I guess it was almost two weeks ago now that I cooked up this food but better late than never.
It was two days after I bought my MES since I needed the first day to season it.
For my first foray into the world of smoked food I thought I'd go cheap in case anything went wrong so I bought a couple of small racks of St. Louis cut pork ribs that were on special and prepared them using a homemade rub and the 3-2-1 method. They turned out pretty good the the smallest ones may have been a little over-cooked but were still better than a lot of restaurant ribs I've had. The more average sized ones were incredibly moist and flavourful. I spritzed them with an apple juice/Frank's Red hot mix.
I also bought a pack of Johnsonville sweet basil italian sausages, as I can't seem to find any chubs of sausage meat anywhere around here, and just for fun made what I'd choose to call and AET or Atomic Elephant Turd! As you can see in the pics I cut the meat out of the casing and then mixed it all together. Then I spread the meat out to about 1/4 inch and spread a brick of cream cheese over it keeping it away from the one side to allow a tight seal. I then took some jalapeno peppers and blanched them quickly to make them more pliable and laid them out on the cheese. Roll it up carefully (using wax or parchment paper makes this a lot easier - it's similar to rolling sushi) and wrap in a double layer of plastic wrap. Grab the two end of the plastic wrap and twirl the meat which will tighten the wrap and give you a nice tight fatty.
I preheated my MES and loaded up some hickory chips. I put the fatty on the above the ribs (why waste the drippings) and a tray of jalapeno peppers (for chipotle chili powder) and a couple of quick ABTs. Set the temp at 225* and spritzed every hour.
Overall I was very happy with my first outing. The only changes I would make are:
1. Less cheese in the AET or use shredded. It was just a little too rich.
2. Dice the jalapenos rather than blanch them. It still had a tonne of flavour but not a lot of heat which I could handle more of. I was going for the visuals this time...next time it's the heat!
It was two days after I bought my MES since I needed the first day to season it.
For my first foray into the world of smoked food I thought I'd go cheap in case anything went wrong so I bought a couple of small racks of St. Louis cut pork ribs that were on special and prepared them using a homemade rub and the 3-2-1 method. They turned out pretty good the the smallest ones may have been a little over-cooked but were still better than a lot of restaurant ribs I've had. The more average sized ones were incredibly moist and flavourful. I spritzed them with an apple juice/Frank's Red hot mix.
I also bought a pack of Johnsonville sweet basil italian sausages, as I can't seem to find any chubs of sausage meat anywhere around here, and just for fun made what I'd choose to call and AET or Atomic Elephant Turd! As you can see in the pics I cut the meat out of the casing and then mixed it all together. Then I spread the meat out to about 1/4 inch and spread a brick of cream cheese over it keeping it away from the one side to allow a tight seal. I then took some jalapeno peppers and blanched them quickly to make them more pliable and laid them out on the cheese. Roll it up carefully (using wax or parchment paper makes this a lot easier - it's similar to rolling sushi) and wrap in a double layer of plastic wrap. Grab the two end of the plastic wrap and twirl the meat which will tighten the wrap and give you a nice tight fatty.
I preheated my MES and loaded up some hickory chips. I put the fatty on the above the ribs (why waste the drippings) and a tray of jalapeno peppers (for chipotle chili powder) and a couple of quick ABTs. Set the temp at 225* and spritzed every hour.
Overall I was very happy with my first outing. The only changes I would make are:
1. Less cheese in the AET or use shredded. It was just a little too rich.
2. Dice the jalapenos rather than blanch them. It still had a tonne of flavour but not a lot of heat which I could handle more of. I was going for the visuals this time...next time it's the heat!