Year of the Pig

Question: Other than remembering all of our brave military folks of past and present, what is better to do on Memorial Day than barbecue?
Answer: Nothing.

It was going to be my first day home all day for a couple weeks, so it seemed like a good idea to smoke some ribs. That morning, I got out the electric smoker while Alissa prepared the ribs and pulled off the boneside membrane.

She is getting good at that! We again used the mustard slather I had saved from a couple weeks ago (see the Barons Special Sauce from The Ribulator, Entry #17) and coated the ribs liberally with it using a brush. Then I sprinkled the ribs generously on both sides with the spicy Baron’s Cajun Rub (see the recipe in The Ribulator, Entry#18) since last time I made ribs, we all thought the rub could use a little more kick. The smoker was going and I dropped the ribs into the rib rack, again over a bowlful of beans–Pinto and black beans mixed with onion, the rest of the mustard slather, some ketchup and BBQ sauce. I pretty much left them alone for 3 hours, and then took a look, flipped the ribs over in the rack and let them go for another couple hours.

After about 5 hours, they looked pretty done, but I basted them a couple times with some leftover Memphis Basting Sauce (see recipe in The Ribulator, Entry #17) and let them go for another hour. Then, at the end I gave the ribs a light brushing with some left over BBQ sauce, and let that set up for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then, I took the ribs off the smoker and let them rest on the cutting board for about 10 or 15 minutes before slicing them up and taking them in the back yard for dinner.

These ribs were damn good. They were not as smokey as I would ultimately like, but were full of flavor and the rub added a nice assertive kick. I didn’t think that they were that spicy, but by neighbor Pete, who tried a couple, thought they were quite hot. I liked the light BBQ sauce that was only barely present but added a juicy outside and a little sweetness to combat the cajun spice. Overall, very good, I was happy. I had 4. And 2 more for lunch the next day, making my count 80 for the Year of the Pig. Thank you pigs, one and all.

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This was a great weekend for pigs and fun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and the M Shanghai String Band headed up to Cape Cod, for some fun, sun, music, and even ribs. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up camp at Maurice’s campground, which was perfectly pleasant and also the most expensive campground I have ever stayed in, at $80-92 per night (for 2 adjacent tent sites). Oh well, this is Cape Cod, right? If you don’t got money get lost!

Anyway, some of us left the campsite and headed to the nearest beach to check out the surf and skip some rocks, and just down the road my nostrils were greated with the unmistakably delicious smell of hickory smoke. My stomach rumbled as my head turned to the sight of a nice looking smoker right there on the side of the road, a column of rich smoke rolling down the road from Russ and Marie’s Marconi Beach BBQ Restaurant. Marconi Beach, by the way, is the site of one of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless radio stations. I was excited and knew that BBQ joint was gonna be on my list of tourist attractions while there on Cape Cod.

The next day, several of us showed up hungry for some Barbecue. Squidocto, Glendon and myself split a full rack of ribs, and I can promise you I was excited after seeing that great looking smoker and smelling that hickory smoke up and down the road. The food arrived on a nice lookin platter, served with small sides of BBQ beans, cole slaw, grilled bread and a baked sweet potato with maple cinnamon butter.

I have to say as soon as the ribs were in front of me, the disappointment was already setting in. They were completely slathered and dripping in sauce. Sometimes I am ok with that, but I wasn’t expecting it here. Then I took my first bite, and was disappointed again by the taste and texture. The ribs themselves were quite bland, the sauce sweet and overpowering. The membrane on the boneside of the ribs was still intact, and although it wasn’t that tough, it looked bad and could have led to some of the blandness by preventing the smoke from penetrating into the ribs. The ribs were overly tender and falling off the bone like they had been boiled, however they did show a smoke ring, but had very little smoke flavor. Lastly, one more criticism was that at least half of the rack were “shiners,” meaning that there was no meat on the bottom of the bone. Not a great cut of ribs. As you can tell I was disappointed. Sometimes its just not smart to expect too much, and set yourself up for such disappointment. That said, I like ribs and it was still a nice lunch. I had 3, making my Year of the Pig count 74.

