Rob's Rants

No, not the crappy pieces of tough beef cut into small chunks, slathered in cheap marinade and then passed off as quality beef to unsuspecting New Englanders steak tips … this is some advice I gave to a novice griller for getting a good sear on a real steak. I originally answered this on the BBQ Source message board. But I thought I’d reproduce my answer here.

His question was:

I am an absolute grill novice. Just got my first full time charcoal grill. Nothing fancy, just a Weber 18.5″ One-Touch Gold. I use lump charcoal. For my first venture, I tried some NY Strips. I pulled them to sit for about 30 minutes. Half way into that, I added course ground salt and pepper. Just before throwing on the grill, I added some olive oil. Now I used the direct to indirect to finish. (Blasphemy, I know, but I like a medium well steak. I like pink, but cant do a red/raw center.). I can’t even say what temp, but my lump was hot. Went direct for 2 min rotations. (4 total for 8 minutes.). Finished on indirect for a few minutes. Now the sear was PERFECT for me. So much flavor, even my GF commented and asked what seasoning I used. I love a heavy sear, even a bit of a crust. The inside color was even great. Had a touch of pink. Problem was, it was tough. I assumed too much sear time. (these are like 1″ cuts of Choice Angus.)

…

I just wonder how I can get that great sear without a tough steak? I’m obviously going to try cast iron fried one day, but I’m interested in direct grilling for now.

My response follows:

I can think of a few things that will help … but fundamentally there is a conflict between cooking a steak to medium or beyond and having it stay juicy and tender that is VERY hard to resolve. It’s just the nature of protein … animal muscle protein contracts and gets tough when cooked beyond 140 degrees. Only the best, most expensive prime cuts can stay close to tender when cooked to a barely pink medium, and some (myself included) feel that it’s kind of a shame to waste good prime beef by cooking it to anything beyond medium-rare.

That said, there are some different techniques I suggest for getting a good sear. These are complicated by the stock grates on the Weber One-Touch. The thin plated bars are not at all conducive to creating grill marks or a good sear. They simply don’t have the thermal mass and rough surface area needed to really facilitate the Maillard reaction that creates a good sear and that seared flavor. But a few tricks can help. A replacement set of cast iron grates would help more (I have no affiliation with this company at all and I am not recommending them specifically).

First, the surface of the steak needs to be really, really dry for a good sear. If there is even the slightest hint of moisture, the surface will generate steam when it hits the grill grate and not sear. The same goes for oil … although for flavor olive oil is helpful, it actually hinders the searing, so I’d leave it off and just give the grate a light coat of oil (I actually use cooking spray). Patting the surface of the steak with paper towels isn’t enough either. One trick I picked up from Cook’s Illustrated a few years ago is to season the steak with salt, let it sit for a while to come to room temperature (like 40+ minutes, more on why below; I often let my thick steaks sit salted overnight in the refrigerator), then pat it dry with a paper towel. Then, sprinkle both sides lightly with a mixture of kosher salt and corn starch (equal parts by volume) and place it on an elevated rack in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes. The key to this is that freezers are extremely dry and usually have air circulating, so this helps dry the surface thoroughly. And the corn starch absorbs any other moisture. Plus, the freezer cools the outside layers of the steak, so when it’s back on the grill it will cook a little slower and won’t get so tough while the middle, which stays close to room temp, cooks through.

The reason that the steak is salted before being dried is to help with the Maillard reaction. This reaction requires amino acids (protein building blocks) and the presence of a reducing sugar to occur. The primary reducing sugar available in steak is the glucose trapped in the cellular fluid. The idea behind salting the steak is to draw some of this cellular fluid to the surface of the meat. As Tubby’s Smokehouse points out, the longer salt stays on the surface of the meat, the more moisture is pulled out … to a point. If left on long enough, the osmotic pressure will equalize and fluid will begin to redistribute back into the steak, bringing seasoning with it (this is the principle behind brining chicken for example). Although there might be a slight net moisture loss, the steak should be more flavorful and the surface will end up with the right compounds to facilitate the Maillard reaction. There’s a great explanation of this at the Serious Eats website.

Try this method and see if your results are better. With a thin (1″ or less) steak the standard sear and then cook over lower heat should work. For thicker steaks (1.5″+) cooked to medium or beyond I actually recommend an opposite approach, starting over low heat and getting a sear at the end.

Finally … I can’t emphasize this enough … get a really good, accurate thermometer. I use a Thermoworks Thermapen but there are less expensive alternatives. Cook to reach the desired intrnal temperature, not the desired look on the outside. After some practice you’ll get the timing correct so that a 5-step, 1-flip procedure (On the grill, quarter turn, flip, quarter turn, remove) will give you a nice cross-hatch of grill marks. But until then concentrate on not overshooting your desired temperature and you’ll be rewarded with great steak.

