Low Carb Options, Part 1

Like a lot of my life changes, this one has a bit of history.

For the last 20 years or so, I’ve had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I’ve been treating both with prescription meds, and that’s kept it in check. No improvement, mind you, but it’s not gotten worse, either.

At the same time, I’d had the same doctor, who I’d picked when we moved back to Atlanta in 2001. He was the same age as me, because I’d heard to pick someone my age so they would believe me when I told them how I felt.

Then, a year ago, my health insurance had a falling out with the large hospital system my doctor was a part of, and I was forced to find another doctor. After some thought I decided to start seeing a doctor 20 years younger than me, the thought being he would be more in tune with options.

So after my first checkup in January 2022, the numbers were in line with where they had been for 10 years or so. Cholesterol was a little high, weight was high, and my A1C was high. But where my previous doctor had always seen that as the “same old same old,” my new doctor wrote me a rather stern report, and said that if it didn’t improve soon, we would need to look at more strict treatment, like insulin.

Well, dayum. So this is what the younger doctors do?

As you can imagine, this led to some serious consideration on my part. What can I do to keep from having to treat diabetes?

After a few weeks of research, and an honest discussion with my doctor, I came up with a plan: go on a low carbohydrate diet. Where most people eat 300 to 500 grams of carbs a day, I decided to limit myself to 50 per day. As you can imagine, for someone who loves pasta and breads, this was quite a change. While I plan to tell more about this in coming posts, I will tell you that it has worked so far, and I have lost 40 pounds, and all my cholesterol and A1C are in the normal range.

So, where is this post going?

Well, about the same time I started the low carb diet, I also discovered how much I like to drink mixed cocktails like Old Fashioneds. But, as I went along I realized real simple syrup was just carbs dissolved in water. And other mixers like Kahlua were just as bad.

So, having said that, this leads to the point: Low Carb Mixers. And the first is a low carb coffee mixer to replace Kahlua.

Here’s mine:

• 1 cup black coffee
• 6 packets of sucralose or other artificial sweetener
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp vanilla extract to taste

Stir and refrigerate

I use this as my normal coffee liqueur in mixes, although to be honest I find it leaves my White Russians a little short on the sweet side, so I add a shot of syrup made with artificial sweetener.

Look for more low carb options I have discovered in the past year!

COVID Testing, Sort Of

As many people who follow me on social media know, I am quite into bourbons and cocktails. So, in the coming weeks, I am going to be sharing some of my observations on this topic.

First, in reference to title, in the early days of the China Virus, a friend of mine noted that since the loss of smell and taste were some of the first symptoms of infection, he planned to make a cocktail at least daily, as a test.

I do that too, and I have learned a lot about mixology in the meantime.

So look for cocktail tips and observations to come.

The Chuckie – a Cheaper Brisket Option

As everyone is aware, the price of meat has skyrocketed during the pandemic, thanks to a hundred reasons. This has made making my favorite brisket almost out of reach.

Until I read an idea on the Book of Faces, that has changed my world. Well, my brisket world, any way.

Introducing the Chuckie: smoking a chuck roast like a brisket, for a quarter the price and a quarter the time.

My local grocery stores sell briskets for $3.99 a pound on a normal day, making them $80 at the cheapest. And I have to admit, while I love brisket, I’m not sure I love it that much.

But then I read on the Book of Faces how some old skool smokers would use chuck roast. And behold, I was at the store the next day, when what should appear:

Well, okay then.

So I got Johnny Tyler going – my old vertical smoker – and got some oak and hickory ready. Then I rubbed the roast all over and let it sit for a half hour while the fire got set.

Once it was ready, I put it on (with a couple of chicken breasts that I could have for lunch), and off we went.

I decided to cook just like a brisket, so at 165 degrees I wrapped it in butcher paper, and cooked to 205 degrees.

Now, I knew this wouldn’t take near the 12 hours that brisket takes, and I assumed it would be more like 6 hours, like a Boston butt. But this one was done in a little over 4 hours.

I let it rest, then sliced and served.

And I must say, the results were awesome!

While I will admit the texture was a little rougher than brisket, most likely due to where this meat comes from – up on the shoulder versus down closer to the legs. But, that didn’t change the taste. I served without sauce, and it was wonderful.

So, guess where I went the next day? Yes, back to the store for a couple more. Fourth of July will be wonderful!

Pastrami: an Epiphany

One thing I am coming to terms with as I grow older is that there are always things I am going to learn. And this, Gentle Reader is one.

Prior to about a year ago, I did not know that pastrami is merely smoked corned beef.

