Newsletter Archive
When it comes to cooking brisket, three words have been the credo of the barbecue community for decades: “low and slow.”
In other words, cook it at a low temperature for a long time to render the brisket fat and convert the tough collagen to tender gelatin.
So when Texas Monthly barbecue critic, Daniel Vaughn, broke the news of the hot and fast method advocated by Roland Lindsey, pit master-owner of Bodacious Bar-B-Que in Longview, Texas (incidentally, the first place I experienced Texas barbecue), the blogosphere erupted with understandable emotion.
If you could really cook a respectable brisket in 3 hours, why have so many of us endured predawn wake-up calls or overnight smoke sessions.
Well, the controversy reached Barbecue University recently, so we asked our Test Kitchen Director, Steve Nestor, to put it to the test.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the 3-2-1 method for cooking ribs. It was one of our most popular blogs ever. In a nutshell, you smoke ribs uncovered for 3 hours, then wrapped in foil with a little liquid (Beer? Apple cider?) for two hours. And finally unwrapped for 1 more hour.
Besides the obvious numeric poetry of the name, the method produces ribs of remarkable moistness and tenderness—ribs that most people will devour with pleasure.
And yet, I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable serving 3-2-1 ribs. They’re almost too good, namely, they’re so tender they almost seem mushy and so moist, they almost tasted steamed. Which in a sense they are, because 2 hours of cooking wrapped in foil with liquid comes dangerously close to that heresy of rib-making: boiling.
Coke. Sprite. Dr. Pepper. Pepsi. Black cherry. Ginger ale. Cheerwine, a specialty of North Carolina. We serve these sodas at barbecues, and we love to drink them with our favorite brisket and ribs.
But did you know you can also use soda pop to improve the flavor of your barbecue?
“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, oer the land of the free and the home of the brave?” It sure does. And there’s no better time to set aside our political divisions than the Fourth of July, one of America’s most beloved holidays. It’s the perfect time to fire up your grill and create a momentous meal, one that celebrates the anniversary of our independence. From cocktails to dessert, we’ve got you covered!
Curious about making restaurant-quality beef ribs at home? Steve Nestor shares his experience with Prime Beef Short Ribs in this guide. He walks us through the simple steps of seasoning and smoking these impressive cuts, resulting in tender meat with a flavorful bark.
Grilling is simultaneously the easiest and trickiest method of cooking. Easy because basically all you do is cook the food over the fire. Tricky because every fire, every grill, and every grill session is different, and a million factors—from the weather to the particular cut of meat—influence the final outcome. In a nutshell, it all boils down to you learning to control the fire—not have it control you.
Over the years, I’ve grilled every imaginable food over just about every grill out there, and I’ve answered thousands of questions about barbecuing and grilling. Here are 12 tips to help you rock your grill this summer.
Since my book How to Grill was released, some pit masters have embraced a method for smoke-roasting ribs that relies less on intuition and more on a simple-to-follow formula explained before, the 3-2-1 approach. This is very successful with spareribs, which are larger and tougher than baby backs. If using the latter, consider smoking the baby backs for 2 hours, foiling for 1 hour, and finishing over indirect heat for 1 hour. (For more rib wisdom, check out my book Best Ribs Ever.)
Today, I want to introduce Planet Barbecue to Oscareware Grill Toppers. They have been making outdoor cooking accessories since 1989. They offer a range of grill toppers that include their porcelain-coated, disposable, and round grill toppers. The porcelain grill topper was the original and is still one of Oscarware’s most popular products.
The Oscarware Grill Topper was perfect for a dish my wife and I enjoy. We call it grilled shrimp bowls. It is just grilled shrimp, veggies, avocado, and rice. We mix up the veggies based on what is at the store or fresh from our garden.
Brisket. Few words have the power to make you palpitate, salivate, and levitate. Whether smoked in a pit, braised by a grandmother, or simmered for half a day by a Vietnamese pho master, brisket ranks among the world’s most revered meats.
Brisket’s been part of my life almost from the moment I started eating solid food. For decades, it was the centerpiece of the holiday dinners that took place at my grandparents’ home. My aunt Annette’s brisket was always the highlight of the meal. (Find her recipe on page 132 of my book, The Brisket Chronicles.)
As most backyard grillers know, the price of America’s favorite beefsteaks has risen dramatically in the past few years. Rib-eyes, New York strips, tenderloin, and even the humble chuck steak appear on family menus less often than they once did. But you and your grill grates needn’t despair: Just in time for Memorial Day cookouts, we’d like to introduce you to our favorite underappreciated cuts.
Today is National Barbecue Day—a holiday near and dear to my heart. After all, I’ve spent the better part of my adult life dedicated to barbecue—cooking it, eating it, researching it, writing about it, making TV shows about it, and generally marveling at barbecue’s ability to assuage our hunger, feed our communities, and soothe our souls.
If I have a personal Barbecue Day, it would be in November, not May, for that’s when my formal relationship with live fire cooking began. I remember exactly where I was sitting, what I was wearing, the place, the time, and the weather. I was working on a book on low-fat cooking—a far cry from what I do now! Time slowed down, as it does in portentous life moments. I heard a voice, as though from heaven. It gave me a simple order—drum roll, please. “Steven Raichlen—follow the fire.”
For years, I’ve extolled the virtues of cooking burgers on the grill (preferably over a wood fire), and for years I’ve warned against pressing those burgers with the flat part of a spatula (an act often practiced by people with Y chromosomes that squeezes the luscious meat juices onto the coals).
But there’s one burger that does better on a griddle than a grill and that absolutely thrives when pressed. You guessed it: the smash burger.