Good luck and I hope you post some pics!

A little while ago I wrote about some of the debates that give bar-b-que people something to talk about. One that I forgot to mention is how you actually spell the word. For this blog I have standardized on “bar-b-que.” But people commonly use “barbeque,” “bar-b-q,” or even the abbreviation “BBQ.”

I picked bar-b-que for no particular reason … but I recently saw a video which might make me rethink that spelling – it can lead to some unexpected issues:

The most important tool that a bar-b-que cook needs is a good thermometer. In fact, a bar-b-que cook needs more than one. Because to really produce a good final product, the cook needs to monitor the temperature of the BBQ pit, and the food.

Most commercial pits come with one or more thermometers. But the accuracy of these dial thermometers is dubious. Meathead over at Amazing Ribs has one of the best articles on BBQ thermometers ever written on his site. You should read it. Now. Go on….

I agree with his assessment that the ThermaPen by ThermoWorks is the best instant-read thermometer and I own one myself. I even recommend it in my own list of must-have BBQ equipment. There will come a time in your BBQ career though when you will want to simultaneously monitor the temperature of two separate things to a high degree of accuracy. Like the temperature of the pit and the shoulder cooking in it. Or the temperature of the grill and the juicy T-bone you have on it.

Model TW8060 2-channel thermocouple sensor.

For this very application, ThermoWorks has come t the rescue again. My newest addition is their new model TW8060 2K Two-Channel Thermocouple With Alarm. Here is a pic of it in action during my recent summer BBQ party. It worked fantastically over two days simultaneously monitoring my pit and my food.

The coolest thing about this device, and what sets it apart from the BBQ thermometers you buy in the store is that this is simply a read-out for any standard industrial/commercial Type-K thermocouple. And ThermoWorks sells a bunch of different ones for whatever application you need, from simple food probes that work as fast as the ThemaPen to ceramic-sheathed probes which cam measure up to 2500°F. There is a sampling of available probes on the TW8060 page linked directly above.

I bought mine with two probes – the 113-177 smokehouse penetration probe which I leave in whatever I am cooking and the 8468-22 hi-temp alligator clip oven probe (good to 950°F). The alligator clip probe clips right t my smoker or grill grate and gives me a temperature right down by the food where I need it. Both performed flawlessly through 12 hours of shoulder, 5 hours of ribs, and 4 hours of bacon cooking. You can set a high and low alarm point for one channel which I used for my pit temperature. But if you wanted to, you could easily use this with dual food probes and monitor things cooking on different areas of your grill at the same time. Or multiple pit probes to look for hot spots.

The unit itself is inexpensive at only $69 + tax and shipping direct from ThermoWorks, but you will also have to buy two thermocouple probes and they are expensive. The smokehouse probe I bought costs $52 and the alligator clip probe costs $59. But for accurate measurements I can’t think of anyone besides ThermoWorks who makes this kind of quality equipment available to the home cook. And, their customer service is second to none. My interaction with them when I placed my order was excellent. I placed it on the web and the alligator clip probe was listed as out of stock. The site said t order anyway and a representative would contact me. Sure enough the next day I heard from someone named Lisa via e-mail and she was extremely helpful in exploring other probe options and telling me what was available and when they expected their backorder to be available. I couldn’t have been happier with their service.

28 lbs. of great shoulder!

All of this leads up to the results … using this new temperature monitor I cranked out 28 lbs. of about the best shoulder I’ve ever made. Thanks ThermoWorks!

So if you’re looking for a versatile tool to add to your arsenal I recommend the TW8060 from ThermoWorks. With the right selection of thermocouple probes you can have a highly accurate instant-read food thermometer, a BBQ pit thermometer, a grill thermometer, and even a high-temp oven thermometer for something like a wood-fired pizza oven. Nothing you are going to find in your local hardware or cooking store is going to match that kind of versatility.

Go out and get yourself one of these!

I was talking with someone earlier this week about what the most versatile type of grill or cooker is. I realized that I’ve opted for specialized cookers, rather than a single versatile one. This prompted me to think about an inventory of all my major hardware. Here’s what’s on my patio and in my shed right now:

1. Char-Broil RED 4-burner gas grill. I bought mine in 2008, right as the economy was taking a dump. At the time, Char-Broil was making a run at a higher end market, but the recession seems to have killed that idea.
   

   4-Burner Char-Broil RED Grill. Circa 2008.