I have eaten some great pastrami in my life, most notably at Snack N’ Shop deli in northwest Atlanta (sadly, closed since 1996). I have also made what I thought was some good corned beef, which I plan to write about soon. But to discover that the two are related was a profound moment.

Basically, both are beef brisket, brined in a salt and spice solution. Then, if you boil it, it’s corned beef, or if you smoke it, it’s pastrami.

So, let’s start with the brine.

Mix together:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup pink curing salt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons pickling spice
• 1 tablespoons whole mustard seed
• 1 tablespoons coriander

Dissolve in 1 gallon of water and bring to a boil.

Then add the brisket, and ice to cool it. Be sure to trim all the outside fat off the brisket.

Now, find a spot in your refrigerator, and let it brine for 5 days.

Yes. Five days.

Next, we make a rub:

• 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons fresh coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

Apply liberally to the wet brisket. Note, I bought a point.

Light the smoker, and get it up to 225F, and get the beef on.

Smoke until the internal temp reaches 205F. I used oak and hickory.

When it’s done, let it rest for a half hour minimum.

Note how the curing salt adds the pink color even when done. Cooking to 205 breaks down all the internal

I am a big fan of the Rueben sandwich, so I made some.

A Reuben is basically a grilled sandwich of pastrami, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese, on rye bread.

Most Reuben recipes call for using Russian dressing, and some use thousand island dressing. Growing up, we watched Julia Child make Reubens, and she used a homemade mayonnaise and horseradish mix that I love.

Now I must say, the pastrami was wonderful, even left over by itself.

Garlic Rolls

Our family enjoys pasta, probably twice a week. Given that, for a long time we just ate rolls or bread with it. So, I decided to work on something tasty, and easy to fix. Here is my answer.

Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes

6 Rolls

6 tablespoons butter, melted in a ramekin

Preheat the oven. You can choose your temperature, I use the default 350F, unless I am cooking something else.

First, cover a sheet pan with aluminum foil and lightly coat with cooking spray or oil. Then put your rolls on.

Once the oven starts heating, and gets about about 250F, put the rolls in for 5 minutes, uncovered.

While they heat, melt about a tablespoon of butter per roll in a ramekin, by heating about 30 seconds in the microwave.

After five minutes, remove the rolls and let rest a minute. Then coat with melted butter Place back in the over for 5 more minutes.

While they are in the oven the second time, add about a half tablespoon of garlic per roll to the remaining melted butter, and mix well.

After 5 minutes take the rolls out, and brush them again with the remaining butter and garlic.

Heat a final time for 4 to 5 minutes.

Serve warm.

Chili del Cielo

Please know, Gentle Reader – and I hope this does not come as a shock – that my love for barbecue is at most one notch above my love for chili con carne. To get there, I will tell you a story.

One of my father’s best friends moved to Texas when I was young, and sent my parents a recipe called Chili por el Animo, or Chili for the Soul. My mother started making it, and even added some notes at the bottom, like making sure to use a wooden spoon.

Here is the original recipe, now framed in my kitchen:

Over the years, I have made dozens of batches of this wonderful chili. I have stories and fables to tell, which I will share elsewhere. But suffice to say that I have added a few things and refined some, so that I now present to you Chili del Cielo.

Here is the full recipe:

So, let’s get started.

I find that fresh vegetables make the best chili. So I start with the peppers and onion.

Of course, we can vary the heat of the chili by the amount of peppers we use. I find that a medium amount, as shown here, makes what I consider a pretty mild chili.

Chop the onions and peppers medium.

After chopping the peppers, put one finely chopped jalapeno aside.

Here’s the meat, beans, and tomatoes.

Brown the meat and sauté the onions, peppers, and garlic.

Drain the fat from the meat if you wish, but don’t rinse. You want a little of that fat remaining on the meat, as it will absorb some of the flavors from the peppers better.

Add the tomatoes and beans (with liquid) to the meat. Note, for variety, you can try different kinds of beans.

Then add the sautéed vegetables.

Here are the spices.

I find the lid from a jar of parmesan cheese holds exactly 1/4 cup – so it makes a great measuring cup for the chili powder.

I also wait until after I add the beer, to add the cinnamon and paprika.

Next, add the beer.

Note, I am adding a whole beer. To be honest, it was shared with me by my Dad’s friend, that he originally figured he was drinking beer all day while making the chili, and when he thought about it, he would add some beer. He figured that over the space of making the batch, he added about a whole beer, out of the six pack he drank. The choice is yours.

At this point, add the remaining fresh jalapeno. I find that the fresh pepper adds to what is provided by the sautéed peppers.

