Primus Pulled Pork with Rustic Faux Gourmet Cole Slaw

I went to see Primus on Friday for the first show of the Green Naugahyde tour. Since this is not a music review I will simply say that Primus is awesome. But out of Primus some inspiration was born. When Les Claypool stepped off stage for a moment for a wardrobe change and came back wearing a pig mask it made me think of the album Pork Soda, which made me think of the pulled pork I was planning on making for Sunday football. So I decided to dub my pork, Primus Pulled Pork and the rest is now leftovers.

To give credit where credit is due I borrowed heavily from Nibble Me This. I am still an armature at smoking so… I did what I do best; learn from someone else but find a way to make it mine make it mine.

Primus Pulled Pork

6.5 Lb Picnic Pork Roast with bone in (the Boston butt is the bottom of the pork shoulder the picnic is the top)

1 C apple juice

Billy Bones Competition Dry Rub

Some uncured bacon…(more on this later)

The 6.5 Lb roast waiting for some loving.

I took a Cajun injector and pumped as much apple juice into the roast as I could. I think I got somewhere between ½ - 1 cup in it before it started leaking. Then I rubbed in some Billy Bones all over the roast. I put it in the fridge for about 12 hours to do its thing.

While the roast was chillin’ I got to work prepping my Big Green Egg. I cleaned it out and put a batch of fresh coals inside. I also started soaking 3 fist sized mesquite wood chunks and 1 hickory in some water. Now the waiting game begins.

I wanted the pork to be ready for football so expecting it to take about 1.5 hours a Lb I knew I would have to get a late start. At about 2330 I woke up from a power nap to go fire up the Egg (the soaking wood chunks were added before firing). I also took the roast out of the fridge to start warming up to cooking temp. 

By 0030 I had the egg, with the plate setter legs up in it, holding fairly steady at 240 degrees. I wanted 250 but I was willing to take what I could get at almost 1 in the morning. I draped the Bacon over the top of the roast, because everyone knows that bacon goes well with pork roast.

I then placed placed it in the roasting basket and put it in the egg. I think I watched it until about 0130 to make sure the temp was holding. Then I went to bed. Not an easy thing to do, to have that much faith that it was going to hold steady but I was tired and I can sleep any where, at any time for any reason.

I checked the Egg at 0630 and it was still holding steady. I woke up again at 0900 and checked it and it had dropped about 20 degrees. I made some adjustments to get the temp up and took the roasts temp. It was sitting pretty at 170 after 8 hours. At 10 it finally hit my target of 190 internal temp. I pulled it off the egg, wrapped it, put it in an insulated grocery bag and let it rest for about an hour. 

This is the roast right after coming off the grill and getting wrapped up. One of the strips of bacon seems to have not made it out alive.... I wonder where it went?

It then got pulled out of the bag and pulled apart with a few forks. It was falling off the bone. I used some Bone Sucking BBQ to finish off the BBQ if anyone wanted a “wet” pulled pork. 

Rustic Faux Gourmet Cole Slaw

½ cabbage shredded

3 medium carrots shredded (I used 1 white, 1 orange, 1 purple)

½ onion grated

¾ C Mayo

2 T Sugar

2T White vinegar

1 T Dry Mustard

Fresh Ground Himalayan Smoked salt

Fresh ground pepper

I am not sure what the word rustic conjures up in your culinary vernacular but in mine it translates in to this; I did not have the right equipment to shred the cabbage so I cut it as small as I felt like cutting it….

Mix the plant matter together.

Mix the spices, vinegar and mayo in a separate bowl. When thoroughly mixed add to plant matter. Stir. Refrigerate. 

Serve with some cornbread and the pork. Invite and army over for dinner or be ready to eat pulled pork for a month. 

Guinness Black Lager went well with this

How to Smoke a Chicken

I got a Big Green Egg for my birthday and have been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since. This past weekend I decided to smoke a chicken. I dug around on the super inter web nets and found a few recipes to work with and this is what I Frankensteined out of it. This recipe is going to take some time to pull off so plan ahead or you will end up with a subpar end product and it will not be my fault. Really, I don’t want to hear you bitching and complaining if your chicken turns out raw or like jerky or like crap because you tried to get it done in 30 minutes or less. You have been warned.  