   The differences between my 3 year old RED and the current version sold under the same name are incredible. For example, mine actually has a red enamel finish as shown in this picture. The current model is made from cheap stainless steel. Mine also has some built-in electronics like a thermometer with probe and an electronic propane gauge. The current one doesn’t, but it does have a couple of built-in lights. The main difference in in the weight … my older model is heavy gauge steel, while the current version is light and flimsy. The other difference is that the new version is also about $300 cheaper. You can see the new version here. I still think that my version of this grill is one of the most versatile gas grills I have ever seen. I’ve done everything from searing steaks to making really good bar-b-que ribs in this one device. If I could only have one cooking appliance, this would be it.

2. 

   Modified NBBD Smoker

   New Braunfels Black Diamond offset smoker. Also known as the NBBD, this is a legend among low-price deadicated BBQ pits. Mine is old enough that it was still made in Texas by the New Braunfels company themselves. They were subsequently sold to Char-Broil and this smoker is now sold, virtually unchanged, as the Char-Broil Silver Smoker. My smoker is heavily modified with a custom chimney, internal baffle plates, custom sealing, and some additional goodies.

3.  

   

   Bradley 4-Rack Digital Smoker (from bradleysmoker.com)

   Bradley Electric Smoker. Mine is a 4-rack digital model. I bought this for convenience when I wanted to make smaller meals for just myself and maybe one other person. I’ve also used it to cold smoke foods like home made bacon. It’s not a cheap investment, but for some things it’s perfect. Like bacon, salmon, and chicken. The “set it and forget it” convenience can’t be beat. I find that I don’t even mind using their pre-made bisquettes to generate the smoke. I’m currently perfecting a version of Myron Mixon’s cupcake chicken recipe in this for my annual BBQ.

4. An old Brinkmann Smoke-n-Pit. Years ago, this was the name Brinkmann used for their vertical water smokers. Now they use the smoke-n-pit name for their offset smokers and call their verticals the Cook’n Ca’jun. I’ll admin that I haven’t used this as all since I got my NBBD back in 2002, but I keep it around because it was the first smoker I learned to BBQ on. I got a used one from an old friend of the family and I spent days with a wire brush and a can of black hi-temp paint getting it in shape. I used to smoke whatever I could find cheaply on branches from two apple trees that I had in my back yard.

5.  

   

   One Touch Silver 18.5″

   18.5″ Weber Kettle. Everyone who cooks outside needs a Weber Kettle grill of some sort. I went small and simple because of all the other things I have, but there really isn’t much out there more versatile for the money than a Weber. With a single chimney of lump charcoal I cab get the grate over 800° F to sear a steak, or I can build an indirect fire to grill more delicate things. The grills are built very well and are sturdy. If you can only afford one grill, I’d recommend a Weber charcoal grill as your first purchase.

6. 

   My La Caja China

   La Caja China #1 Roasting Box.  You can read about it in this post. Basically an aluminum lined outdoor over that roasts with charcoal on top of the food. Originally designed by a Cuban immigrant to Miami to imitate boxes that his father had seen Chinese workers using, they have really perfected the design. I first encountered one at my father-in-law’s house about 10 years ago, when a Cuban friend of his introduced it to us. This is an amazingly versitile piece of equipment. For a good idea what this can do, you can read about my arctic luau or get the definitive guides to this amazing roasting box, La Caja China Cooking by Perry P. Perkins or his follow-up book, La Caja China World.

That’s it for all of the major cooking equipment. I do have a bunch of accessories that I’ve collected over the years which I’ll describe in the future. Happy BBQ.

In the world of Bar-B-Que there are a lot of debates. Beef or pork? Ribs, shoulder, or whole hog? Memphis or Carolina? North or South? On which side of these questions you fall ultimately determines your own personal style. But for someone new to Bar-B-Que, these questions can be quite daunting. And distracting. So much time is spent arguing and discussing the merits of one or another style, technique, or trick that people often lose sight of what’s important. No matter how you look at it, the essence of Bar-B-Que is the control of heat and the application of smoke. These are the techniques which must be mastered. The rest you can play with for the rest of your life quite happily.

In case there are people new to Bar-B-Que who find there way to this blog, welcome. I thought I’d take some time to outline the areas of debate, and the pros and cons as I see them, of the classic debates. Then you can decide for yourself. To set some boundaries though, understand that I am talking about pork Bar-B-Que for now.

Ribs or Shoulder or Whole Hog

Each of these requires a different technique and each is tricky and rewarding in its own right. I assume you’re reading this because you want to cook some tasty food for family and friends. If you have competitive aspirations, then follow what the rules and customs of your competition circuit dictate. But for your own fun and pleasure, read on.

