2 cups Basic All-American Barbecue Sauce on the side
1. Rub the brisket
thoroughly on all its sides with the barbecue rub, and allow it to come to room
temperature.
2. In the pit of a
covered grill, build a very small fire on one side as far up against one wall
as possible. Place the brisket on the grill on the side opposite from the fire
so that none of the brisket is directly over the flame. Put the top on the
cooker, pull up a chair, and grab the cooler.
This is where a person learns about the Zen of Barbecue. You
gotta keep the fire going, but very quietly. If you’ve got a thermometer on
your covered grill, you want to keep the temperature between 180° and 220°F.
Remember, “Slow and low is the way to go.” You have to figure out your own
personal refueling policy. The one I like is one handful of coals or wood
chunks to every beer.
This goes on for about 8 to 10 hours or however long you can make
it, the longer the better. Don’t be scared by the darkening of the exterior,
the outside of the brisket will be superdark—my personal favorite part.
3. Upon completion,
pull the brisket out, trim off any excess fat, and slice it thin. Serve with
barbecue sauce on the side—no pro would ever cover properly cooked brisket with
sauce, he’d just dab on a touch.
Obviously the key here is a tremendous amount of patience and a
day when you want to do nothing but sit around. But the end product is one of
those great culinary events that results from spending a lot of time doing
something that is relaxing and enjoyable. Make sure you have plenty of tall
boys for eating this.
In my estimation, beef brisket just might
be why the barbecue process was invented. My research, sketchy as it is, shows
that there was a strong German immigrant community in Texas around the turn of the
century. It has some of these Germans working in the booming Texas cattle
industry, and others working in butcher shops, what with their strong background
in butchering and charcuterie. It being common knowledge that butchers are
constantly trying to turn tough or inexpensive cuts of meat into a usable
product that brings a higher cost (witness sausages and pâtés), it has these
German butchers faced with the brisket. This cut of beef is particularly
unwanted because of the huge percentage of fat that runs not only on the
surface, but throughout the cut. Traditional technique would braise or pickle
this cut to tenderize it, but the brisket also has a lot of beef flavor. In my
personal opinion, a very smart German butcher who was looking for a way to
market this cut barbecued it. We’re not talking here about the open-pit
roasting that was already popular in this area, but rather closed-pit cooking,
in which the cooking is done by convection rather than conduction. It is
similar to braising in theory, with the smoke replacing the water. It is cooked
at very low heat for a long period of time, and the high fat content protects the
meat from drying out but also disappears through the 10- to 18- hour cooking
process. What you are left with is very tender meat with little or no fat and a
tremendous smoky beef flavor. I think the meat and the process were literally
invented for each other.
Now, I don’t think that you will get any disagreement from the professional
barbecue industry when I say that brisket is the hardest to master—but, hey,
learning is half the fun. And, in the words of Remus Powers, famous barbecue
aficionado, “The best barbecue I ever had is the one on the plate in front of
me.”
These are guidelines for the closed-pit barbecuing of brisket,
a basic technique with many variables which is wide open for personal interpretations.
• Serves 8 to 10 beer-swilling
cowboys/girls
SERVING SUGGESTIONS: I
like this with Hot Pepper Corn Bread, Grandma Wetzler’s Baked Beans, and
Tidewater Coleslaw. Your Basic Grilled Corn is good, too, and don’t forget the
watermelon.
2 cups Eastern North Carolina-style Barbecue Sauce
Cheap white fluffy buns Tidewater Coleslaw
Bottle of hot sauce for garnish
1. Rub the pork butts on all sides with the dry rub and allow them to
come to room temperature (about 2 hours).
2. Using hardwood charcoal, build a small fire in one side of a covered
cooker. Allow about 40 minutes for the charcoal to become completely caught.
3. Place the butts on the grill, making sure that they are not above any part of the fire.
Cover and vent slightly.
4. Pull a comfortable chair and a cooler full of beer out of the house
and sit next to the grill, adding small amounts of charcoal when needed to keep
the fire just smoldering (about every 30
or 40 minutes or after each beer, whichever comes first).