After lunch we headed to Provincetown, which is a beautiful little New England beach town. We played an afternoon set on the local radio station, WOMR, and then headed to the venue we were playing in that night which interestingly was called THE SQUEALING PIG, or THE PIG for short. I thought that was a good sign. We got a free meal there, and I ordered the “Hog Burger” which was described as “Thick-Cut Smoked Bacon, served with Gorgonzola Cheese and Chipoltle Mayo.” I thought that sounded pretty great, but when it came it was just a beef patty with one sad shrunken piece of weenie bacon. Certainly no hog burger. Again with the disappointment. I forgave them quickly though, cause playing the PIG that night was a great. The show was a blast and we couldn’t have asked for a better night. The staff was great to us, and the audience even better. I can’t wait to go back to the Provincetown PIG. Thanks to all that made it happen!

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You are probably familiar with the internet phenomenon and ensuing controversy that was HOGZILLA, now being made into a movie, The Legend of Hogzilla. If not, never mind, cause Hogzilla is a pig of the past. Meet Monster Pig.

Feral pigs are a bit of an ever spreading problem in the US, especially in the southeastern states, where they root up all sorts of vegetation and serious cause ecological damage. Occasionally defying all odds, they even manage to reach these monstrous proportions. I’ll tell you, I would not wanna come accross this Monster Pig in the woods. I would cry for my Mama.

This feral hog, Monster Pig, weighing in at over 1050 pounds, measured 9 feet 4 inches from snout to the base of the tail. This hog was shot on a commercial hunting preserve by 11-year old Jamison Stone. Jamison apparently shot the hog 8 times with a .50 caliber revolver, chasing the hog for 3 hours through the woods, before finishing it off point blank. His best quote: “It feels really good. It’s a good accomplishment. I probably won’t ever kill anything else that big.”

Monster Pig’s enormous head is currently being mounted and the rest is being ground into 500-700 lbs of “Monster” Sausage. As a nice end to this story, Jamison has been offered a small role in the The Legend of Hogzilla. I look forward to it.

While we on the subject of enormous hogs, check out the bottom of the wikipedia article on Monster Pig where you can read about other huge pigs like Coursey Hog, Hog Kong, Big Bill and Ton Pig.

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I read a review last week from someone’s blog about Northeastern barbecue joints. He went a little ga-ga in his review of the Manhattan restaurant RUB, (see the Ribulator, Entry #15) and as I left work that night, I thought, I am pretty damn lucky to walk by this place everyday on my way home from work. So, I called in a takeout order for some smoked chicken and burnt ends of brisket, which I know (sorry) is not pork. It was so good, that the very next night, I decided to get some takeout ribs, and again I was not disappointed, they are so damn fine. That’s all I have to say.

Those were 4 superb ribs. That makes the current ribulation 71.

(They went great with Fiddleheads too. Get ‘em while you can!)

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….Brown Ale to be exact.

I played a gig at Johnny D’s in Beantown last night, and had to order a “Pig’s Ear” when I looked at the tap beers. The bartender gave me a taste and I was happily surprised by this rich yet refressing, deeply brown ale. It was pleasantly bitter, with a nice fragrant aftertaste. Just like a pig’s ear.

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I had bought a 1/2 a pork picnic at the supermarket and I decided to smoke that and make pulled pork for dinner on Sunday. I had invited over Corin (Crushinator) and Renee and Matt (our own Squidocto) for a relaxing Sunday evening dinner in the back yard and also found out that my housemate Kat and her friend Matt were planning to make a bunch of food too, including some ribs that they had made before and told me about. Sounded promising!

Neither Alissa nor I had ever cooked a Pork Picnic before, and the night before we had trimmed off the thick layer of skin. Wow that pig skin is a pain. This was a half picnic, weighing in at about 3 pounds. I figured I would just smoke it like a Boston Butt, and it would be fine. I read that it was less fatty than a Boston Butt, so I planned to baste it frequently. We used the same Mustard Slather from the day before, and put together a new rub from the Paul Kirk Book, called the “The Baron’s Cajun Rub” (see below for recipe) because we wanted something a little spicier. We tossed it on the smoker around 10 am. I let the rub set in for a few hours, and then started basting the picnic every 30-45 minutes, with the Memphis Basting Sauce from the previous post.