As one moves from ribs to shoulder to whole hog, things get harder. But not because of changes in technique. The difficulty is purely a matter pf practicality and logistics. A whole hog is big. It requires a big pit to smoke it, a big cold place to store it, and a lot of people to eat it. Ribs are small and manageable. Fundamentally, they are cooked the same way: low heat and smoke is maintained for long enough to bring the internal temperature of the meat to completion. The hard part for a whole hog is that one needs to maintain the right temperature in a big pit for many hours. Baby back ribs on the other hand can be made very well in a regular kitchen range in an afternoon.

So ultimately the answer to this is: do what you have the room for and the ability to perfect over time. Sure, you might be able to convince your buddies to build a temporary pit and do a whole hog with you, but you’ll probably get one chance to get it right and then never do it again for a decade. Ribs on the other hand you can make 10 times a year in a small kettle grill, so in a couple of years you’ll get really good and be the envy of your friends.

For me, ribs and shoulder fit well in the space and time I have. Maybe when I’m retired I can do a couple of hogs a year, but for now, ribs and shoulder are my main focus.

To Mop or Not to Mop

This is a debate as old as Bar-B-Que. Should your meat be mopped during cooking? The advocates say that mopping is critical to the flavor of the meat. The detractors say that it is an unnecessary waste of time that destroys the formation of a good “bark” on the outside of smoked meat. I fall somewhere in the middle. But there is an important warning that is often left out of the equation: mopping lengthens the cooking time. Each time you want to mop the meat you have to open the pit and heat escapes. It takes some time to come back up to temperature. Not to mention that the evaporating mop cools the meat itself.

For me this is a matter of time. Mopping ribs in the first couple of hours of cooking can easily add 1 to 2 hours to the total cooking time. So whether I mop or not is usually dictated more by the time I have than anything else.

Membrane On or Off (ribs)

Most people take the membrane off the back of a slab of ribs. This makes them easier to separate and more tender. But some people actually like it, especially when it cooks up crunchy. As Bar-B-Que has become popular in recent years, more people are being exposed to it. And most of these people don’t like the membrane. So it has become the custom pretty much everywhere to remove the membrane.

The AmazingRibs.com site probably has the best paragraph on this subject I’ve ever read:

The membrane can also get very tough and chewy, especially if you cook hot, and if you cook low and slow, it can sometimes get rubbery. You can just make slits in it and some fat will drain, but you still have the texture issue. In competitions, if you leave it on, you lose. In some subcultures it is common to leave it on, especially if it is cooked to crunchy. A lot of restaurants just can’t be bothered to remove it. But more and more people expect you to yank it and if you don’t they think your a rube or impolite. It’s like de-veining a shrimp. Skip it at the risk of deprecation.

What Sauce?

This is a never-ending debate. In my opinion it doesn’t matter. People love a good sauce so I usually give my guests a couple of choices ranging from a simple North Carolina ketchup, vinegar, and hot pepper flake sauce to a couple of bottles from Sweet Baby Ray’s or Bulls Eye. I occasionally even make a South Carolina mustard sauce. But at the end of the day your ribs should stand on their own.

Oink!

Ring … ring.

“Yo.”

“You wanna’ buy a pig?”

“I’m in.”

Clearly the start of a great summer.

About a month ago my best friend calls me one night and the exchange above takes place. Seems that another friend of his raises pigs and happened to have one that wasn’t yet accounted for by a customer. And when my friend thinks of meat he thinks of me. So, sometime in the next few weeks I will find myself in possession of half a hog. Mmmmm … the possibilities.

We’re approaching slaughter time so the first round of decisions has to be made … what cuts do we want? Smoked or not?

With a little help from one of my favorite sites on the web, AsktheMeatMan.com, I’ve thought through the possibilities. Knowing that there are five major primal cuts typical in American Pork, I figured on the following for my half of the pig:

• Shoulder Butt – I’ll take it bone-in. Pulled pork heaven here I come!
• Picnic Shoulder – I’d prefer this boned; I’ll ultimately use it for stews, including my favorite Hungarian Pörkölt (a simple recipe can be found here).
• Loin – There are three cuts typically derived from the loin
  • Tenderloin – delicious and tender
  • Baby Back Ribs – I actually prefer these braised rather than smoked. A nice Chicago-style like Alton Brown made in his “Who Loves Ya’ Baby Back” recipe on the “A Rib for All Seasons” episode of Good Eats.
  • Loin/Chops – This can be cut into several smaller cuts. I’m opting for a sirloin roast, a blade roast, and ¾” chops. I’ll probably lightly smoke the chops.
• Side – the ribs and belly come from this. Ribs I will smoke – belly is destined for bacon!
• Ham – what the hell are we going to do with two giant hams. Cure ‘em and smoke ‘em of course! I will probably follow this recipe from the Dizzy Pig BBQ Company. I will probably NOT follow this insanely complicated but probably delicious Virginia Ham recipe.