5. Cook for 5 to 7
hours, or until the internal temperature is 165° to 170°F and the meat is super
tender.
6. Remove the pork
butts from the grill and chop or shred them, whichever you prefer. Mix the pork
with the sauce to taste, and pile it onto the buns, topped with coleslaw.
Garnish with a bottle of hot sauce.
The real stuff. When I think of barbecue,
this is what it is. The way to eat this incomparable sandwich is sitting at a
picnic table south of the Mason-Dixon Line, with a bottle of Texas Pete close
at hand, a tall, frosty beer open, and George Jones on the radio. What more need
be said? This amount should serve about 15 people and will keep covered in the
refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
2 full racks of 3/down pork spareribs For
1 cup basic Barbecue Rib Rub
2 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chili powder
4 tablespoons paprika For 2 cups basting sauce
1¾ cups white vinegar
2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1. Let’s say dinner
is at 6 P.M. Bright and early, so you can say that you’ve been cooking all day,
preheat the oven to 180°F and rub the ribs thoroughly with the barbecue rub.
2. Place the ribs on
baking sheets and put them in the oven for 3 hours. Don’t bother to turn them,
because all you are doing is slow cooking and infusing spices.
3. Remove the ribs
from the oven. They can stand out for a while, be refrigerated, covered, at
this point for up to 2 days, or go right onto the grill.
4. You want a very
low charcoal fire with the rack set as high as possible. Put the ribs on and
let them stay there as long as your patience allows. A light crust on the
outside and heat throughout is the goal, and depending on your fire, it can be
achieved in 5 minutes per side or it can take up to ½ hour per side if you’re
into prolonging your guests’ agony. Of course, the longer the ribs cook the
better.
5. If you like your
ribs “wet,” coat them with sauce just before removing them from the grill. (The
other option is to serve the ribs “dry” with sauce on the side.)
6. Remove the ribs
from the grill and cut in between the bones.
This method comes pretty close to true
barbecuing, missing only the intense smoky flavor that can be achieved only by
3 hours of slow
barbecuing. The ribs are coated with a mixture of spices, then cooked
slowly in the oven and finished on the grill. The most important part of
barbecuing is the slow cooking of the meat, which allows it to become tender
without drying out. The term “3/down” refers to the weight of the ribs. In this
case, it is 3 pounds or under for each slab of 10 to 12 ribs. This recipe is
easily halved or doubled. Just keep the proportion of the rub to the sauce 2:1.
• Serves 5 hungry folks
SERVING SUGGESTIONS:Serve
them with the traditional accompaniments: Tidewater Coleslaw, Grandma Wetzler’s
Baked Beans, East Coast Grill Corn Bread or a couple of slices of cheap white
bread, and watermelon, as is the prevailing tradition in sparerib country.
1. In a covered cooker, build a small fire in one half of the grill.
Let the fuel become completely engulfed in flames, then wait a few minutes for
the fire to burn down somewhat.
2. Rub the ribs thoroughly with the barbecue rub, put them on the half
of the grill without fire under it, put the cover on the cooker, and vent
slightly. Cook for 45 minutes, feeding the fire every 30 minutes or so to keep
it going. Flip the ribs and cook them an additional 45 minutes, still feeding
the fire regularly.
3. Remove the ribs from the fire and serve them dry (this is how the pros
do it) with Basic All-American Barbecue Sauce on the side.
Barbecuing pork spareribs
outdoors on a covered grill is not an easy task, since the large surface area
of the ribs makes it hard to have more than one rib on the grill without
having the meat directly over the flames. For this reason use baby back ribs in
this recipe. Baby backs do not have the size or thickness of spareribs and come
from the back of the pig where the meat is tenderer. While I think of that as
cheating a little bit, since barbecuing is designed to break down tough meat,
baby backs can carry the smoke flavor well and take less time and patience to
cook. When you feel cocky with the baby backs, you can increase the level of
difficulty by moving up a weight class.
• Serves 6 as an appetizer
SERVING SUGGESTIONS:I
would serve this in front of Grill-Seared Sushi-Quality Tuna with Soy, Wasabi,
and Pickled Ginger or Grilled West Indies Spice-Rubbed Chicken Breast with
Grilled Banana.