Now, bring to a low boil, and then move it to a small burner, and simmer, covered, for 2-1/2 hours or so.

Stir about every 20 minutes or so, and taste it after an hour or so, and add salt and/or cayenne pepper as you see fit.

Then, move the lid so there is a gap, and turn up the heat slightly, and “cook down” for an hour or so, cooking off some of the water, and thickening the chili.

At this point, it’s ready to go. I serve mine with some chopped fresh onion and grated cheese.

Refrigerate any leftovers, but know that the peppers will continue to do their magic, and the leftover chili will be noticeably spicier than the fresh chili.

Enjoy!

Dry Ribs – an Update

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first real attempt at dry ribs. Over the course of the next week, I ate the leftover ribs, intentionally eating both dry ribs and wet ribs in the same meal, and made it a point to compare them. Here is my take:

The dry ribs were smokier tasting.

This is because the dry ribs are exposed to the smoke for the whole cook, while the wet ribs are essentially only exposed directly for about an hour, until I start to mop them with sauce. In addition, the wet ribs are wrapped for the last 2 hours of the cook, while the dry ribs are not.

The better smoke exposure is obvious when we look at the great smoke ring, in the photo above.

The dry ribs were spicier tasting.

This is directly because the rubs are different. The dry rub contained cayenne pepper, brown sugar, and chili powder, while the wet ribs had my traditional Franklin-esque salt and pepper only rub.

The dry ribs were more tender.

This one, I am not totally sure why, because the two kinds of ribs make a difference – full rack for the wet ribs, and baby back ribs for the dry ribs. Next time I should do the same style of meat and compare.

 

In conclusion, while this was the first time I had done dry ribs, it won’t be the last.

Am I giving up on wet ribs? No. But I’m not ruling our dry ribs any more!

Dry Ribs

I have been blessed to eat ribs at some of the most famous joints in America. From Raleigh to Atlanta to Memphis to Amarillo to Kansas City, I’ve eaten a lot. I must say, I am quite a fan of Memphis style ribs, and specifically, wet ribs. I spent some time a few years ago often visiting Memphis on business, and I ate at Corky’s, Rendezvous, and Interstates quite frequently.  And the whole time, I only ordered wet ribs.

Now, I have had dry ribs, and probably the best I’ve had were from Dreamland, from the the original joint in Tuscaloosa. I admit, I didn’t order them dry, our plant manager did, and I wasn’t going to argue with him. They were great, but I put sauce on them, which probably told me something.

When I make my own, I have always done ribs by smoking for 3 hours, mopping as I go, and then wrapping and cooking til done. But this week the Dauphin told me he would like to try dry ribs, so I decided to give it a shot.

Spoiler alert – they turned out pretty good.

Here’s how I did it.

PREP

Starting with a rack of baby backs, I made a rub out of kosher salt and black pepper, with brown sugar and chili powder added. I also added dashes of cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. This was added liberally as soon as I started the fire, and let sit while the fire grew, about 30 minutes.

That’s a full rack on top, destined for the wet treatment, and the dry rack of baby backs on the bottom. I rubbed the dry ribs more, since that was the only source of flavor.

COOK

For this cook I used oak to start, and mostly hickory thereafter. I cooked them at about 250F for about 5 hours total, until the bones felt a little loose, and I spritzed them liberally with water and apple juice, about every 20 minutes or so. (I also did sausage, as well as the flaps from the full rack, there on the left.)

This was about 3 hours in, just after I wrapped the wet ribs.

SERVE

I let them rest about 30 minutes, then cut, and served. That’s the wet ribs on the left, and I ate equal amounts of each.

The Verdict:

The Dauphin gave his blessing, and I agree. In fact, the next time I make just one rack, I may cut it in half and do wet and dry.

Having said that, I honestly found them a little salty, so I will likely cut back on the salt next time.

Which won’t be long!

 

Brisket Redemption

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Now, I know, the star of the Texas barbecue scene, and to me, the world scene, is brisket. And to this Georgia native and current resident, there is no better barbecue than a well cooked brisket.

And this, my friends, is where I need to confess a defect: I am ashamed of the brisket I have made in the past. I know I have posted about how good it was, and to be honest, it was the best brisket I had made, but when I ate others’ wonderful meat, I was reminded that mine was tough and bland. So, for almost seven years, I have not made brisket.

But for 2020, I decided to make some barbecue resolutions – which I purposefully have not publicized – one thing I wanted to do was to learn how to make brisket that was comparable to the Boston butt I make.