Throughout all of this, I am reminded of a quote that Perry P. Perkins (cookbook author and writer behind the Burnin’ Love BBQ blog) had in his book La Caja China Cooking:

Always warn your wife, in advance, that she’s going to find a large dead animal in her bathtub. . .

As someone who remembers my mother’s face when my dad and I put a pig in our own bathtub prior to a pig roast as a kid, I agree that more important words have never been spoken. Thanks Perry.

I’ll keep posting about my progress.

Several months ago my soon-to-be six year old daughter announced that she wanted an Hawaiian-themed birthday party. I have no idea why – she’s never been to Hawaii, but that’s what she asked for.

My daughter was born in January. During the Blizzard of 2005 actually, which made for a fun three-day weekend in the hospital since I couldn’t drive home even for clean clothes until two days after the storm (when I had to shovel 24″ of snow out of my driveway). But my point is that my daughter’s birthday is in January, and we live in Massachusetts where it snows. And this January it snowed a lot. There’s 33″ on the ground in my yard right now.

So when I think Luau, I think this, don’t you (taken on the morning before the party):

Perfect Luau Weather!

And this was AFTER shoveling the first two feet of snow off of the patio.

Oh, by the way, this January we also had an arctic cold blast too. You may know that I have a weather station at my house (the live feed is there in the right sidebar). Here’s the report of the actual conditions on the day of the party (click the picture for the actual summary page):

Weather Summary

Yeah … the AVERAGE temperature was 14 degrees. But at least the wind gusted to only 26 m.p.h. So that was nice. And yes, the low was effectively zero. ZERO. The day of a Hawaiian Luau.

When I think Hawaiian Luau, I think 14 degrees and 2 feet of snow, don’t you? Nonetheless, I’ll use any excuse to break out my La Caja China and roast some pork. So a snowy Luau it would be.

The Prep

I figured that someone must have developed a recipe for Hawaiian style pork cooked in a La Caja China. It didn’t take me too long to find one titled “Gracie’s Kalua Pork” on the web. I found one from back in 2008 on a blog called Just Another Day in Cubeville. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was by none other than Perry P. Perkins, author of the Burnin’ Love BBQ blog. His original post can be found here … and it turns out that he had the same idea as I did, Hawaiian pork for a child’s birthday, only his daughter had the good sense to be born during a warm month [superemotions file="icon_smile.gif" title="Smile"], at least as far as I can tell from the pictures. (Perry has also just released a La Caja China cookbook, a copy of which is on its way to my house right now.)

So about a month ago I decided that this was the recipe for me and I set about finding the ingredients. Most of them are common enough in a modern supermarket, but a couple needed some Internet searching. The Alaea Hawaiian sea salt I ordered from Saltworks, one of my favorite online sources (I’m a salt freak). The other thing I needed in bulk was mesquite liquid smoke, which, believe it or not, isn’t easy to find. I finally ordered a gallon directly from Colgin, the manufacturer. (I read several online sources that claimed mesquite was the more authentic flavor compared to hickory liquid smoke.)

With the ingredients sourced, I waited until the day before the party to begin setting up the cooking area.

The Kitchen

I made 24 pounds of pork shoulder for this recipe, outside in my La Caja China. I had no idea if it was going to snow on me. Also, with 23 children in the house there wouldn’t be that much room for parents, so I wanted a warm area outside. My two 10′ x 10′ EZ-Up shelters would be perfect. The morning before the party I took the snow blower to the patio and then set up both shelters.

The Tents

My plan was to cook under one and use the other as a warming area for people hanging outside with me.

The Cook

The day before I seasoned the shoulders using Perry’s “Perk’s Mojo” recipe. I injected about 2 quarts total into the 24 pounds of shoulder. And in addition to the recipe, I sprinkled the outside of the shoulders with some Goya Adobo seasoning. Here’s a picture of the goodness before they went in the refrigerator for a good night’s rest.

Seasoned

The next day, I basted the roasts with liquid smoke and rubbed them all over with the sea salt.  I went outside and it was 8 degrees. You read that right … 8 degrees. Perfect. About 6 hours before my planned serving time I added the shoulder to the La Caja China and lit the charcoal. As Perry suggested in his comments I didn’t use pans, but put the shoulders right on the La Caja China racks.