6 duck legs from 3 5-pound ducks, trimmed of excess
fat
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
4 tablespoons white vinegar
3 dashes of Tabasco sauce
1. Rub the legs with lots of salt and pepper. Build a small fire as
far to one side of a covered cooker as possible. Place the legs skin-side down
on the side of the grill opposite the fire.
2. Cover and cook for 1½ to 2 hours, or until a fork stuck into a
leg twists easily. You will need to feed the fire slightly while
they’re cooking, just enough to keep it smoldering. You are barbecuing now, so
grab a beer and remember the pitmaster’s creed, “Slow and low is the way to go.”
3. When the legs are
tender, remove them from the grill, allow them to cool slightly, then remove
the meat and skin from the bone and place them in a bowl. The meat should be
crispy, not fatty, and you want to shred it into fairly small pieces. Add the
vinegar, Tabasco sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. This is best
served immediately, but can be refrigerated, covered, for 4 to 5 days or frozen.
To bring it back, place it in a pan in a 250°F oven for 20 to 30 minutes.
This is an excellent use for the extra leg
meat you may have left from a grilled duck breast dish. While the exposure to
smoke for long periods usually dominates its prey, the taste of duck is strong
enough to stand up against the smoky tenderness of barbecuing. This freezes well
and can be served in sandwiches for extra fancy barbecue or with fresh
tortillas. Or reserve the breasts to make Grilled Duck Breast with
Kumquat-Sugarcane-Basil Glaze and serve the barbecue alongside.
• 1 pound
SERVING SUGGESTIONS:Serve
this with fresh tortillas, Black Bean Salad, and Corn Bread Salad with Lime
Juice and Cilantro, or with Pita Bread and Cold Orzo Salad.
Some Facts
Nouvelle cuisine reintroduced America to the practice
of cooking duck breast medium-rare. This presented chefs with the problem
of how to handle the legs of the duck, since it is not appropriate to undercook
them and even by nouvelle standards a single duck breast does not a portion
make. So we went scurrying to create interesting treatments for the legs. Some
simply served the legs separately and cooked them longer. Others made duck
sausage or confit. Still others made forcemeat and stuffed Chinese dumplings or
ravioli. The common factor in all of these preparations is a cooking method
that breaks down tough meat. One day while racking my brain for one more
creative and unusual way to use the duck legs that went with a
Southern-inspired duck breast preparation, I decided to fall back on the
basics—why not barbecue
them? Now, as you should all know, this does not mean grilling, but rather
exposing the meat to wood smoke at low temperatures for a long time, allowing
for the sinews to break down completely. It worked really well, proving as
usual that old ways and new products are often an excellent match.
1. Rub the chickens well with the barbecue rub. Cover, put in the refrigerator,
and let them sit for 1 hour.
2. In a covered cooker, build a small fire on one side and allow all
of the fuel to become completely engulfed in flame. After it has burned down
somewhat, put the chickens on the grill over the side with no fire. Cover the
cooker and vent slightly.
3. Cook for 3 hours, maintaining the fire with intermittent feedings,
maybe twice an hour.
4. Check the chickens by poking your fork into the thighs. If the juices
run clear, dinner is ready.
The more you learn about
barbecue, the more you understand that it is the method
that makes it barbecue. In this case, I don’t even use a
“barbecue sauce.” Instead, I rub the chicken with a dry rub, and its reaction
during the cooking process results in a mellow, tender, smoky flavor and a
crisp, crusty skin. The rub seems to concentrate the flavor on the surface in
the same way a sauce would. I encourage you to experiment with the rub—it’s a
way to make your own personal barbecue statement. Some people like a lot of
sugar, while others go heavy on the paprika. As is normally true with any
aspect of barbecue, the quality of the barbecue is directly proportional to the
quality of the patter you spin while serving it.
• Serves 4
SERVING
SUGGESTIONS: Serve this with Grilled Andouille Sausage and Yam Salad and José’s
Jicama Slaw.