The Brine

2 qt water

1/2 qt ice (a little more will not hurt anything)

1 C beer

1 qt Cranberry, pomegranate, cherry juice

3/4 C salt

1/2 c sugar

4 bay leaves

couple sprigs of thyme

1 5.5Lb chicken (without the popup timer)

Bring the water, sugar, salt and bay leaves to boil. Stir the mixture to make sure the salt and sugar has dissolved.  Remove from heat. Add juice, ice and beer and thyme. Put in fridge and chill. There is no rushing this part. It will take a few hours. I guess you could freeze the juice in ice trays and could speed things up that way but whatever. Once the brine is chilled put the whole chicken whole chicken in the brine and soak overnight (10 –12 hours is good), I used a stockpot to boil the brine in and it was also big enough to put the chicken in. Just a friendly reminder, remove the bag of crap that is inside of the chicken before brining it. When you pull the chicken out of the brine you will be able to see where the chicken was touching something and the juice did not stain it. It makes the chicken look sick but don’t worry you will never be able to tell once you start cooking.

Dry Rub

1 T salt

3/4 T pepper

1 T garlic powder

Stuffing

1 Apple cut into 1/8s

A few leaves of sage and a few sprigs of thyme

Mix spices. Remove the chicken from brine. Season chicken both inside and out. Stuff the chicken with a few sprigs of thyme, sliced apples and a few leaves of sage. Take 2 sage leaves and 2 sprigs of thyme and put one of each under the skin of each breast.

Baste

1 C beer

1 C chicken broth

1/4 C tiger sauce

Mix all of the wet ingredients together. Get a turkey baster for application.

Now comes the fun part. Pull the chicken out of the fridge while you are prepping the grill. This will help bring it up to cooking temperature. 

Pre-heat the egg to 250 degrees (or your substandard smoker if you are using something else) with the plate setter in place. I put the chicken in the egg roasting basket and made an aluminum drip pan to put under it to catch the chicken goodness. While the smoker is coming up to temp and stabilizing I soaked 2 cups of cherry wood chips in water. Once you get your temp stable and holding at close to 250 it is show time. Throw the wood chips in the fire, put the chicken on the grate and close the lid and let the Egg do the work. The chicken should be basted about every 30 – 45 minutes.  The 5.5 Lb bird was done in 3 Hours and 45 minutes and given 15 minutes to rest after it was finished.

  

Put the sweet taters on grill when you put chicken on the grill. I put them on about an hour into the cooking process and they needed about 15 minutes in the oven to finish them off. Thankfully the G/F was baking something and I had a hot oven handy to do the trick.

Eat it like a cave man. Rip that bastard bird to shreds with your hands and let it know who is boss. No chicken gets out of here alive.  

Serves 4 Cave people or can be used as a snack if Vince Wilfork shows up at your door looking for his chicken.

Time to grill!

I took some time off. Sue me. I needed to change jobs, move and finish a class on assassination. My plate was somewhat full, no pun intended. So to make up for it I am giving you a fist full of recipes that make for some awesome grilling. Sadly I only have minimal pictures of the eats as they were being eaten right off the grill… there were some hungry people running around with food stuffed in their mouth mumbling/slurring the word Hot, as they were trying to chow down.

1.Grilled squash

It is summer. There should be more squash running around than you can shake a stick at. Or at least that is how it seems to go for anyone with a squash plant in their garden. Here is a way to get rid of some of it while you are hanging out by the grill.

Ingredients

2 – 3 squish (a mix of green and yellow)

Garlic infused olive oil (the regular stuff will work but this is so much better)

Oregano

Red Pepper flakes

Equipment

Grill  

Grilling basket

Cut the squish in half and then cut it in half length wise. Chop squish into little ¼ inch half medallions. Throw the squish in a ziplock bag. Add a liberal splash of olive oil, a few healthy pinches of some dried oregano and as much red pepper as your dinner guests can stand. Mix every thing up in the bag. Seal the bag up and let the squish soak up some goodness.

Throw the grilling basket on the grill when you start some of your longer cooking meats so that it can get nice and hot. Once the basket is hot throw the squish in. Stir the squash around every few minutes so any one side does not get overly done. It should take about 10 minutes on a nice hot grill for it to get nice and fork tender.

