BBQ Brethren "In My Neck of the Woods" Throwdown

Looks so good there Moose:thumb:

Hey Moose, what kind of corn tortillas did you use? I never saw them so thick and flaky before.

Well, our neck of the woods is just outside our nation's capitol and I wanted to do the local specialty. Everyone knows that pork is what politicians love to dish out. It doesn't matter if the pork is even wanted or needed. What really matters is that there be a lot of it. Here are a couple butts I picked up.



I rubbed them down with my favorite Foil Hat



and laid these in the oval with their brothers and sisters on Friday night.



The bean-counters figure that 6 butts should be enough to buy the votes of a family of four. I smoked these at about 225* for some 15 hours with some oak chunks. We were hoping to have these for dinner on Saturday, and I had to crank the temperature a bit and foiled them.



After a few more hours I yanked the last of them, set them in a cooler for a couple hours and then started pulling. I had two nice trays like this. It looks small, but that's a serving tray with three pulled butts:



Of course we had sammies for dinner served with sweet-potato fries and a homemade Belgian-style ale. While I added Sweet Baby Rays to mine, the girls said they liked them without any sauce at all (now that's a compliment).



I should note that these pork sammies are not authentic. The real ones in My Neck of the Woods would've been financed by some foreign country and been paid for by YOUR grandchildren. I paid for this pork myself. I hope that doesn't disqualify me. :becky:

?????

Gore said:

Hey Moose, what kind of corn tortillas did you use? I never saw them so thick and flaky before.

Click to expand...

My failure of a Hot Brown

My neck of the woods is Louisville, KY. Home of horse racing, Bourbon, mint juleps, and the Hot Brown.

I started the day wit a tad bit if a hangover from yesterdays activities. Me and the family took a lil road trip to "The Jim Beam Classic" in Springfield, KY.

While taking in the sights I enjoyed the following beverage.


It turned out to be a great day, weather was perfect, BBQ was good, music was ok, and the family had fun. Me and Mr. Mark had a great time.

So to say the least I was not up to par this morning for my first td and pron post on The Brethren. But I am gonna try anyway. We learn from our mistakes. Right?

So what I attempted was a Kentucky/Louisville Hot Brown. It depends on whether you live in Louisville or somewhere else in Kentucky what the name of it is. Wiki defines the Hot Brown as an open-faced sandwich of turkey and bacon, covered in Mornay sauce and baked or broiled until the bread is crisp and the sauce begins to brown.

So lets give it a try:

Or supporting cast sliced turkey breast, Gruyere cheese, Parmesan, bacon, Texas Toast, and the tomatoes are not included in this pic.



This is our broiler for the cook.



Getting the CI ready for the bacon



Assembly










Please use the above pic for the TD challenge.

If you look closely the turkey is missing, I forgot to add it during the assembly. So between the affects of yesterday's fun and this lil man popping out of the door every 10 mins wondering what daddy is doing outside with a cam and food.




Now look at him. This what a hot brown will do to you.


It was a very good sandwich without the turkey, tasted like a high class grilled cheese. I have never been to The Brown Hotel to eat the original but it is on my bucket list.

So here goes my first pron post and first TD post.

Thanks for looking.

Since our neck of the woods is the ocean, I figured something seafood. The weather didn't cooperate too good as it rained until Thursday. Things looked bleak. My girl saved the day though. She had dives Saturday afternoon and came home last night with lobster.:clap2: Ain't she something:grin: I grilled the tails along with a small steak. All served simply with butter and key limes offen the tree. One heck of a lunch. Thanks for looking.










This is my entry. Thanks for looking

Very nice BT!

Nice sammie MissingLink! I love bacon on my grilled cheese.

Looks beautiful Tang. You can just bring in some lobsters on a dive in Florida? In Nova Scotia they'd haul you in for that. You go out for a dive and they check you for contraband lobster when you come up.

Looks beautiful Tang. You can just bring in some lobsters on a dive in Florida? In Nova Scotia they'd haul you in for that. You go out for a dive and they check you for contraband lobster when you come up.[/QUOTE]


Thanks. Yes, our lobster (spiney, crawfish) season is from August through March. You have to have a salt water fishing license as well as a crawfish stamp, and there are limits and size restrictions of course. Been stopped a bunch of times. We play by the rules, so it was more of a PITA, but what can you do.

LoL, In any event though. what was that fish, mac, sardine?

Being in Southern Arizona the main cuisine is Mexican food. I had to improvise on the cook. Taco's made with store bought shells, canned re-fried beans and packaged Spanish rice.

Started with a marinaded Top Sirloin, cut into strips for faster cooking. Cubed and added Cabbage, Cheese and Tomatoes. Added a couple Mexican Onions.