In 1492 when Columbus discovered the New World he found
the Arawak Indians cooking meat over pits of fire – they called this process barbacoawhich is, presumably, the origin
of what is today known as barbecue.
Barbecue(alsobarbeque,BBQandbarbie)
is a method and apparatus for char grilling food in the hot smoke of a wood
fire, usually charcoalfueled. In
the United States, togrillis to cook in this manner quickly, whilebarbecueis typically a much slower method utilizing less heat thangrilling, attended to over an extended
period of several hours.
The term as a noun can refer to the meat or to the cooking
apparatus itself (the "barbecue grill" or
simply "barbecue"). The term as an adjective can refer to foods
cooked by this method. The term is also used as a verb for the act of cooking
food in this manner.
Barbecue is usually done in an outdoor environment by
cooking andsmoking
the meatover wood or charcoal. Restaurant barbecue may be cooked in
large brick or metal ovens specially designed for that purpose.
Barbecue has numerousregional
variationsin many parts of the world.
Welcome to the new world of barbecuing. Sure, this is still
the perfect way to entertain a group of friends on a hot, sunny day. But
today’s barbecue is also an integral part of our kitchen equipment which can be
used for everything from family meals to that special dinner party. And you
know what? There is something about the smoky aromas of food being cooked over
glowing coals that still, to this day, excites my palate and invariably starts my
mouth watering.
Barbecue Etymology
Most etymologists believe
that barbecue derives from the word barabicu found in the
language of the Taíno people of the Caribbean and
the Timucua of Florida, and entered European languages in the
form barbacoa. The word translates as "sacred fire
pit." The word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a
wooden platform resting on sticks.
Traditional barbacoa involves
digging a hole in the ground and placing some meat (usually a whole goat)
with a pot underneath it, so that the juices can make a hearty broth. It is
then covered with maguey leaves and coal and set alight. The cooking
process takes a few hours.
It has been suggested that both
the word and cooking technique migrated out of the Caribbean and into other
languages and cultures, with the word (barbacoa) moving from Caribbean dialects
into Spanish, then Portuguese, French, and English.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first recorded use of the
word in the English language as a verb in 1661, in Edmund
Hickeringill's Jamaca Viewed: "Some
are slain, and their flesh forthwith Barbacu'd and eat." It also
appears as a verb in the published writings of John Lederer, following his
travels in the American southeast in 1672. The first known use of the word
as a noun was in 1697 by the British buccaneer William Dampier. In
his New Voyage Round the World, Dampier writes: And lay there all night,
upon our Borbecu's, or frames of Sticks, raised about 3-foot (0.91 m) from
the Ground.
Samuel Johnson's 1756 dictionary
gave the following definitions:
"To Barbecue – a term
for dressing a whole hog" (attestation to Pope) "Barbecue – a hog dressed whole"
While the standard modern English
spelling of the word is barbecue, local variations
like barbeque and truncations such as bar-b-q or bbq may
also be found. The spelling barbeque is given
in Merriam-Webster OnLine as a variant spelling, while the Oxford
English Dictionary states that barbecue is "often misspelled as
barbeque".
In the southeastern United
States, the word barbecue is used predominantly as a noun referring
to roast pork, while in the southwestern states cuts of beef are
often cooked.
Barbecuing Techniques
Barbecuing
encompasses four or five distinct types of cooking techniques. The original
technique is cooking using smoke at lower temperatures (usually around 240–270
°F or 115–125 °C) and significantly longer cooking times (several hours), known
as smoking.
Another technique is baking,
utilizing a masonry oven or any other type of baking oven, which uses
convection to cook meats and starches with moderate temperatures for an average
cooking time (about an hour plus a few extra minutes).
Yet another technique
is braising, which combines direct
dry heat charbroiling on a ribbed surface with a broth-filled pot for moist
heat, cooking at various speeds throughout the duration (starting fast, slowing
down, then speeding up again, lasting for a few hours).
Finally, grilling is done over direct dry heat,
usually over a hot fire (i.e., over500 °F (260 °C)) for a short time
(minutes). Grilling may be done over wood, charcoal, gas (natural gas or propane), or electricity.