Once it is done, dump it on a serving plate or platter and send it on its way to table of doom.

2. BBQ Chicken

What cook out is complete with out BBQ chicken? The only problem is it is so damn messy. Seriously, have you ever tried to remove carbonized BBQ sauce from a grill? It is a pain in the ass. That is why I quit making the stuff. Well The girlfriend and I stumbled across something the other day and we thought we would give it a go. Lets just say that the results were awesome so we reloaded and tried again with some chicken…

Ingredients

Boneless Skinless Chicken thighs

Bone Sucking Dry Rub

You can choose to rinse or not to rinse your chicken. I do not because of the increased splash risk of cross contamination. Lay the chicken out flat, what would have been, skin side up. Give it a nice liberal coating of dry rub. Flip and repeat. Roll the chicken up into tight little rolls. Store in a tightly sealed container and let it sit overnight. Take these guys out of your container and lay flat on the grill. I recommend a nice spot where they can cook with some indirect heat. If that is not possible then keep a real good eye on them so they do not char. These should be one of the first things on the grill as it can take a little bit of time to get chicken up to 165 degrees using internal temperature. Flip occasionally to avoid over cooking on any one side. When they hit the magic temp, put them on a plate and send them to their doom.

3. Tiger tips

No, it is not real tiger, but I bet it would taste pretty good if they were. I found this stuff a long time ago called tiger sauce. I think my mom first exposed me to it when she was marinating the hindquarter of a deer roast… It was years later before I discovered it again. I am pretty sure it was my friend Kyle that sent me a bottle for my birthday (thanks man) and I rediscovered the wonders of Tiger Sauce. The stuff is awesome. You can put it on anything or in anything. My favorite is getting some good steak tips and cutting them into bite sized chunks, and soaking them in Tiger Sauce overnight. Throw those bad boys on a skewer and cook till desired doneness. If you want to go over the top with them you can wrap them in with a good thick cut bacon and soak them in tiger sauce and then grill them. If that is the plan then keep in mind you will need to not pack them so tight on the skewers so that the bacon can get cooked all around. These are a crowd pleaser. Hell I think people were trying to pluck them off the grill and put them into their mouth once they knew what I had. I am not including an ingredients list or method because if you read what I wrote it is pretty self explanatory. 

4. Fruit murder al la peaches and pineapple.

The final thing that I made was this awesomeness that I have not come up with a name for so I will be working with fruit murder al la peaches and pineapple for now. I have been playing around with grilled pineapple for a few years now and I think I have finally perfected it. All I can say is that this stuff was divine. People were eating it before it even hit the grill. It almost didn’t even make it to the grill.

Ingredients:

1 pineapple

2 cinnamon sticks broken into thirds

1 Tbls Ground cinnamon

1 ¼ C Meyers dark rum

¼ C Meyers dark rum

1 shot of rum

2 very ripe peaches

1 shot of rum

Method:

1. Core the pineapple, cut the skin off and chop it into bite sized pieces. Put into a container that is big enough to hold it with some room left over.

2. Take a shot of rum.

3. Wash the peaches. Remove the pits. Throw into a food processor with the ¼ C rum and the ground cinnamon. Hit the grind button and teach those peaches who is boss. Keep pulsing the grind button until the peaches have been reduced to a pulpy, rummy paste. Then hit the grind button a few more times for good measure.

4. Drink a shot of rum in celebration of peach death.

5. Take the dead peaches and mix with the rest of the rum.

6. Pour the rum/peach murder concoction over the pineapple. Let it soak overnight.

7. Right before it is time to grill, put the pineapple on some skewers. Grill over a medium heat until it gets hot with some grill marks on it.

8. Serve.

9. Drink another shot of rum for the hell of it. 

Here is the feast in mid grill... the eaters were circling.... 

Cuban Black Beans and Rice

Looking back at my recipes I have noticed that I have done very little that is a vegetarian dish. So over the past week or so I have made a few vegetarian meals and now have some on hot standby to post. The first up is some Cuban Black Beans and Rice. I kind of screwed up and put too much chipotle chilies in it… My girlfriend’s mouth was not impressed with the level of heat. It even made me sweat a little but was far from unbearable. Otherwise it turned out spectacular. I was hesitant about putting coconut milk in with the black beans but the proof is in the pudding.

