Covid Cooking- Culinary Cuisine

[Redbeard U812]

Red , Being Honest , never tried 200* , I usually smoke @ 225* , This smoker ( Electric ) isn't digital & a PIA to keep a Temp as meat smokes , I have to stay on top of it . A few times it crept to 250* . My next venture is trying to make Summer Sausage from some of the Garlic & Cheese Venison I had made . I'm going to try & make the sausage myself this year , I have the Grinder & Attachment , just hard to get the casings w/out traveling into the city . I might check & see if I can get them shipped to the house via internet . When I have the Deer processed ( Yup I'm Lazy ) making the Sausage is $$ from him . Stay Healthy & Safe ! 73 & God Bless , Leo

I aim for 200. But try not to let creep up above 225. The fluctuation in temperature is what toughens the meat. I did a quick job on a brisket last time, had good flavor but one half, I cut it in two, was tough. What I did was a short smoke, then wrap no bark. Tasted good, but some tough, the fire got a run away.

I usually take the time to get good heavy bed of coals from selected wood. May take hours to do that. Prep the meat, however it happens, brine, salt rub, however. Put in refrigerator or cooler with ice. Before putting on smoker, get the brisket out to warm to ambient temperature. Then in the smoker. Just swat the flies off, don't worry, no evidence of fly poo will be apparent by the time you are done.

Smoke tha puppy for 6 or so hours. Getting barked up. Once that yummy seasoned crust is there, hiding the fly poo flavor, wrap it up baby. Aluminum foil, double wrap. Move to cooler section of pit, not anything below 150. Let that go for another 7 to 8 hours. I have done 24 to 27 hours with multiple briskets at one time. Anything less than 12 to me is not good. Some say 8 total, but every one done 8 just seems tougher.

 

[Slowmover]

Or:

1). A portable cooker. Add that smoke flavor. Anywhere God takes a Texan. We remember our burnt offerings and the portion set aside.

After a few hours smoking brisket it DOESN’T get better, it can get worse. Arguing about, “the bark”, gets to sounding funny when it’s not the point. Chicken doesn’t take near as long to “smoke”. Nor sausage. Brine the birds; coat the sausage; rub the brisket.

2). Finish in household oven. Time & temp easy. Foil and or containers. It’s too easy to dry out any meat with any method.

Next meat batch (different) goes into portable cooker. (The refrigerator and freezer storage are going to get some provision added).

3). Out in the field without the RV or electricity or bottled gas?

Monitor the burn more closely. Temp probe placement is key.
Charcoal at one end, meat at other. As temps change, ready other dishes to place onto double interior racks with fuel re-charge. Move meat, and proceed. Adjust double lower vents and double upper vents to have heat/smoke circle differently.

Experience counts. (Cooking container size, generally).

Steaks are easier. Thick ones.

Time to cook has a limit. 8-12/hrs in a smoker isn’t better, per se. It’s a way of cooking determined by volume. Cheap fuel to cook a cheap & tough cut by the half hundred-weight. At a temperature low-enough to melt versus roast problems in eating, away. Commercial concerns.

The cooker needs to have the thermal mass to come to op-temp and maintain it. Short acceleration phase onto The Big Road, and then economical at cruise.

I’ve done the whole, start the night before then get up at 0300 to have meat ready for guests at around 1600, thing. Big smoker. Separate firebox. Two chamber cooking. Great for a really big crowd. (Volume).

Ritual is fun until it isn’t.

Pretty much everything tastes better from a wood-burning kitchen stove. I had no idea my mother could handle one until at my grandparents 1880s Colorado mountain cabin she revealed a drill sergeant side I’d never suspected (Ha!). Mister, young man you'd best have my kindling and firebox wood done up shortly, kinda thang. (“Yes’m!”). She’d learned as a girl on that stove.

No question breakfast, dinner & supper had a tang produced no other way. Biscuits to soups to casseroles. Unexpected pleasure.

Anyone here got a wife kvetching for a kitchen wood stove?

I’m not knocking any method. After all, time in South Texas gives one a grudging respect of those who’ve dug the pit and brought it to temperature — based on long experience — and then RIGHT ON TIME start cooking the butchered goat, pig, or chickens stolen from a neighbor. An operation — as a whole — running its components on different clocks.

And finished eating the evidence before the Deputy Sheriff arrives a couple hours past sun-up.

You’d hear such a story at work. The teen boy of years ago who’d come home and found his fathers & uncles digging a long shallow pit. And, on asking the purpose, was greeted with knowing look and complete silence re his part.

.

 

[snow bird]

Or:

1). A portable cooker. Add that smoke flavor. Anywhere God takes a Texan. We remember our burnt offerings and the portion set aside.

After a few hours smoking brisket it DOESN’T get better, it can get worse. Arguing about, “the bark”, gets to sounding funny when it’s not the point. Chicken doesn’t take near as long to “smoke”. Nor sausage. Brine the birds; coat the sausage; rub the brisket.

2). Finish in household oven. Time & temp easy. Foil and or containers. It’s too easy to dry out any meat with any method.

Next meat batch (different) goes into portable cooker. (The refrigerator and freezer storage are going to get some provision added).

