Bringing Barbecue Home
The television screen is black. You hear the unmistakable sound of crackling wood and the screen slowly begins to glow orange on one side. As the blurred picture begins to take shape, the movement of color suggest flames…and indeed…the flames, and coals, and sparks come into focus. A few notes sound off from a single guitar that are unmistakably Southern, perhaps Bayou, or Appalachia. As the camera pans out, an old woman comes into the picture in slow motion. She’s wizened, sweating, and heaves a giant slab of pork onto a steel cooking grate. Sparks fly. The narrator, sounding like a cross between Sam Elliott and the Man with No Name, dramatically growls the magic word that lets us all know what we’ll be watching for the next hour…
“Barbecue…”
These sorts of shows are everywhere now. Netflix and other platforms are churning these out, as the “media model” is built for transforming culinary interests into binge-worthy content. But, in truth, barbecue does have a mystique that has real mass appeal. Spotlights on pit masters, game show barbecue contests, national cook-offs…these are the different concepts we see on barbecue-based TV. The cooks on these shows run the gamut. Some are lifelong masters who find a Zen-like peace in the long, slow, day-in, day-out, deep process of enticing some of the world’s greatest flavors from trashy cuts of meat through the mastery of heat, smoke, air, and steel. Others are obsessive competition junkies that chase each other all over the country with $100,000 worth of equipment, secret recipe marinades, and a small arsenal of beer coolers and folding chairs. From one perspective, with all this variety, maybe “there’s a barbecue show for everyone.” But from another perspective, one I’ve been thinking about lately, maybe there isn’t.
I cooked my first whole pig in the mid 90’s. It was post college communal living at its finest and, by some stroke of amazing luck, my friends and I found ourselves living in the city, but in a house that had a big yard uniquely tucked away from the hustle and bustle. It was our oasis. I was a young, adventurous cook working in the greatest job I ever had. My friends were equally adventurous and ran in larger circles full of musicians, brewers, artists, poets, academics, and trades people. Collectively, we staged four pig roasts that were absolutely epic. Craft beer by the keg-full, a homemade stage for an amateur bluegrass band, and…of course…an 80lb free range pig on a motorized spit.
During the pig roast era, I spent a decent amount of time learning about barbecue, focusing on the American tradition and the different styles that emerged from the American South. There was (and still is) a growing stream of books written about the art of barbecue, its historic roots, regional interpretations, styles across the globe, and of course, the techniques and tools of the trade. I learned what I could and folded it into the more European style training I was receiving on the job. As a young professional cook, I had access to other professionals far more experienced than I was. They shared their own insights and connected me with others in the Boston cooking scene as I spent a couple of years in that culinary rabbit hole. Ironically, it was all of this effort and reading that would eventually lead to a light-bulb moment for me, a recognition of the simple framework that covers a huge span of classic barbecue dishes.
Getting back to where we started, whether it’s the drama of a Netflix special or a cookbook that calls for $1,000 in new equipment, the world of barbecue is not very welcoming for the average home cook. It’s a conspiracy of intimidation. There’s an implicit but clear message in all of the tv shows and food magazines that makes a lot of home cooks feel like “It’s too hard,” or “I don’t have what I need,” or “It just won’t be that good.” Even worse are those shows that come across so sanctimonious they create an impression that even trying to create barbecue in a regular home kitchen is somehow “not real,” or it represents an insult to the craft and the masters that guard its time honored secrets.
I call “bullshit.”
For the record…I believe the international culinary heritage of barbecue should be honored and those who carry forward the best of its recipes, tools, and techniques are precious to us. They are artists and living cultural reference points. But barbecue does not belong to the Yucatan peninsula, the American South, Korea, Jamaica, or Japan. Nor is it exclusive to restaurants or “pits” that have all the right equipment and chefs with decades of training. The home cook can and should barbecue. No smoker? No problem. Let’s look at how this plays out in an average household…
I’m not going to give a series of recipes here, because that would defeat the point I’m trying to make, and you can figure out your own spice rub. What I’m going to do is use my most recent pork rib cooking session to illustrate a basic five-step process that can be applied to many classic cuts of typical barbecue meat. The process goes like this:
1. Buy great meat
2. Rub it like you mean it
3. Grill it hard and fast
4. Cook slow and low
5. Finish with flair
Ribs, brisket, burnt ends, pulled pork, picnic shoulder…ALL of these cuts can be prepared with this process. Cooking times will vary, the rub recipe can change, but the approach is the same.