1) Smoking
Smoke roasting or smoke baking refers to any
process that has the attributes of smoking combined with either roasting or
baking. This smoking method is sometimes referred to as "barbecuing",
"pit baking", or "pit roasting". It may be done in a smoke
roaster, closed wood-fired masonry oven or barbecue pit, any smoker that can
reach above 250 °F (121 °C), or in a conventional oven by placing a pan
filled with hardwood chips on the floor of the oven so the chips smolder and
produce a smoke bath. However, this should only be done in a well-ventilated
area to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.
Evidence suggests
that smoked foods may contain carcinogens. The smoking process contaminates
food with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known carcinogens,
so, in theory, consuming smoked food increases the risk of gastrointestinal
cancer. Some studies have found a positive statistical correlation between
intestinal tract cancer and the frequent intake of smoked foods. In one
Hungarian longitudinal study, a district in which home-smoked meat was the
predominant protein source consumed showed that the incidence of stomach
cancer, relative to all other cancers, was nearly twice as high (47%–50%) as
that of the general Hungarian population (29.9%).
Other sources,
however, while agreeing that PAHs help cause cancer, note the dearth of
research studies proving a strong correlation between the intake of smoked
foods and increased cancer risk. The National Cancer Institute emphasizes that
"population studies have not established a definitive link between ...
cooked meats and cancer in humans," but suggests individuals reduce their
exposure to PAHs.
2) Baking
The masonry oven is
similar to a smoke pit in that it allows for an open flame, but cooks much
faster, and uses convection to cook. Barbecue-baking can also be done
in traditional stove-ovens. It can be used to cook not only meats, but breads
and other starches, and even various casseroles and desserts. It uses both direct and indirect heat to
surround the food with hot air to cook, and can be basted much the same as
grilled foods.
3) Braising
It is possible to
braise meats and vegetables in a pot on top of a grill. A gas or electric
charbroil grill would be the best choices for what is known
as barbecue-braising, or combining dry heat charbroil-grilling directly on
a ribbed surface and braising in a broth-filled pot for moist heat. To braise,
put a pot on top of the grill, cover it, and let it simmer for a few hours.
There are two advantages to barbecue-braising: the first is that this method
now allows for browning the meat directly on the grill before the braising, and
the second is that it also allows for glazing the meat with sauce and finishing
it directly over the fire after the braising, effectively cooking the meat
three times, which results in a soft textured product that falls right off the
bone. This method of barbecue has a varying duration (depending on whether a slow cooker or pressure
cooker is used), and is generally slower than
regular grilling or baking, but faster than pit-smoking.
4) Grilling
Grilling usually
involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for
cooking meat quickly. Food to be grilled is cooked on a grill (an open wire
grid such as a gridiron with a heat source above or below), a grill pan
(similar to a frying pan, but with raised ridges to mimic the wires of an open
grill), or griddle (a flat plate heated from below). Heat transfer to the food
when using a grill is primarily via thermal radiation. Heat transfer when using
a grill pan or griddle is by direct conduction. In the United States and
Canada, when the heat source for grilling comes from above, grilling is termed broiling.
In this case, the pan that holds the food is called a broiler pan, and heat
transfer is by thermal radiation.
Direct heat grilling
can expose food to temperatures often in excess of 260 °C (500 °F).
Grilled meat acquires a distinctive roast aroma from a chemical process called
the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction only occurs when foods reach
temperatures in excess of 155 °C (310 °F).
Risks of grilling. As is true of any high-temperature frying
or baking, when meat is grilled at high temperatures, the cooking process can
generate carcinogenic chemicals. Two processes are thought to be responsible. Heterocyclic
amines - "HCAs are formed when amino acids, sugars, and creatine react at
high temperatures." Additionally, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -
"PAHs are formed when fat and juices from meat grilled directly over an
open fire drip onto the fire, causing flames. These flames contain PAHs that
then adhere to the surface of the meat. PAHs can also be formed during other
food preparation processes, such as smoking of meats."
