Texas Home Cooking Read online

  The next day prepare the pit and bring the temperature to about 200° F. Make the mop sauce: Combine the turkey or chicken stock, garlic oil, black pepper, and cayenne in a small bowl.

  Place the turkey breast in the pit with the skin side up. Smoke it at about 200° F, applying the mop sauce to the breast every 20 minutes during the cooking process. The breast should be done in 5 to 6 hours, when the internal temperature reaches 180° F. Remove the meat from the pit, and allow it to sit for 15 minutes before carving.

  Serve the sliced breast with the Chile Pecan Sauce for Turkey ([>]), if you like.

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  A BARREL OF FUN

  Many people barbecue on barrel cookers converted from 55-gallon drums. These are better for grilling than for smoking, but they can manage either. Though they don't have an offset firebox like a proper pit, they can burn wood logs, their main advantage over a Weber kettle for smoking. Also, they have a bigger cooking area than other grills, allowing you to move the meat farther from the fire. The real attraction of the drums, however, is the homespun feel. They look like something Davy Crockett killed, and they let everyone know you're no drugstore dude.

  A decent welder can build a barrel cooker from the illustration, but a few tips may help to get it right. Install a good thermometer in the lid, so you can check the temperature of the meat easily. Line the bottom of the barrel with sand and fire brick, which will keep logs from burning through and improve the cooker's heat retention. Most important, get solid, functional valves for the air vents on the chimney and the opposite side wall. Only by controlling the flow of air through the cooker can you regulate the heat. Remember to smoke slow and low, which will mean little or no flame from the wood fire.

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  Devilish Dove

  Doves are small birds, but they're big-time game among Texas hunters. When sharp-eyed friends find their mark, this is how we cook the little critters as appetizers. If you find fresh yellow güero, or banana, chiles, substitute them for half the jalapeños for more color contrast.

  2 dozen doves

  2 tablespoons oil, preferably canola or corn

  ½ cup Lone Star Dry Rub ([>])

  24 large fresh jalapeños

  1 medium onion, cut in slivers

  12 slices slab bacon, sliced in half cross-wise

  Serves 6 to 8

  Take the tiny breast from each dove, massage it with oil, and coat it with the dry rub. Save the rest of the bird for stock if desired. Cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.

  As the pit is warming up to a cooking temperature of 200° F to 220° F, split the jalapeños along one side and seed them. Stuff a dove breast and a sliver or two of onion in each, wrap with a half piece of bacon, and secure the tidbit with a toothpick. Smoke about 30 to 40 minutes, until the bacon is crisp. These are fiery hot when served with the jalapeño still in place, so proceed cautiously. Tendermouths may find the dove plenty picante eaten alone.

  Variation: Substitute slices of chicken breast for the dove breast. Again, be wary about the jalapeño when serving.

  * * *

  Coke Stevenson, former governor of Texas, liked to brag about the size of watermelons on his cattle ranch. In an extra-hard winter, he claimed, the cowboys would hollow out one of the melons to shelter the herd.

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  Smoked Jalapeño Shrimp

  Dean Fearing, Dallas chef, inspired this sizzling seafood dish. Like us, he advocates unrefined corn oil—a revelation to the tongue compared with the tasteless processed varieties.

  MARINADE

  ⅓ cup pickled jalapeño slices

  ½ cup juice from pickled jalapeños

  Juice of 2 limes

  4 tablespoons corn oil, preferably unrefined

  2 tablespoons minced cilantro

  4 green onions, sliced

  3 garlic cloves, minced

  1 pound large shrimp (about 24 to 30 shrimp)

  ½ cup unsalted seafood stock or water

  Serves 4

  In a food processor or blender, purée the marinade ingredients. Peel the shrimp, leaving the tails on. Clean and, if you like, devein them. Place the shrimp in a large nonreactive pan or bowl. One hour before you plan to begin smoking the shrimp, pour the marinade over them.

  Remove the shrimp from the marinade, and, when the temperature is about 180° F to 200° F, place them in the pit on a small grill rack (as described on [>]). Add the stock or water to the remaining marinade, boil, and baste the shrimp at intervals of about 10 minutes. The shrimp should cook in about 30 minutes, but watch them carefully. They are ready when opaque, slightly firm, and light pink on the exterior. Serve them immediately, or wrap them in foil to keep them warm for up to 45 minutes.

  * * *

  Dean Fearing cooks at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, an uptown place by anyone's standards, but he and other Texas superchefs know how to get down. Fearing and Robert Del Grande, from Houston's Cafe Annie, formed a band called the Barbwires, and they and Stephan Pyles, of Dallas's Baby Routh, sometimes sneak away from their fancy tables to eat barbecue. One of their haunts is Clark's Outpost, a rustic restaurant in Tioga that serves some of the best calf fries in Texas in addition to terrific brisket and ribs.

  * * *

  Oh-My Oysters

  This preparation works well with Gulf oysters and those from colder waters as well.

