder.

After letting it simmer for about 1.5 hours I added in some rice and let it simmer for another 30 minutes or so. When it was finished I immediately got a cup and dug in. I did not take very blog friendly pictures of the soup, so I will have to revisit in pheasant soup pt. 2. As stated above, not enough pheasant, but it still tasted great. The stock itself didn't have the same taste that a chicken stock has, but I think it was because I only used one pheasant. Or maybe I didn't let her simmer enough from the start.

An hour after consumption my stomach started hurting something fierce. I ordered a pizza and it felt better.

~El Smokeador~

Southwestern Style Eggs Benedict

2009-11-02T08:27:00.000-06:00

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

2009-10-13T19:36:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-01T14:52:00.000-05:00

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

2009-09-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-08-13T12:26:00.001-05:00

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