Finally - Some Heat

Thankfully, there’s not much else to do while the roasting box does its thing so I didn’t need to stand out in the cold all day. Just come back and add charcoal every hour or so and things will move along smoothly. I made sure the coals were spread out over the whole box as soon as possible after lighting to try and keep the temperature even, based on Perry’s comment that the center roast in his recipe was a little more done than the others which he attributed to the long start of the charcoal in the center of the box.

The fire on top of the La Caja China throws off a surprising amount of heat. Even though the temperature was in the teens most of the day, standing around the box kept everyone nice and warm. In fact, I even managed to cook myself a little snack over the coals at one point.

Snack!

For the next 4 hours or so I tended the fire, but there wasn’t much else to do for the meat. So the time was spent on the final party preparations. Like sticking my Heineken mini-keg in a snow bank to chill so the dads would have a little something to drink while we waited outside.

The Wait

I knew that with all the kids and moms in the house, a few dads would want to be outside around the fire. So I decided to use the second tent in the picture above as a warming tent.

Cooking More Than Just Pork!

Know what happens if you take a 100 square foot tent on a 15 degree day and add 50,000 BTUs of propane heat? The tent gets to be 102 degrees inside. No kidding. Just before the scheduled arrival time of the party guests I threw two of my propane heaters (my 35,000 BTU Reddy Heater forced hot air propane heater and a 15,000 BTU radiant propane heater). And I seriously got it to 102 degrees. Oops. But man that felt nice for a while!

The Finish

I continued to follow the recipe and after about 5 hours the temp inside the meat was 190 degrees. So I took it out and let it cool for a few minutes. Believe me, this part goes quickly when it’s in the teens outside. I shredded the pork and got ready to apply the glaze I had cooked down during the time I was waiting. But I decided to taste the meat and the glaze together first and I’m glad I did. You may like your pork really sweet … but I don’t. When I tasted the meat just with the glaze it was a bit sweet for me. And the citrus notes of the mojo were hidden.

Luckily, I had saved all that good juice from the bottom of the roasting pan. When I tasted that, it had the citrus note I was looking for, but it was really salty from all the salt that had melted off of the pork during cooking. But when I mixed a bit of the juice with the glaze I got the flavor I was looking for. I found that a 1:3 or a 1:4 cooking juice to glaze ratio was perfect. So I mixed that into the shredded meat (now in roasting pans) and put it all back in the La Caja China to crisp.

What came out 20 minutes later was a huge hit at the party. 37 people (including kids) finished about 20 of the 24 pounds I had made. It was so good. The salt crust on the outside really mellowed after shredding and mixing with the rest of the pork and the mixture of the glaze and cooking juices really highlighted the citrus notes in the marinade.

My main regret at this point is that I can’t find a picture of the finished product! I know there’s one somewhere on one of the cameras we had, but I sure can’t find it. I promise I will post it when I can though.

The Conclusion

I think Perry has done a great job adapting a traditional recipe to the La Caja China and I recommend that people try it. For my palate, the addition of the cooking liquid to the glaze was key, but other than that I like Perry’s recipe a lot. And even a bunch of 6 year olds liked it!

As I’ve shown, the weather shouldn’t be an excuse to not cook good bar-b-que. So get yourself outside and start cooking.

First Impressions of my La Caja China Roasting Box

When I hear that it’s supposed to be a cold, slightly icy, rainy, and windy mid-December day in Massachusetts, I naturally think of slow roasted Cuban-style pork, don’t you?

My La Caja Chine

So began my adventure of testing out my new La Caja China Model #1 roasting box. For those not familiar with a La Caja China, it’s a kind of oven or roaster made to roast a whole pig or a large number of other cuts, like eight to ten pork shoulders or eight racks of ribs. It’s really just a plywood box on wheels that’s lined with aluminum and topped with a steel cover that holds charcoal. Coals are lit and spread on the lid of the box, and the pig inside is cooked by a combination of the radiant heat from the top and the convection that occurs inside. One unique characteristic is that the box is almost sealed, so all of the moisture released from the meat is kept inside creating a very moist atmosphere. So meat cooks a lot like if it has been wrapped in foil in a regular oven, though one side does brown very well due to the intense heat from the coals on the lid. I guess is many ways, it’s like a giant dutch oven.

The La Caja China was introduced by the Cuban community in Miami, and so most recipes for it have a bit of a Cuban flair. In general, most everything follows the same progression:

My Marinade Ingredients

1. Meat is injected with a flavorful marinade (typically a mojo-type marinade with citrus and garlic).
2. Meat is rubbed with a minimal rub (typically salt and pepper, perhaps a little brown sugar and some spices, but not usually as intense as a typical American bar-b-que rub)
3. Meat marinades for several hours
4. Meat is roasted for five or more hours until cooked, skin side down is possible
5. Meat is flipped skin side up, and the skin is allowed to crisp

The results are best served community-style: just let your friends gather and pick it apart while it’s still hot and the skin is crisp.