However it is possible to significantly reduce carcinogens
when grilling meat, or mitigate their effect. Garlic, rosemary, basil, mint, sage,
savory, marjoram, oregano, olive oil, cherries, and vitamin E have been shown
to reduce formation of both HCAs and PCAs. Another method is pre-cooking the
meat in the microwave, then draining meat juices so they do not fall onto
flames, preventing release of PCAs. Side dishes and drinks rich in antioxidants,
such as tea, have also been shown to neutralize the toxins by mixing in one's
stomach.
Benefits of grilling. Grilled foods
can be lower in saturated fat, if fat is allowed to drip out after it
liquefies.
How
Long Does It Take to Cook?
There are so many variables in barbecuing – the BBQ itself, which part
of the grill you are cooking on, the thickness of the meat, poultry or seafood,
even the weather. Remember you can cheat a little by making a very small cut in
anything with the point of a very small sharp knife and taking a peek. And, at
the risk of repeating myself, for larger joints, whole chickens and the like,
an instant-read thermometer is invaluable. I also have, on the side of my gas-fired
BBQ, a burner which certainly makes cooking sauces, blanching veggies and so on
a lot easier. But if this is not the case with your barbie, it’s worth considering
buying one of those small individual units complete with gas bottle which are available
in most Asian groceries, camping shops and hardware stores.
The
Barbecue Itself
I have both a kettle and a gas-fired BBQ. Although they are pretty much
interchangeable, I tend to use them for particular jobs. For example, I always
use the kettle for large pieces of meat, whole chickens and the like, while I
prefer to cook steaks, cutlets, fish fillets and all those small numbers on the
gas-fired version where the direct heat tends to be fiercer. And if you don't
happen to have a kettle barbecue but instead have a covered oven type gas-fired
number, just think of indirect heat as the equivalent of moderate heat, and
direct heat as fairly high.
When
is it Hot Enough?
To tell how hot your barbie is, hold your hand about 10 cm above the
grill, then start counting until you have to remove your hand – one potato, two
potatoes and so on until four, is a hot fire. Five to six potatoes is medium
high, seven to nine is medium, ten to twelve is medium low and thirteen to fifteen
is very low and the coals most probably need replenishing.
Barbecuing Styles
In British usage, barbecuing refers
to a fast cooking process directly over high heat,
while grilling refers to cooking under a source of direct,
high heat—known in the United States and Canada as broiling.
In American English usage, however, grilling refers to a
fast process over high heat, while barbecuing refers to a slow
process using indirect heat and/or hot smoke (very similar to some forms of roasting). For example, in a typical U.S. home grill, food
is cooked on a grate directly over hot charcoal, while in a U.S. barbecue, the
coals are dispersed to the sides or at significant distance from the grate. Its
South American versions are the southern Brazilian churrasco and
the Argentine asado.
Alternatively, an apparatus
called a smoker with a separate fire box may be used. Hot smoke is drawn past
the meat by convection for very slow cooking. This is essentially how barbecue
is cooked in most U.S. "barbecue" restaurants, but nevertheless, many
consider this to be a distinct cooking process called hot smoking.
American South and
Midwest
In the southern
United States, barbecue initially revolved around the cooking of
pork. During the 19th century, pigs were a low-maintenance food source
that could be released to forage for themselves in forests and woodlands. When
food or meat supplies were low, these semi-wild pigs could then be caught and
eaten.
It was the Spanish who
first introduced the pig into the Americas and to the American Indians.
The Indians, in turn, introduced the Spanish to the concept of true slow
cooking with smoke. The Spanish colonists came to South Carolina in
the early 16th century and settled at Santa Elena. It was in that early
American colony that Europeans first learned to prepare and to eat
"real" barbecue.
According to estimates, prior to
the American Civil War, Southerners ate around five pounds of pork for
every one pound of beef they consumed. Because of the poverty of the
southern United States at this time, every part of the pig was eaten
immediately or saved for later (including the ears, feet, and other
organs). Because of the effort to capture and cook these wild hogs, pig
slaughtering became a time for celebration, and the neighborhood would be
invited to share in the largesse. In Cajun culture, these are
called boucheries. These feasts are sometimes called 'pig pickin's.' The
traditional Southern barbecue grew out of these
gatherings.