Entry shot below

So the cat ate the eggplant and okra and turned its nose up on the fish... interesting.

Cat: the definition of finicky, our 2 boys too. Nice fish:thumb:

bluetang said:

Thanks. Yes, our lobster (spiney, crawfish) season is from August through March. You have to have a salt water fishing license as well as a crawfish stamp, and there are limits and size restrictions of course. Been stopped a bunch of times. We play by the rules, so it was more of a PITA, but what can you do.

Click to expand...

Cool! And you've got stamps and licenses and ... beer? Roadtrip! :becky:


Terry, that plate looks fabulous, but the meat on the grill looks even fabulouser.

Welcome to Houston

From a food standpoint, Houston is a great place to live. We are 100 miles east of Texas' famed hill country with its german and czech communities and their rich history of meat markets and BBQ. We're 100 miles from Southwest Louisiana and Cajun cuisine. The Texas Gulf Coast is 35 miles from downtown so we have a good deal of seafood too. Our population runs a little over 30% each of African-American, Hispanic and Caucasian. We have a vibrant Asian population that is growing rapidly. Add to that the rich diversity that comes from the people that have moved to Houston for employment in the oil & gas business and you have quite an interesting stew pot in 'my neck of the woods'.

To represent my fair city, I did my best to return to tradition.

First, I visited my local meat market on Friday.



Some of this week's specials



And a look down the counter.



I picked up a small (7#) packet brisket and two racks of spares (3 1/2 and down). I put a first pass of Lawry's seasoning salt on the brisket last night and put it in the fridge. This morning, I went over it with a good coat of coarse black pepper and kosher salt (1:1).



I put the brisket on the WSM and let it run for an hour at 245 before opening up the vents and running it up to 300+. No pan, no foil. I pulled it off somewhere between four and five hours after putting it on the grill and wrapped it in butcher paper to rest.





I sliced it Texas style - 3/4" a slice.



Since I went with the traditional Central Texas influence on the brisket, I tried to replicate the ribs in the Urban Black tradition of Drexler's or Green's or Dozier's. I rubbed them down the ribs down this morning with Texas BBQ Rub Grand Champion and then put them down on the top grate of my WSM while it was blowing 325. No pan. No foil. I flipped them every 20m and mopped them with a mixture of vegetable oil, vinegar and some other stuff and took them off at 2h when they easily folded in half at the bend test. Sorry I didn't get any photos of this step.

I served the Q in the Texas style - on butcher paper with white bread and some pickles I put up this summer. No sauce, no utensils, no problem.



So, welcome to Houston. Come visit us sometime for a good meal and a warm handshake.

Pulled pork or lobster? :decision:

I love lobster, especially that lobster, but I don't know if I can bring myself to vote against succulent pulled pork. Drool-worthy stuff, gentlemen.

Some awesome entries this week.

Thai Beef Salad, Pasta Salad, Choriso's and Chicken!

Hope I'm not too late guys!

This is what we served up last night..

This Thai Beef Salad was just awesome. These Chuck Steaks were slow BBQ'd it at 220F until an internal of 135, then Reverse Seared for a few minutes. It turned out to be a bit overcooked... I like mine rare...

But anyway, got a very nice smoke ring. It was prepared as a sliced Thai Beef Salad and was just awesome.


I'll post more later... just so busy right now...

Please use this pic as the TD entry.

Cheers!

Bill

Maryland is famous for its crab.
The crab here is the blue crab from the Chesapeake. Other than being blue I find it kinda uninteresting. We don't get those nice BIG crab legs, but crabs with lots of body and little meat.


Eating them is informal, usually in crab boils, but we also eat a lot of crab cakes. They import most of the crab they use for these (but don't tell anybody). I decided to make a crab cake sandwich. For a twist I decided to throw in some soft-shell crabs. When crabs molt, the shell is extremely soft for a couple hours, soft enough to eat. These are a real delicacy, not to mention fun to shove a whole crab in your mouth, shell and all.

A good sandwich starts with fresh bread, so I like to bake my own, unlike some other members of my household who lack the patience for such endeavors and resort to generic sliced bread :wink:. I topped the rolls with sesame seeds.



I then grilled some crab cakes, a first, I've only ever fried them,



and also some soft-shelled crabs, a double first here, I've never cooked these before and I've only had them fried:



Around these parts, they use Old Bay seasoning, but to tell the truth, I prefer Foil Hat Rub on just about everything. I assembled my sandwich with some lettuce and sauce I made with mayo, lemon juice, and sriracha and a blended, roasted red pepper. I served this up with a home-brew.




The crab cakes were great on the grill, but I think I still prefer the soft-shell crab fried. Thank you for looking.