I have seen a few people do either a whole small pig or a bunch of pork shoulder in a La Caja China before and it’s always been a great experience. I’ve always wanted to get one myself but just never had the right excuse. Until now … when my wife and daughter were planning her next birthday party (in January) my daughter decided she wanted a Hawaiian themed party. My wife and I joked about trucking a few hundred pounds of sand into our breezeway to simulate a beach in the middle of winter, but then I jokingly suggested that we have a luau so the parents would have an excuse to sit around and drink beer and eat meat. But there’s no way to dig a proper pit in the frozen New England ground I figured … but what about that pig roasting box that my father-in-law had? Thus my excuse. One quick internet order and a week’s wait later. Violá: my very own La Caja China!

My Preperation

Injection/Marinade

For my first roast I stuck to the basics. I used two pork shoulders (bone-in Boston butts) and I even threw on a couple of racks of ribs too. The night before my planned roast I used the syringe and needle that ships with the La Caja China to inject the shoulders with a bottled mojo marinade. Actually, I used a bottled mojo cut with 1/3 sour orange juice. (Badia brand – seen in the picture above.)

Strainer Full of Goodness

One important note – you really need to strain the marinade if you intend to inject it. The needle that comes with the kit is only 14 gauge and the chunks of garlic and spices in the marinade straight from the bottle would clog it in an instant.

I injected each shoulder with what amounted to a full bottle of the marinade! I don’t often inject meats that I cook so I was surprised at how much liquid I could really get to hold inside the meat. I just kept poking and injecting until liquid was running out all over the shoulder.

But before you go thinking that I wasted all the goodness in the garlic and chunks that I strained from the marinade, don’t worry. That became the basis of the rub that I put on the top of the roast.

The Rub

Wrapped Shoulder

I tried to keep the rub simple, to see how much flavor the marinade gave the meat. So I opted for a paste made of coarse salt, black pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and paprika. I mixed these with the garlic and other chunks I strained from the marinade and rubbed both shoulders with it. Then I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator over night. And I have to say: using an industrial-sized box of cling film from BJ’s makes the job a lot easier.

The Roast

Charcoal, Lighter Fluid, and a Blowtorch. Now it's a party ...

This is really the easy part. Basically, you put the meat in the rack, the rack in the box, build a fire, and add charcoal until the meat reaches the proper temperature. Unlike a bar-b-que pit where you are trying to keep a fire at a low level to control the heat and generate smoke, here the charcoal is exposed and you can have the fire as hot as it naturally gets. So there is much less fussing about with coals and dampers and stuff. Just pour on charcoal every hour and go.

Since the meat is never exposed to the fire, regular briquettes are the perfect choice for this kind of cooking. No worries about off flavors or anything, the food is completely shielded. Plus briquettes burn longer than natural lump, so it makes tending the fire that much easier.

So, basically, I loaded the meat and started the fire. It’s kind of fun to be able to use lighter fluid again. I always avoid the stuff when cooking bar-b-que because of the bad flavors it can impart, but again, it didn’t matter here, so I applied it liberally. And just because I can, here’s a video I uploaded to YouTube of the lighting.

The Results

The end product of all of this was some good roast pork. I won’t say it’s the best I’ve ever had … my recipes have a long way to go to get there, but for a couple of pork shoulders roasted in a box, they were good.

Here’s the final results after just after the top was opened.

The Final Product

The meat really fell off the bone, and the marinade did impart a welcome citrus note. But at the end of the day, they call pork “the other white meat” for a reason. It’s pretty bland. Don’t get me wrong, the bark on the outside of the roast had a great flavor and crispy texture, but there was a lot of meat in the middle that needed some extra flavor, even after the injecting.

Like many good pork dishes, I think shoulder roasted like this would benefit from some kind of sauce, perhaps even as simple as hitting the meat with another batch of the mojo marinade after it’s pulled apart. I also think that because there is no smoke flavor imparted by this technique, that the rub can be much stronger than I thought. So in the future I will boost the flavor – using more spices and adding some brown sugar to make a nice crust.

I think I’ll also stud the roast with some extra flavor enhancers, like garlic cloves and perhaps some lime zest.

But I will definitely be doing this again soon, adding some pineapple and other flavors for a Hawaiian theme for my daughter’s birthday party.