  MARINADE

  ½ cup bottled clam juice

  3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

  3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  1 tablespoon coarse-ground black pepper

  3

  to

  4 garlic cloves, minced

  12 oysters, shucked, bottom shells and brine reserved

  About 12 ice cubes

  Lime wedges and coarse-ground black pepper for garnish

  Makes 1 dozen

  In a lidded jar, combine the juices, oil, pepper, garlic, and any accumulated oyster brine. Cover the jar, and shake the marinade well.

  Place the oysters in a small bowl. Pour the marinade over the oysters, and refrigerate them for 45 minutes to an hour.

  Drain most of the marinade into a small pan. Place each oyster on a half-shell. Bring the marinade to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, and set it aside.

  Prepare your pit for barbecuing, bringing the temperature to 180° F to 200° F.

  Put the ice cubes in an 8-by-8-inch or 9-by- 12-inch baking pan, or in a deep pie pan. Place the oysters on a small grill rack (as described on [>]) and top the ice-filled baking pan with the grill rack.

  Transfer the oysters to the pit, and smoke as far from the heat as possible. Check the oysters at 15- to 20-minute intervals, mopping them with a bit of marinade if they appear diy. Cook them about 45 minutes or until they become slightly firm but are still plump.

  Serve the oysters warm, garnished with lime wedges and pepper.

  * * *

  Pit Pointer

  As the recipes indicate, the ideal temperature for smoking most food is between 180° F and 220° F. All pits will fluctuate some, but when you're in that range you won't have a problem with much of anything except an impatient guest from north of the Red River. Don't worry if the temperature drifts up to 250° F or down to 160° F; just start making adjustments to get back to the right level.

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  * * *

  Pit Pointers

  For years scientists have warned backyard cooks about the danger of fat dripping on a hot fire, as often happens in the grilling process. The resulting smoke contains benzopyrene, a known carcinogen. You don't get that chemical reaction barbecuing in a pit with a water reservoir. The meat is never directly over the heat source and the fat falls harmlessly into water instead of on the hot metal below.

  We start our log fires using hickory chunks for kindling—or any other small pieces of hardwood on hand—and Weber Flamegos, white cubes made of natural, non-petroleum materials that ignite instantly and burn a good while. Stores with a decent selection of grilling s
upplies should carry both products. We would never use lighter fluid, which can bathe the food in petroleum fumes, or resinous kindling like fatwood, which supplies a bitter turpentine-like taste.

  Our Pitt's and Spitt's pit has a water reservoir directly below the cooking grill. We fill it with a garden hose before we begin smoking, up to a half-inch from the lip of the firebox opening. Fat drippings from the meat fall into the water, making the pit easy to clean through a side drain, and a little steam rises from the liquid to help keep the meat moist. It's a great idea. Look for such a system in any new pit you buy.

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  * * *

  Pit Pointers

  Charcoal by itself does not produce smoke except when meat fat drips on it. That's why you barbecue with wood, preferably logs. You hear a lot of hype about the virtues of different types of wood, but the only thing that really matters is to burn hardwood, not a soft, resinous variety which would create an unpleasant bitter taste. With most food we notice little or no difference between smoking with oak, hickory, pecan, or fruit wood, the main options available to us. We usually avoid mesquite because it burns hot, the very reason it's great for grilling. If you have trouble finding an appropriate wood, check with local barbecue joints and other restaurants that offer smoked dishes to see where they get their supplies.

  Barbecuing is a form of hot smoking, which is much different from the old preservation technique of cold smoking. Hot smoking cooks food, as does any other means of applying heat, and does little to keep it from spoiling. You must eat barbecue when it's done or refrigerate it. The cold smoking process relies on a combination of salt curing, temperatures below 100° F, and, in most cases, days of smoking to produce food that is dried more than cooked, and can be stored without refrigeration.

  * * *

  Peppered Catfish

  You may never fry a catfish again after you try this.

  6 8-ounce catfish fillets

  ½ cup Lone Star Dry Rub ([>])

  ⅓ cup coarse-ground black pepper

  MOP SAUCE

  2 cups unsalted seafood or chicken stock

  ⅔ cup oil, preferably canola or corn

  Juice of 3 limes

  Serves 6

  Cover the catfish lightly and evenly with the dry rub. Place the fish in one or more plastic bags, and put the bags in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.

  Prepare the pit, bringing it to about 200° F. Remove the fish from the refrigerator, and gently pat the pepper into it.

  In a bowl, mix the mop sauce ingredients. Place the fish on a small grill rack (as described on [>]), and place the grill rack in the pit. Smoke the fish at 180° F to 200° F until it is opaque and firm but flaky, approximately 1½ hours, dabbing the fish with the mop sauce every 15 minutes.

  Serve the fish within a few minutes of removing it from the pit.