Cuban Black Beans

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

4 cloves of garlic pressed

2-3 tsp cumin

2 bay leaves

1 Tbl canned chipotle chilies, minced

2 (15 oz) cans black beans, mostly drained

1 c water

1 c Light coconut milk

1 tsp lime juice

2 finely chopped green onions

1/2 c finely chopped fresh cilantro

In a medium sauce pan sauté the onions in olive oil until they start to turn golden brown.

Add the peppers and garlic and sauté for 3 minutes

Add your spices, black beans, water and coconut milk.

Simmer beans for 30 minutes. Add lime juice and serve.

Top with the scallions and cilantro.

Cilantro Rice

2 c water

1 c jasmine rice (any white rice will work but jasmine is my favorite)

Olive oil

3 -4 cloves pressed garlic (my Zyliss got a work out today)

2 tsp lime juice

1 handful of chopped cilantro

2 hands full chopped spinach

3 chopped green onions

Bring water to boil

Add rice, oil, garlic, lime juice

Reduce heat and simmer

Cook until done (20 – 25 minutes)

Transfer rice to a bowl and mix in the cilantro, spinach and onions

 

You can serve the beans over the rice, beside the rice or just eat the beans from the pot with a spoon and eat the rice from the bowl with a spoon. What ever floats your boat. 

 

This will go nicely with a nice lighter body beer. My personal recommendation is the Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale but I just really like their beer.

White Bean Chili

We got a little cool snap this weekend that will be stretching into this week so I decided I would crank out one more pot of white chili before the soup season closes. In my mind soup is not a summer food, which is why it drives me up the wall that  the local chowder cook off is in the middle of summer. Who wants to eat chowder in 90 degree weather? Not me but then I just don’t want to even exist in 90 degree weather.

Some notes on this recipe before we get to it. This is chili not rocket science. Unless you do something really, really bad you cannot mess this up. I have never followed a recipe exactly for this, and i don't expect you to follow this exactly, so I will just give you a good frame work to work off of. I always add way more spices than what is listed here, I call it adjusting for taste. Just remember you can always add more but it is difficult to remove what you have added.  

One final thing, I usually make some cornbread to go with this recipe. Nothing like chili and some cornbread made from scratch but I tried something different this time. We were over by a very good local bakery, that makes an olive bread to die for, so we decided to pop in and pick up a good loaf of bread. Instead of the olive bread we got a cheddar cheese loaf, which kicked off the idea of white chili. The bread was amazing and went with the chili very well. I am surprised that the bread survived the night but I guarantee that it will not survive tonight. ; )

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 shallot, chopped (optional, I just had one laying around)

4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cubed

4-10 cloves of garlic, pressed (in your Zyliss garlic press)

 1 fresh pepper (cayenne, Anaheim, jalapeno) chopped (optional depending on tolerance for heat)

30 oz of chicken broth

1 can chopped green chilies

1 ½ Tbl. Cumin (roasted)

2 tsp oregano

1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper (I used a dash of African cayenne)

1 tsp crushed red pepper

White pepper to taste

2 cans of white beans, undrained (Navy, great northern, cannellini, etc. mix them if you want)

Toppings:

Shredded cheese, Monterey jack works well but anything will do

Fresh Cilantro (optional if you think cilantro tastes like soap)

Wedge of cornbread or artisanal bread

1.      

1. Coat the bottom of a skillet with olive oil and sauté onions (and shallot) until tender, remove from pan.

2. In the same pan cook the chicken until done. Drain the excess fat off of the chicken.

3. Add onions and chicken to a large stock pot.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients to the stock pot and heat almost to a boil then reduce heat and simmer.

5. Let simmer for at least 30 minutes, then serve.

6. After you put the chili in a bowl sprinkle with the shredded cheese and cilantro.

As an alternative you can cook it in a crock pot on a high heat for 3 - 4 hours. That is what I did and it turned out very well. Just remember to stir it before you serve it because your seasonings will settle on the bottom of the pot and who ever gets the last bowl is in for a kick.

Serve with your favorite beer, I think I had a Flying Dog