Meanwhile, Kat and Matt prepared their Ribs (see Ribs-a-la-Kat):

To make a long story short, I smoked that picnic for a good 7 hours and it did not appear to have gotten tender yet. I got out the left over ribs from the day before and heated them up so that we would have dinner, and just let the Picnic smoke on, thinking that my smoker was just too low of a temperature (around 200) and that it was gonna take a long time. We had a fine dinner with swiss chard, bbq beans, coleslaw, corn and ribs. And soon after, Kat and Matt were down with the 2nd course, finishing off their Stout-boiled ribs on the grill and then grilling up some seriously delicious red bell peppers stuffed with hominy and jack cheese and avacado. Nice job Matt! As for the ribs, I thought they were very good. Very tender, but not of the falling off the bone stew meat variety. The sauce was tangy and spicy. It was a good method, definitely worth experimenting with, although I must add, smoking is definitely my favorite way to go so far.

As for the picnic, we continued to smoke it and baste it. It ended up being quite dried out. We still pulled the meat apart and mixed it with the a BBQ sauce from the Paul Kirk book and a little apple sauce. It ended up being good for lunches during the week, but definitely not worth showing off to your friends.

Anyway, another 4 ribs brought me up to 67 ribs. Thanks to all the piggies, near and far!

**The Baron’s Cajun Rub
1/4 cup Cayenne Pepper
1/4 Sweet Hungarian Paprika
2 Tbs Chili Seasoning
2 Tbs Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 Tsp White Pepper
1 Tsp Dry Mustard (I used Coleman’s)
1 Tsp Ground Thyme
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1/2 Tsp Rubbed Sage

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INGREDIENTS:
1 rack of spareribs, cut St. Louis Style
1 little can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
a jar of clover honey from upstate ny
1 jar of chipotle mustard
some bourbon
a six-pack of stout beer
some tomato paste
brown sugar
chili powder
garlic powder
paprika
onion powder
salt & pepper to taste.

1. Clean your ribs – remove external fat and that funny little membrane that you see on the outside. To do that, grab as much as you can with your thumb and index finger of your left hand, and then use a short serrated knife to cut underneath the membrane while pulling the membrane back with your left hand. You should feel like you’re skinning an animal. ARGH!

2. Put your ribs in a wide pot, large enough to hold the ribs in one layer, maybe two. I like to use my Le Cruset pots, ‘cause they hold their heat really well.

3. Pour in your stout beer, enough to cover the ribs by an inch.

4. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a slow, bubbly, simmer. Bloop….blooop.

5. Simmer for an hour or so, until the meat has pulled back from the rib ends about ¾ of an inch.

6. Remove the ribs from the beer, and place on a tray

MEANWHILE, prepare your sauce

1. Take a big squirt of your chipotle mustard sauce and put it in a medium size mixing bowl. If you don’t have chipotle mustard, use brown mustard.

2. Add half of your honey jar. Perhaps ¾ to 1 cups worth

3. Chop up 2 of the chipotle peppers really fine, and then add those, along with some of the adobo sauce. BE CAREFUL – HOT!

4. Add a few tablespoons of tomato paste, a couple shakes of pepper, salt, and what ever other dried flavorings you think will taste good.

5. Stir it with a fork, add some bourbon, drink some bourbon, add some stout, drink some stout., stir.

6. Put it down and let it sit for 20 minutes or so. Drink your beer.

7. Adjust flavorings to taste.

MEANWHILE, prepare your grill

You’re just re-warming the ribs and searing the outside, so you don’t want it too hot so that the ribs burn, but you want it hot enough so that you’re not waiting around forever to eat. Interpret that how you want.

Lather sauce on both sides of ribs – and deposit on grill. Grill for ten to a maximum of fifteen minutes, making sure to turn them to get those purty grill marks.