So, I have been studying and researching, in the hope that I might sometime this year, cook a brisket. In the course of this search, I read a lot and watched some videos by Aaron Franklin. Slowly, he convinced me that maybe I could do a brisket.

And then a week ago Friday my wife and I were at the grocery store, and I was walking down the meat aisle, distraught that the COVID-19 pandemic had meant that good meat could not be bought, and that middling meat was expensive.

Then, I saw the store employee put this in the bin:

There was a 14 pound brisket, normally $4 a pound, marked down to $25. And it was the only one. I quickly asked the grocer what was up, and he explained that they had torn the package when they first opened that morning, and they re-packaged it, and marked it down. He assured me there was nothing wrong without, and upon inspection, it looked fine.

Okay, sold!

So now I got to put my work to use. I spent some time brushing up on what I learned, and wrote out a plan.

+++

Here are the steps I laid out, and will cover today:

1. Prep
2. Fire in the hole
3. Rub
4. Smoke
5. Wrap
6. Cook
7. Rest
8. Slice
9. Enjoy

Prep

Normally I do prep the day of the cook, but because a brisket is going to take 12 hours or so to cook, I decided this time to start the cook at 6 AM, meaning not only would it be dark when I started the cook, but it would be too frickin early to do it reasonably. So, I took a half hour the afternoon before, to get ready.

I got the smoker set up, with starter charcoal in the firebox, the water pan set, and at least my first few hours’ worth of wood – split hickory and cut oak limbs.

Fire in the Hole

So, at 5 AM, I rose and got the firebox lit.

After the coals burned down to all white, I added some oak to get the box up to temp, and added hot water to the water pan.

Rub

I admit, this was a big change for me this time. As you can read, I have used a lot of different rub recipes over the years. But, after researching, I decided to acknowledge Aaron Franklin’s wisdom, and go with kosher salt and ground pepper, although admittedly I added a couple of shots of cayenne pepper.

Note, this is a shot of the rub in process, and I actually did a better job of covering the meat than is shown. (Note to self . . .)

I also learned a lot from Aaron about how to trim. As an example, he talks about how the mechanical trimming of the meat partially cooks it along one side, and this needs to be cut off. Spoiler alert, this makes a difference.

Smoke

Once the smoke box temperature started to get up over 200F, I added oak, and waited for it to get to 250F. At that point, the meat went on.

Now starts the fun, especially since the sun wasn’t coming up for another hour and a half.

These two photos were taken 40 minutes apart.

From there, it’s all about keeping the firebox stoked, and the smoke box temperature between 250F and 275F. I know this is hotter than some people do, but I have found it works best for me.

So, for the next 8 hours or so, I keep it running until the internal temp. I inserted the probe in the widest part of the flat, and let it go.

Wrap

After about 8 hours, I wrapped with aluminum foil. Now, I know Aaron Franklin uses parchment paper, and I would have, too, if I had some. But I did not. And, based on his test of making three briskets, one parchment wrapped, one foil wrapped, and one unwrapped, I decided to go with the foil.

It reached a stall at about 165, so I wrapped.

Cook

Now it was a matter of keeping it going, and take the opportunity to get a little yard work done. And now I could use my non-cook-worthy wood, as the smoke quality made no difference. It was a good thing, too, as the smoke was ugly and black a few times. But I kept the temp in the 225 to 275 range, and all was well.

I just hope my neighbors didn’t think it was still unwrapped.

Rest

Then, finally, after 11 hours and 20 minutes, the 200 degree setting was reached, and the alarm sounded! Off it came!

Slice

I decided to serve the point first, and sliced it thin.

And I have to admit, the burnt ends were perfect.

Enjoy

I must say, this was by far the best brisket I have ever made. The combination of simple rub, indirect smoke, hickory, and patience, paid off.

We ate the whole point that day, and the week since I have been enjoying the flat. I am almost embarrassed to admit to my guests from last week that to me, it was smokier and more tender than the point.

In summary, my review of the Franklin method is that it has redeemed me, in my mind. It’s simple, easy to follow, and makes an awesome brisket.

Coming Soon – Brisket

I was at the grocery store today, and as I was walking down the meat area, a fellow came out and put down a brisket, priced at less than half retail. Warily, I asked him, and it turns our the package had been torn open and the had to re-wrap. The “good-til” date is August.

Okay, I know what I’m doing tomorrow. Watch for live tweets at @fillyerhands, and a summary post later next week.

On a side note, the last time I made brisket, it was too tough, because I didn’t cook it long enough. I admit this has made me reluctant to do it again. But I have watched a lot of Aaron Franklin and others, so I know I will do better.