3). Out in the field without the RV or electricity or bottled gas?

Monitor the burn more closely. Temp probe placement is key.
Charcoal at one end, meat at other. As temps change, ready other dishes to place onto double interior racks with fuel re-charge. Move meat, and proceed. Adjust double lower vents and double upper vents to have heat/smoke circle differently.

Experience counts. (Cooking container size, generally).

Steaks are easier. Thick ones.

Time to cook has a limit. 8-12/hrs in a smoker isn’t better, per se. It’s a way of cooking determined by volume. Cheap fuel to cook a cheap & tough cut by the half hundred-weight. At a temperature low-enough to melt versus roast problems in eating, away. Commercial concerns.

The cooker needs to have the thermal mass to come to op-temp and maintain it. Short acceleration phase onto The Big Road, and then economical at cruise.

I’ve done the whole, start the night before then get up at 0300 to have meat ready for guests at around 1600, thing. Big smoker. Separate firebox. Two chamber cooking. Great for a really big crowd. (Volume).

Ritual is fun until it isn’t.

Pretty much everything tastes better from a wood-burning kitchen stove. I had no idea my mother could handle one until at my grandparents 1880s Colorado mountain cabin she revealed a drill sergeant side I’d never suspected (Ha!). Mister, young man you'd best have my kindling and firebox wood done up shortly, kinda thang. (“Yes’m!”). She’d learned as a girl on that stove.

No question breakfast, dinner & supper had a tang produced no other way. Biscuits to soups to casseroles. Unexpected pleasure.

Anyone here got a wife kvetching for a kitchen wood stove?

I’m not knocking any method. After all, time in South Texas gives one a grudging respect of those who’ve dug the pit and brought it to temperature — based on long experience — and then RIGHT ON TIME start cooking the butchered goat, pig, or chickens stolen from a neighbor. An operation — as a whole — running its components on different clocks.

And finished eating the evidence before the Deputy Sheriff arrives a couple hours past sun-up.

You’d hear such a story at work. The teen boy of years ago who’d come home and found his fathers & uncles digging a long shallow pit. And, on asking the purpose, was greeted with knowing look and complete silence re his part.

.

 

[Slowmover]

So.

Who’s been transmitting recipes via Radio?
The outback denizens in Oz find no limits.

Is the Covid Cookery Channel up and running?

“Inquiring minds” (and all that).

.

 

[xm49north7]

Mess of deep fryd frogs legs, some worms in the dirt (kraft dinner and peanut butter) as a side, with some fresh rhubarb juice, to wash it all down. We drink gallons of rhubarb juice here, have a major patch of rhu here, about 200 square feet.

 

[G GOLLY WAlly]

Order scrapple.

Then you’ll REALLY miss being back home.

Pittsburg Hot Links don’t get far away. A box of saltines and mmm.

If they call something by that in Pittsburgh you’re right, they need a word change.

Me, I’m frustrated by not being able to get German sausage at the grocery stores away from TX.
.

Slowmover, I tried the scrapple, one word, HORRIBLE! But I did find some hot links.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

Slowmover, I tried the scrapple, one word, HORRIBLE! But I did find some hot links.

I put ketchup on my scrapple. A local diner here deep fries it. To us its just another breakfast meat like sausage and bacon. Haha!

 

[S&W357]

Scrapple...depends on how one thinks about it I suppose.

scrapple

scrapple

scrapple

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

Scrapple egg and cheese sandwich!

 

[S&W357]

Scrapple egg and cheese sandwich!

View attachment 38446

Now that looks good!

 

[G GOLLY WAlly]

I put ketchup on my scrapple. A local diner here deep fries it. To us its just another breakfast meat like sausage and bacon. Haha!

To each their own, but scrapple won't be replacing bacon anytime soon at my house

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

To each their own, but scrapple won't be replacing bacon anytime soon at my house

Everything is better wrapped in bacon.

 

[G GOLLY WAlly]

Everything is better wrapped in bacon.

I'll agree, that probably is really good. I just need someone that knows their way around scrapple to fix it for me. I shouldn't have said HORRIBLE, because it really didn't taste bad, I'm just an okie that doesn't know how to prepare scrapple. But after this video, I'm willing to give scrapple another chance, but I'm going to take it home and let my wife have a go at it, she by far better in the kitchen than me.
On another note, parogies ( I probably spelt that wrong) never heard of them until I started working in the North East, but I love those

 

[Slowmover]

To each their own, but scrapple won't be replacing bacon anytime soon at my house

Take some home. Take pics of the dog running away from eating it.

.

 

[Slowmover]

I'll agree, that probably is really good. I just need someone that knows their way around scrapple to fix it for me. I shouldn't have said HORRIBLE, because it really didn't taste bad, I'm just an okie that doesn't know how to prepare scrapple. But after this video, I'm willing to give scrapple another chance, but I'm going to take it home and let my wife have a go at it, she by far better in the kitchen than me.
On another note, parogies ( I probably spelt that wrong) never heard of them until I started working in the North East, but I love those

Pirogi.

As with tamales, no good unless you find some grandmama making them. Then it’s another experience.

.