Each Southern locale has its own particular variety of
barbecue, particularly concerning the sauce. North Carolina sauces
vary by region; eastern North Carolina uses a vinegar-based sauce, the
center of the state enjoys Lexington-style barbecue, which uses a
combination of ketchup and vinegar as their base, and western North
Carolina uses a heavier ketchup base. Lexington boasts of being "The Barbecue Capital of the World"
and it has more than one BBQ restaurant per 1,000 residents. South
Carolina is the only state
that includes all four recognized barbecue sauces, including mustard-based, vinegar-based, and light and
heavy tomato-based. Memphis barbecue is best known for tomato-
and vinegar-based sauces. In some Memphis establishments and in
Kentucky, meat is rubbed with dry seasoning (dry rubs)
and smoked over hickory wood without sauce; the finished
barbecue is then served with barbecue sauce on the side.
The barbecue of Alabama, Georgia,
and Tennessee is almost always pork served with a sweet tomato-based
sauce. However, several regional variations exist as well. Alabama is
particularly known for its distinctive white sauce, a mayonnaise- and
vinegar-based sauce, originating in northern Alabama, used predominantly on
chicken and pork. A popular item in North Carolina and Memphis is the pulled
pork sandwich served on a bun and often topped with coleslaw. Pulled pork is prepared by shredding the pork after it has
been barbecued.
Kansas City-style
barbecue is characterized by its use of different types of meat (including pulled pork, pork ribs, burnt
ends, smoked sausage, beef brisket, beef ribs, smoked/grilled chicken,
smoked turkey, and sometimes fish), a variety attributable to Kansas City's
history as a center for meat packing in the U.S. Hickory is the primary wood
used for smoking in KC, while the sauces are typically tomato based with sweet,
spicy and tangy flavor profiles. Burnt ends, the flavorful pieces of meat cut from the ends of a smoked beef or pork
brisket, are popular in many Kansas City-area barbecue restaurants.
Pit-beef prevails in Maryland and is often enjoyed at large
outdoor "bull roasts", which are common for club or association
fundraising events. Maryland-style pit-beef is not the product of barbecue
cookery in the strictest sense, as there is no smoking of the meat involved;
rather, it involves grilling the meat over a high heat. The meat is typically
served rare, with a strong horseradish sauce
as the preferred condiment.
The state of Kentucky, particularly Western Kentucky, is
unusual in its barbecue cooking, in that the preferred meat is mutton.
This kind of mutton barbecue is often used in communal events in Kentucky, such
as political rallies, county fairs and church fund-raising events.
In much of the world outside of
the American South, barbecue has a close association with Texas. Many barbecue
restaurants outside the United States claim to serve "Texas
barbecue", regardless of the style they actually serve. Texas barbecue is
often assumed to be primarily beef. This assumption, along with the inclusive
term "Texas barbecue", is an oversimplification. Texas has four main
styles, all with different flavors, different cooking methods, different
ingredients, and different cultural origins.
In the Midwest, Chicago-style is
popular and involves seasoning the meat with a dry
rub, searing over a hot grill and a long slow cook in an oven. The meat,
typically ribs, is then finished with a sweet-tangy sauce.
Starting
the Feast
Let’s be fair, for an everyday meal nothing much apart from
good bread is really needed to start proceedings (plus, of course, the best
butter or olive oil). But a quick flash over the coals for that bread plus a
vigorous rubbing of a cut garlic clove will make bread even better (as will, in
the Spanish style, a similar vigorous rubbing with the fleshy side of a cut
tomato). And let us not forget bruschetta, which can be as simple as charred
bread topped with diced tomato, onion and basil with a splash of good oil, or
as complicated as a ragout of exotic mushrooms or braised artichokes on top.
