Tamales of the Candy Cane Brisket Variety

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.

First Attempt - the Art of the Chesterhouse

Chesterhouse is a nonsense word. It was a red Herring!!! Muhahah.

So my first attempt went like this...and like that....now you know where the real g's at. Now lean like a Cholo. Elbows up side to side. Elb Elbows up side to side. I'm Brown I get down the girls love How I lean. Cuz I'm lean like a brisket. Smoke Hop Up side to Side Smoke Smoke Hop Up side top side.

So I stayed up till 3:00am or so with Robert and Preston in my car (for some reason) the night before my first attempt and I wasn't prepared in any manner to "smoke a brisket" as we say in the "Biz". Anyway so I woke up at 9:30, went to store, bought brisket, started fire, rubbed brisket and put the dude on there at around 11:00. The above picture is what it looked like after an hour or so.

Things I wasnt prepared for:

Thermometer: I didnt have an adequate thermometer. Note* meat thermometers only go up to 200. If you want to exceed 200 you cant use a meat thermometer. So i had to use an oven thermometer which was a pain in the ass because I had to open the chamber to check the temp, which if you ask El Smokeador, is a huge no-no.

Inviting Claire: Dont invite Claire to your BBQ. She wins at washers, sleeps in your guest bed. Terrible.

Beer: Note* beer makes you drunk . If you drink too much, you will no longer keep a close enough watch on the fire. At times the fire ranged from 145 to as high as 325. I can understand the 325 because when you add fuel to a low fire and you dont want it to go out you have to sometimes give it enough O2 to catch and then you can inhibit O2 flow to lower the temp. This i did. The 145 is unnaceptable. I was simply too drunk and forgot about fire.

Pretty much same pic as above.

Time: Having not smoked in a while I had forgotten that the time factor is huge. You are trying to slow cook a hugely dense, generally tough piece of meat. If I was braising this fucker in my crock pot, I'd leave it for like 24 hours. no kidding. And it would be delicious, in a red wine mire puax braising fluid, roasted garlic...I digress. Anyway, the brisket needed time at constant temp wrapped. This i didnt do as well as I should have. I let the internal temp get too high before i wrapped it, which i dont think effected it too much, but after I wrapped it I did not keep the temp steady and straight for the requisite time. As a result the inner core of the brisket was tougher than it should have been and needed an hour and a half more of cooking or more. Oh well, live and learn

Here it is after 4 hours or so. Note the Bacon.

Things I did right:

Smoke Flavor: I got the smoke flavor into this brisket straight. Hardcore style. The smoke ring was perfect. UGHHH DOUBLE UP UGGH UGHH !

Rub: I found an internet Rub. Here it is:

• 5 tablespoons paprika
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons salt
  
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  
• 2 tablespoons onion powder
  
• 4 teaspoons black pepper
  
• 4 teaspoons dried parsley
  
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  
• 1/4 teaspoon hot chili powder
  

Instead of chili powder and cayenne pepper I substituted some fresh ground (by me) dried chile piquins from Pendrey's which added a perfect spice and additional smokey flavor. The rub worked out perfect. All who tased my brisket commented on how good it was.

Drinking and playing Washers: This was a good idea.

Smoking Bacon and Serving as Appetizers: Lane taught me this trick. Bacon is deliscious on a smoker and cooks fast and holds the smoke flvor VERY well. You can see delicious bacon in the above picture I recommend this at all times. even when not smoking (?)

Summary. All in all the Brisket turned out pretty darn good for a first unprepared attempt. A bunch of people came over and we all had fun. The brisket, although everyone raved about how good it was, was a B/B-. The only reason it was that good was becasue of my prior smoking experience. It would not be terribly hard to move this to an A- brisket. With just a little more gumption and hardcoreness.

I will likely move on to chickens and salmon before i return to battle brisket again, but HEAR ME NOW BRISKET, I SHALL RETURN.

Finished Product

(thanks to Allison, Claire, and Matt "I dont want a beard" Beard for all of the pics)

(thanks also for all who came)

-SmokeHopper