  * * *

  People in the Panhandle town of Dalhart know how to throw a really big barbecue. At the XIT Rodeo and Reunion each summer the organizers dig a huge trench, several hundred feet long, and fill it with more than a dozen cords of wood and over ten thousand pounds of beef. Using bulldozers and other heavy equipment, they cover the pit with sheet metal and dirt, and then dig it up again thirty hours later after the meat is smoked. The feed pays homage to cowboys who've worked the famed XIT Ranch, which once extended across three million acres in ten counties. The ranch was a Texas-size proposition from the beginning, when the state government traded the land to a Chicago construction company in exchange for building the largest capitol in the country in Austin.

  * * *

  Country Cabrito

  Texans love to get your goat—and to cook it, too. Along with the west Indies and northern Mexico, the state is one of the goat-eating capitals of North America. The meat of choice is cabrito, milk-fed kid slaughtered between the spring and late summer at an age of 30 to 40 days and a weight of 10 to 15 pounds. (After goats start eating grass the flavor of the meat changes, and the bony critters get tougher, requiring more complex and spicy preparations.) Your meat market probably doesn't carry cabrito, but the butcher may be able to direct you to a source, particularly if you live in the Southwest.

  1 10-to 12-pound cabrito, quartered

  PASTE RUB

  3 cups fresh sage leaves

  1 garlic head, cloves separated and peeled

  2 teaspoons salt

  2 cups olive oil (an inexpensive kind is OK)

  MOP SAUCE

  2 cups unsalted chicken or beef stock, or 2 cups beer

  1 cup cider vinegar

  1 cup olive oil (an inexpensive kind is OK)

  ¼ cup chopped fresh sage

  ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

  4

  to

  6 garlic cloves, minced

  Serves 6 to 8

  Prepare the paste rub in a food processor: First process the sage, garlic, and salt until the sage and the garlic are chopped fine, and then add the olive oil in a slow stream, mixing thoroughly.

  Rub the paste over the cabrito, covering the meat evenly. Place the cabrito in a plastic trash bag and refrigerate it overnight.

  The next day prepare the pit for smoking, and mix the mop sauce ingredients in a bowl. Cook the cabrito between 200° F and 220° F about 1 hour per pound of weight for each quarter. Every 20 to 30 minutes, turn the meat and apply the mop sauce liberally. The skinny forequarters will be done earlier than the meaty hindquarters, which usually take 4 to 5 hours, depending on size. Don't skimp on the mop sauce; make up more if you need it.

  When the meat is done, remove it from the pit, and allow it to sit 10 minutes before serving.

  * * *

  Of all the hundreds of cook-offs in Texas each year, our all-time favorite may be the World Championship Barbecue Goat Cook-Off in Brady, a Labor Day weekend party since 1974. While competitors from across the country barbecue for the judges, local pitmaster Gilbert Currie does the same for the public, smoking as many as 150 goats overnight for Saturday lunch.

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  * * *

  Consumption of Cabrito is on the rise nationally, a boon for Texas since much of the goat raised commercially comes from the state, in Texas, the popularity of goat meat goes back to the early years, when many residents considered it a delicacy comparable to beef. Even The Cattleman in 1950 praised the meat and talked about how common it was in restaurants across the state—roasted, barbecued, in pot pies and burgers, or served up like corned beef, with cabbage. Let's hope those days are returning.

  * * *

  The World's Greatest Hamburger

  This is how to cure a kid of McDonald's, shame an adult out of a Wendy's franchise, or even wean an Austinite from Dirty's Drive-in. Once you've eaten a slow-smoked burger none other will do.

  2 pounds cheapest grade ground beef

  ½ medium onion, chopped

  3 chopped roasted green chiles, preferably New Mexican or Poblano, fresh or frozen

  ½ cup Lone Star Dry Rub ([>])

  Bowl of Beer Mop Sauce for Meat ([>])

  Serves 4

  In a bowl, blend the ground beef, onion, and chiles with your hands. Form the mixture into four thick patties, and apply the dry rub thoroughly to all surfaces. Put the meat in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours to absorb the seasonings while you get the pit smoking and make the mop sauce.

  Cook the patties about 1 hour at 180° F to 220° F, mopping every 15 minutes.

  Try a bite of your hamburger before you reach for the mustard, mayonnaise, tomatoes, lettuce, or anything else. A couple of slices of sourdough bread makes a good bun, but other embellishments could distract from an experience that'll have you wrapping your bodily parts around the cook. The grease you're used to is on the bottom of the pit, displaced by a rich smoky flavor you never suspected from ground beef.

  Ain't Momma's Meat Loaf

  After you've had a smoked hamburger, you'll be looking for other things to do with ground beef in the pit. Try this next.

  ¼ c
up Ol' Red's Barbecue Sauce ([>]) or other spicy tomato-based barbecue sauce

  Bowl of Beer Mop Sauce for Meat ([>])

  ½ cup minced onion

  ½ green or red bell pepper, chopped fine

  3 garlic cloves, minced

  1 tablespoon oil, preferably canola or corn

  1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

  1 teaspoon cayenne

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground

  1¼ pounds ground beef

  ¾ pound ground pork