here's the report - for the rest of saturday as well as sunday -
pix are pending and should be posted tonight or tomorrow ~
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after the CSRs.......
the chuckie was great with a good smoke ring and decent tenderness. i took it off at what was probably around 180 (lost my digiprobe thermometer during this smoke - the probe and the wire decided they wanted a divorce!), so it could have been a little more tender, but it wasn't bad - very good slicing and the kids and i ate it all. mrs. tash even had a good share of it and while it probably wasn't her idea of a great meal, she didn't complain, either - so not too bad.
one thing i noticed with the beef iv'e smoked, both chuckie and brisket, is that there is a tendency for the meat to get a little weird right after i slice it. it's not really dry, but it is like partially dry and partially oily - it darkens a bit. can't describe it exactly but i am sure it is a sign that there is room for improvement. the collagen/connective tissues were definitely still there, but it wasn't too bad - like i said, another hour or so on the heat and i think it would have fallen apart almost like a pork shoulder.
the ABTs were very good indeed and i found them to be a highlight. my only regret is that i didn't use the entire can of crab and only used half (i checked the price yesterday when we were at wall-mart - it was 1.96$/6-oz can) as the crab was very good but also very mild; also, i could have backed off just a bit on the tabasco in the filling. i liked it the way it was, but it was a little warm for "most people." the method as described in my post above, however, is very sound with those two tweaks.
during this time, we prepared a brine for the deer jerky. i didn't have my normal compliment of ingredients, so i winged it. i used 1tbsp of tender-quick per pound of meat and tried not to add any other significant salt. we balanced the tender quick with a can of pepsi and probably half a cup of dark brown sugar and a tablespoon of molasses. we also added about 4 tbps of worcestershire sauce (afterwards, this seemed like a little too much), 1 tbsp of garlic powder, 2 tbsp red pepper flakes and a handful of chives (we didn't have any onion powder, either!). we then filled the jar with thin-sliced deer meat and added a modest amount of water to get the brine/marinade around and distributed. put that in the fridge overnight.
also, saturday night, #3 son and i shredded the PPB (which was finished around 10pm, if i remember correctly) - turned out very good, fork tender and easily pullable with nearly all fat rendered out. we saved the juices and added them to the ziplock and put it in the fridge overnight.
the completed fatties were wrapped in saran wrap and put in the fridge (we ran out of tin foil last time and no one told me!). also, i changed the BEP water before bed saturday and after i got up sunday morning.
that takes care of saturday - onward to sunday morning and the evaluation of the fatties!
here's how the preparation was for the fatty - i made two of them, identical except one was smoked and one wasn't. i opened two 1-lb chubs of Jimmy Dean maple sausage into a bowl (JD was the best we had under the circumstances -the other brand available is one i had used before with bad results) and added about half-to two-thirds of a bunch of spring onions, chopped fairly fine, but not TOO fine. to this i also added about 3 of those hash brown patties you find in the frozen food section, diced. I've read quite a bit about potato sausage, and figured what the heck, it's worth a try ~
when these were mixed well, i sprinkled a little of durkee's kansas city steak seasoning out on some flattened saran wrap on a cookie sheet and flattened out each chub as thin as possible to prevent a blow-out. the filling was simple - shredded sharp cheddar plus some more of the diced hash brown patties plus about three scrambled eggs containing a little alpine touch (
www.alpinetouch.com), a little cheese and the remaining chopped spring onions. rolled these fatties up, wrapped them and smoked them saturday - when they were just about done, i brushed on about three successive layers of chokecherry syrup and let this glaze over, then wrapped in saran wrap and into the fridge overnight until the next day.
when i got up sunday, i put the fatties (one smoked, one not smoked) on a rack in the oven at about 250, 260 degrees over a pan of hot water. somewhere around an hour and a half or two hours later, they were hot and ready.