I’ll end the cooking part of this post with one final nighttime shot of the La Caja China.

End of a Long Day

A Note About The Day

What A Day

The day I chose for this turned out to be one of the worst of the month of December. It started cold and a bit icy, and then the wind and rain picked up to a true, albeit weak, Nor’easter. Starting in late morning, the temperature rose by about 20 degrees and we got 2.5 inches of rain and wind gusting to 25 mph. I had planned to cook under my EZ-Up canopy, but the wind was just too gusty. It was blowing the tent all over the place. In the end, with some weight and some luck I kept the tent upright, but just barely. I took some additional video during the day and I post them here for your enjoyment.

I periodically put together a list of things which make the bar-b-que enthusiast’s life easier. Usually around Father’s Day. I posted a recent list outlining the necessities back in December of last year. Once those basics are covered, here are some more ideas:

Lodge Cast Iron Cookware

Other than cooking over fire, the next best way to cook outside is in durable cast iron. Most modern gas grills have a side burner, and even for those that don’t you can put a cast iron pan right on the grate or even over the burners. And they work great right on a charcoal fire as well. I have a 10″ skillet that’s over 20 years old and nothing sticks to it after that many years of seasoning. You can find Lodge at many stores or online at Lodge Cast Iron.

Commercial Cookware and Accessories

Some of the most useful things around any BBQ are large sturdy trays. Known as sheet pans in the commercial world, they are sold in full, three-quarter, half, and quarter sizes. Here’s a handy chart I borrowed from Wikipedia’s article about sheet pans.

Made of sturdy aluminum, they’re all I use for baking and for carrying lots of stuff in and out of the kitchen. I buy mine (1/2 size) at a local restaurant supply in Worcester, but they can be found on EBay for as little as $9 a piece in quantity. One at a time, they go for about $20. But believe me, they’ll outlast any kitchen store cookie sheet by many years.

Another useful BBQ item – a dredge. In baker’s terminology, the little shaker cans with handles are called dredges. these are great for shaking on a bar-b-que rub. Sure you can re-use the big seasoning bottles that McCormick spices come in, but after a while they get really greasy and dirty and are hard to clean. A nice aluminum or stainless dredge pops right into the dishwasher. On EBay they go for $4 – $5. Search for ‘dredge’ in the ‘Business & Industrial/Reataurant & Catering/Commercial Kitchen Equipment’ category

Charcoal

Really, who wants to get coal in their stocking for Christmas? Bar-b-que people, that’s who. Some people have never had the pleasure of cooking over real hardwood charcoal and still suffer with briquettes and all their impurities. So take the time and get your favorite cook some of the good stuff. Some manufacturers, like Humphrey Charcoal, will let you buy online. So give the good stuff a try. Order some from http://charcoalbq.com/index.php.

Custom-Made Spice Rubs

Does your BBQ lover have a really special custom rub blend that they use on everything? And do they mess up the kitchen every time they make a big batch of it? Solve two problems with one great gift and have a good spice house custom-blend and package a spice rub to your specifications. Places like Vanns Spices in Baltimore will make up and package as little as 50 pounds of a custom order. See them on the web at http://www.vannsspices.com/custom-blend.php.

In addition to always seeking better bar-b-que I’m also always questing for a better steak. Over the years, I’ve grilled just about every cut of beef – T-bones, ribeyes, filets, NY strips, flank steak, skirt steak – it doesn’t matter. All of the typical American steak cuts come from the loin primals (sirloin, short loin, tenderloin). And they share the typical characteristics of the loin: they’re lean and flavorful.

But lately I’ve been jumping on the Flat Iron bandwagon.

Beef Primals

The flat iron steak is a relatively new cut, invented by the beef industry as a way to use a typically cheap cut of meat from the chuck (shoulder) primal. The beauty of meat from the chuck is that it’s naturally full of fat and connective tissue. And as any carnivore knows, fat = flavor. So the beauty of the flat iron steak is that it has a natural marbling such that even a choice grade flat iron steak has the kind of marbling that you’d see in a prime grade ribeye.

This gives the flat iron unique cooking characteristics. Like pork shoulder, the amount of connective tissue means that the meat can absorb quite a bit of heat before the internal temperature really starts to rise. This means that the flat iron is best cooked over a medium high heat, and in my experience, doesn’t sear as well as other cuts.

But man is it flavorful. All that fat gives it a really rich flavor. And the way it’s cut makes it really tender. If you love to grill and haven’t had the chance to try a flat iron steak, I suggest you do.

More information:

• Wikipedia has a good article about flat iron steak.
• Derek Riches at About.com has a good article about the flat iron.