Enjoy!

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WOW. I feel that I have a lot to report on from this weekend, as there was a lot of Pig action. Let me start by mentioning that for the past couple weeks I have been reading Paul Kirk’s book “Championship Barbecue” which I got shortly after my review of his restaurant, R.U.B. (see the Ribulator, Entry #15). It’s a pretty great book with a lot of good information about barbecue, and a ton of recipes. It will make you dream about delicious smoked meat. Last week, I had busted out the smoker to try some of his suggestions for chicken and I was not disappointed, but this weekend it was time to smoke the real deal: RIBS.

***A BASIC WORD ABOUT MY SMOKER: First off, I have THIS SMOKER which is an electric “bullet” or “water” smoker. I think that review is pretty accurate. This smoker is ok, but definitely not awesome, so I wouldn’t run out and buy it. I may have to try some of the modifications that guy suggests, or just go for a Weber Smokey Mountain. That said, the advantage of this smoker is that it is damn easy and low maintenance. Turn it on and it basically keeps a constant temperature, and you can walk away and not worry about it. It certainly has its limitations, including the fact that it seems barely able to get up to the temperature it needs to be at. Also, I don’t think that it generates quite as much smoke as a a charcoal smoker would, but that said, it does a pretty nice job and is a good way to get started smoking. For those of you that don’t know, the electric “bullet” or “water” smoker is basically a little cylindrical tower that looks a little like R2-D2. Inside, it has a heating element in the bottom, around which you put your wood chips or chunks. This provides the heat and the smoke. Above that is a water pan, which helps to stabilze the temperature, and keeps the smoker moist. Above that are 2 18-inch racks, where the smokables go.

Anywho, I got up early on Saturday morning and got out the ribs I had bought the day before from the local supermarket. The ribs looked pretty good to me, trimmed St. Louis Style. Alissa and I did our best to remove the membrane from the bone side of the rack. It definitely takes a little skill and is annoying, but it’s a must. Once done, I followed a basic technique from the Paul Kirk book, coating the rack in a Mustard Slather (recipe below) and then sprinkling them with a basic leftover rub I had from last summer. After that, it was into the smoker. I put the ribs on the top rack, and under them I put a big bowl of pinto and kidney beans (mixed with onion, garlic, bell pepper, leftover mustard slather, and ketchup) to catch all the porky drippings. I put a mix of hickory, apple and oak chips in the smoker pan, and let it smoke.

It seemed like that temperature stayed around 210 or so, and I smoked it for a total of about 5 1/2 hours. For the last half of that time I basted the ribs with the “Memphis Basting Sauce” (see below).

We took the ribs out and I thought they were pretty damn good. They were tender and tasty. This is definitely on the track to my ideal cooking method for ribs. I mean, you just can’t beat smoking.

I think the rub could have been set a little more, and maybe been a little more assertive, but the actual meat was nice and tender, smokey and flavorful. We ate some for dinner–I had 4, bringing me up to 63 ribs–and wrapped the rest, about a half rack, in the plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. I would like to add the that beans were delicious. I think that smoking under pork is about the best way known to man to cook beans.

But that is just about half the story cause there was more to come on Sunday…stay tuned for part 2.

RECIPES
The Baron’s Special Sauce (aka Mustard Slather):
1 Generous Cup firmly packed light brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 Teaspoon White Pepper
1 12-ounce can beer, flat
1 32-ounce jar prepared yellow mustard
2 tablespoons Louisianna hot sauce

Memphis Basting Sauce
3 cups water
1 1/2 Cups red wine vinegar
3/4 cup Heinz 57 (I substituted KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce)
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 prepared yellow mustard
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon Seasoned Salt
2 Teaspoons Liquid Smoke (optional)
***Combine and simmer over medium heat for 15 min. Use Baste warm.

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I just want to apologize if I have not spaced out my “gross” posts enough. I will try to have more delicious ones. In the meantime, here is a happy feel-good GIF that all can enjoy:

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“…the meat cocktail stands out above wobbly, cranberry-tainted attempts at bar trendiness.”

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