There will be occasions when you need to pull out all the
stops and wow the mob. In this instance I often just buy a selection of fresh
seafood – prawns in the shell, freshly shucked oysters, crabs, yabbies, bugs
etc – and serve the lot on ice with plenty of napkins, finger bowls and a
selection of sauces. An antipasto platter is always a hit too. I have to admit
I cheat a little, dash into my favorite deli and pile my platter with goodies
such as pâtés, terrines, sliced prosciutto and salami, Persian feta, various
dips, marinated olives and whatever else takes my fancy. I then add some homemade
stuff such as asparagus wrapped in prosciutto (or smoked salmon) with
horseradish sour cream, barbecued veggies in the Spanish style, roasted capsicumsor, in fact, almost any of the vegetable
dishes. I even, when I’m feeling generous, throw on some of the aforementioned
fresh seafood, once again breaking out the napkins, fingerbowls and sauces. And
may I suggest, after all this amazing effort, if the guests aren’t suitably
impressed I recommend that you:
(a) Never invite them again.
(b) Eat the lot yourself.
Barbecuing
Events and Gatherings
The
word barbecue is also used to refer to a social gathering where food
is served, usually outdoors in the late afternoon or evening. In the southern
United States, outdoor gatherings are not typically called
"barbecues" unless barbecue itself will actually be on the menu,
instead generally favoring the word "cookouts". The device used for
cooking at a barbecue is commonly referred to as a "barbecue",
"barbecue grill", or "grill". In North Carolina, however,
"barbecue" is a noun primarily referring to the food and never used
by native North Carolinians to describe the act of cooking or the device on
which the meat is cooked.
Often referred to as
"The World Series of
Barbecue", The American Royal Barbecue Contest is held each
October in Kansas City, Missouri. This event comprises two distinct
competitions held over the course of four days. The first contest is the
Invitational Contest, with competing teams being required to obtain an invitation by winning other qualifying
contests throughout the year. The second competition is an open contest that
any team can compete in. This open contest is the largest championship barbecue
competition in the world, with the 2007 event attracting 496 teams.
The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest is held annually
in Memphis, Tennessee, during the Memphis in May festival. According
to the Guinness Book of World Records, it is the world's largest pork barbecue contest.
Other barbecue
competitions are held in virtually every state in the United States during the
warmer months, usually beginning in April and going through September. These
events feature keen competitions between teams of cooks and are divided into
separate competitions for the best pork, beef and poultry barbecue and for the
best barbecue sauces.
Other Uses
The termbarbecueis also used to designate a flavor
added to foodstuffs, the most prominent of which arepotato chips. This term usually implies a
strong smoky flavor and often denotes a flavor reminiscent ofbarbecue sauce.
The
information contained herein is provided as a public service with the
understanding that this site makes no warranties, either expressed or implied,
concerning the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or suitability of the
information. Nor does warrant that the use of this information is free of any
claims of copyright infringement. This site do not endorse any commercial
providers or their products.
Culinary Physics
Blog: Exceptional food that worth a special
journey. Distinctive dishes are precisely prepared, using fresh ingredients. And
all other foods that can kill you.
Culinary Physics is a
Molecular Gastronomy blog specializing in molecular gastronomy recipes-food
style, molecular book review, molecular gastronomy kit review
and molecular gastronomy restaurants guide.
Culinary Physics Blog is your comprehensive source of Australian cuisine
recipes, Austrian cuisine recipes, Brazilian cuisine recipes, Caribbean cuisine
recipes, Chinese cuisine recipes, Cuban cuisine recipes, East African cuisine
recipes, English cuisine recipes, French cuisine recipes, German cuisine
recipes, Greek cuisine recipes, Hungarian cuisine recipes, Indian cuisine
recipes, Indonesian cuisine recipes, Israeli cuisine recipes, Italian cuisine
recipes, Japanese cuisine recipes, Korean cuisine recipes, Lebanese cuisine
recipes, Mexican cuisine recipes, North African cuisine recipes, Norwegian
cuisine recipes, Philippine cuisine recipes, Polish cuisine recipes, Russian
cuisine recipes, South American cuisine recipes, Spanish cuisine recipes, Thai
cuisine recipes, Turkish cuisine recipes, Vietnamese cuisine recipes and West
African cuisine recipes.
2011- 2022 All Rights Reserved. Culinary Physics Blog