I bought four racks of baby back ribs that just simply looked beautiful. Not only was the meat top notch, but the butcher had gone so far as to remove the silver skin from the inside surface of the ribs (the concave surface). I consider this a critical detail for making five-star ribs. It’s important to note that, for those of us who can afford it, we really do need to make the effort to buy more sustainably raised meat. I may go deeper into this issue at another time. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll just say that buying meat that is locally sourced and humanely raised is critical to the future of this planet. And guess what? It tastes amazing too!
As I said in Spice of Life, I’ve been trying to turn up my spice game over the past few years and this home cook barbecue thing is a prime example of why this is important. When I made these ribs, I absolutely covered them in a mix of chili spice, cumin, paprika, powdered garlic, powdered ginger, black pepper, and probably a couple other things. I took the time to pre-mix the spices in a bowl at ratios that I just thought made sense. I didn’t measure or write it down, but the mix was heaviest on the chili and cumin, and lightest on the garlic and ginger…you get the picture. Once everything was heavily coated, I let the ribs sit out at room temperature for several hours to allow the spices to start “cooking” into the meat. The rub process took me about 20 minutes, not counting the time the ribs just sat there.
Once the rub phase was done, I hauled the ribs out to my little gas grill to get a serious char on those racks. I cranked the grill up all the way, and placed a couple of racks on the heat, closing the lid. The goal was to get a good dark char on as much of the meat as possible. This is the moment where you’re infusing some smoke flavor into the meat. At one point, I walked away and the whole rig set on fire…no problem…charred pork ladies and gentlemen. By some miracle, the little gas grill survived the fire…but it will never be the same. At the end of the day, I had what I needed, charred smokey flavor. This step required two rounds of grilling (because my grill is so small) for a total of 30 leisurely minutes.
(The picture at the top of this blog post shows two hunks of heavily rubbed pork shoulder getting charred before they went into the oven.)
After everything was charred up, it was time for the “slow and low” phase. Slow cooking seared or charred meat is sometimes referred to as “braising.” Items like veal osso buco are examples of classic, famous braised meat dishes. In these European dishes, the liquid in which the charred meat sits for the slow cook is important. French chefs taught me how to create incredible braising liquids using caramelized vegetables, red wine, tomato, herbs, and rich homemade stock. If you have the tools, know-how, and time to do this…that’s great. If not, again, do not despair. At the end of the day, you need enough liquid to create some steam and, depending on what you have on hand, add some flavor. For this batch of pork ribs, all I had was two cans of beer and a can of diced tomato. I split these up between the two pans, creating a puddle across the bottom of each. What I counted on was setting the temperature super low, which would allow the ribs to shed their own liquid into the pan. Over time, the ribs would braise in their own juices.
The oven was set to 290°F. (While elements of this five-step process will vary from one cut of meat to another, this low temperature does not change.) I placed parchment over the ribs, then wrapped the pans tightly in foil. It took about 10 minutes to get everything in the oven, and the slow cook maybe took 90+ minutes but certainly less than two hours. I purposefully didn’t record the cooking time, because it will be different for every piece of meat you cook. You need to check the meat regularly, re-wrapping the foil tightly if it’s not done. The ribs are finished when they are “fall of the bone” tender. The most challenging part of this phase is keeping yourself from chowing down on the finished product before you actually serve your guests. As I mentioned earlier, this cook time was about 90+ minutes, but a brisket will take longer, and whole pork butt much longer still. Chicken legs may be done in only an hour.
One thing not to forget at this point, when the meat is done, the pans will have a deep pool of rich, flavorful broth. You can use this during service to pour over the meat or reserve it for another use later. Pour it in tupperware once it’s at room temp, then throw it in the fridge or freezer. You can use it for your next batch of barbecue, a soup, or a stew.
Ideally, you’ll have time for the ribs to cool down before the final step: finishing. If you’re good at managing your time, you can complete steps 1-4 the day before your cookout (or even earlier) and put the cooked ribs in the icebox for the night. To finish the meat, it’s back to the grill. I laid the ribs down on a hot grill and simply cooked them until they were hot and falling apart. I finished with barbecue sauce (I prefer tomato based sauce, but you can go with whatever you like), sliced the ribs up and piled them in a platter. A sprinkle of fresh chopped cilantro and chopped scallion adds color and crispness, which provides contrast to the rich, slow-cooked meat. This final step took about 30 minutes, so if you’re keeping track, the whole thing was an hour and a half of actual work.
These…ribs…were…amazing!
To conclude, let us all hope that we someday have the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the great pits scattered across the American South and taste barbecue from the masters. It’s definitely on my bucket list. But until then, just remember the five-step framework and you can make delicious barbecue at home. Apply the approach to different cuts of meat and get comfortable with the process. After three or four batches, it will come easy to you, and the results will make your guests swoon. Most importantly, be unapologetic about not using a smoker, don’t be afraid to call it “barbecue,” and serve it up with pride.