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| If there was a heaven, this is what it'd smell like |
I
have a lot of weaknesses, most centering around food, hence my svelte
body image and kitchen full of cookware. One of the biggest of food
borne weakness is the smell of a pit with some sort of meat slowly
roastifying over a bed of glowing hardwood coals. If I were that
Pitmaster, I would charge folks for just hanging out and basking in
the smoky love emanating from my hardworking pit.
As
for the meat, pork shoulder/butt is my pick. Practically bullet
proof, flavorful, and adapts to many dishes from burritos to Cuban
sandwiches – hell, might ever be good as a topping for that ice
cream. Then there is just the plain old ordinary pulled pork
sandwich. I'm not going to get into an argument over sauce for the
sandwich because I believe if properly seasoned to begin with, it
doesn't need sauce. When I hit a barbecue place I want any sauce on
the side so I can taste the meat on its own to ensure that the sauce
isn't being used to cover up shitty barbecue. Life's to short to be
eating McRib style BBQ, plain and simple.
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| Small pork roast with rub applied |
To
avoid shittyness, it is imperative to have good meat, a good rub, and
patience. The meat can be bought at the market preferably a market
with a high turnover so you aren't picking up last months super sale
shoulder. Be even better if you butchered your own hogs, but most
HOAs would wet their pants if you started keeping pigs, besides I have
a husky and he'd eat the damn things before I could. Then there's
the rub.
I'll
put a recipe for a basic rub at the end, but use some sense –
taste, add, taste. If you don't taste your spices you will never
develop the touch needed to make good anything. And remember to
taste your end product – it'll be strong, but that is okay as that
flavor has a lot of meat to permeate. At this point you might even
consider injecting the meat thereby introducing more flavor and
moisture to the heart of the matter, but more on that another time.
“Rub” isn't just a catchy name, it is the way the spices are
applied. You could slather the meat with mustard to keep the process
moist and paste like, but I prefer to sprinkle on copious amounts of
rub and drizzle some olive oil to create a paste that is easier to
massage into the meat. You'll want full coverage and time for the rub to
do its thing, that is wrap it in foil and drop it in the fridge for a
couple hours or overnight.
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| Hunk o' smoked po'k |
Fire
up the old smoke bucket, and when the coals* are all little chunks of
white hot hardwood drop them in the grill for indirect cooking. If
you don't know what indirect cooking is at this stage of the game
there may be little help for you, but as the word implies, coals on
either side of the grill, meat in the center. Normally I'd put a pan
of beer in between the coals, but since I start the meat still
wrapped in the foil, this is no big deal. I let the meat roast for a
couple of hours in its own juices, then open the foil, drop chunks
of hickory, mesquite or fruit wood on the coals and close the grill
up so the smoke can do its thing. I usually start with hickory or
mesquite, then finish with some fruit wood.
Here's
a basic rub, the bulk is paprika and brown sugar. The best thing
about making your own rub is you control the amount of salt and other
ingredients, whereas the commercial brands are sodium heavy and have
unpronounceable things in them.
1/4
cup dark brown sugar
1/2
cup sweet paprika
1Tbs
kosher salt
1
Tbs granulated garlic powder
1
Tbs granulated onion powder
1
Tbs chili powder
2
Tsp cayenne pepper
And
make sure you taste this and adjust to your liking, then smear the
meat with it (you can add cooking oil to give it a more paste'like
texture – you'll want a lot of the rub on the meat.
* I prefer "Mr. Stubb's" Hardwood charcoal. I used to use lump charcoal, but between the nails, rocks, and hug chunks of tree limbs in the natural hardwood bags, I reverted to regular, albeit hardwood, charcoal.