i called mrs. taz to tell her i was bringing them down to her work for the employees, but she said that a supervisor was there and there was a situation, so the kids and i sliced them up and served them on toast. very good with a lot of bold flavors and good texture; the hash browns mixed in with the sausage worked very well also. i wish i had a little better sausage to use, but this wasn't bad at all. the spring onions were a great idea because they gave off an aroma and taste that was similar to what you get when you chop up celery and onions and add to hot, savory dishes. the eggs, hash brown and cheese filling worked very well with no blow-out, no overwhelming and no problems at all. the chokecherry syrup glaze added a lot to balance it out and i was very satisfied with this effort.
about this time, my wife got home from work early and announced that we needed to go to town to do some shopping, so that's how we spent or afternoon. before we left, i changed the Black Eyed Pea water one more time and hoped that 24+ hours of soaking would be OK. we also put the Pulled Pork BBQ into the crock pot set on low with the pan drippings and a little bit of water to keep it from drying out (would have preferred adding the finishing sauce at that time, but didn't have time to make it).
by the time we got home, the PPB was ready, we made the finishing sauce (
rivet's recipe - highly recommended) and added it to the pork, which had soaked up the water we added earlier. the pork also soaked up the sauce and after about a half-hour of simmering served on buns and plates. my dad had stopped by, so he also had some.
this turned out very well, not quite a smoky as i would have preferred, due to the fact that it spent the last three hours in the oven rather than on the SnP, but a good bark and the sauce as usual went perfectly with it.
after supper, we loaded up the big chief smoker with the deer jerky and got that going with a wood chip combination of 2/3 alder, 1/3 hickory. two pans of chips and then left the smokehouse running overnight to dry the jerky.
by morning, the thin pieces were just a little too dry, and the thick pieces are still just a little soft and slightly sticky from the sugar in the brine, a little closer to dried kippered meat than jerky, but not bad at all - when they are stored together, my experience tells me that the dry pieces will soften up a bit and the moist pieces will dry out a little and the end result should be good jerky. haven't tasted it yet, but it should be very good!
alright, now the big experiment for the weekend - the Black Eyed Peas!
they soaked a lot longer than i intended due to many factors (close to 30 hours) but they didn't seem any worse for it. i prepped and began making these last night around 10pm. keeping with the tradition of making it with what you have, i prepared them according to RIVET's method (i invite him post it -it's great!) with these changes/substitutions:
subbed 1.5 lbs bacon
after cooking the bacon and draining the fat, i de-glazed the pan with about 3/4 cup marsala wine
dark molasses ("full flavor") rather than blackstrap :(
had no cayenne, so used about a tbsp of red pepper flakes with a tbsp of chili powder
dried basil rather than fresh
about a tbsp of marjoram added to the oregano
couldn't resist adding a couple tbsps of worcestershire sauce!
can of diced tomatoes rather than whole
full small can of tomato paste rather than half
the result is darker than rivets, but a sampling of the liquid revealed a good, rich flavor somewhere between naples, florida and naples, italy ~ quite interesting.
by this time, it was around 11pm, so i took everything and put it into the crock pot to simmer on low overnight. i didn't think about it at the time, but the crock pot of course prevented evaporation, so there was still a lot of liquid in the morning when i woke up and it looked more like soup than anything else. no worries, i simply added two cups of rice and when that plumped up, there was only a little liquid left!
had some of this for lunch - the results were very filling and satisfying and i liked it quite a bit. up here, my wife and kids ahd never tried BEPs before, so a month or so ago we tried some from a can. i liked them, but they complained of a "dirty" flavor. to me, the flavor was earthy as if from a garden and i liked it quite a bit. anyway, that flavor was barely present in this homemade preparation. it might have been just a little too spicy for "normal" folks, but otherwise everything was great and i was impressed with the depths of flavor. adding the rice didn't hurt it at all and in fact made it a very satisfying one-dish meal. if i ahve any complaint at all, it is that despite 30 hours of soaking and at least 9 hours of simmering, the dang BEPs themselves were still pretty "hard," or at least much firmer than i am used to using my experiences with great northern and pinto beans as a comparison - having said that, there was nothing wrong with them, just different.
so, when it's all over, it looks like i achieved all goals for the weekend - except, i never was able to get the bananas foster made. considering the circumstances, i hope i can be forgiven!
