Brisket Chili, The taste analysis

Oh my dear Lord Jesus! That is the best chili I've ever had. The flavors balance so well with a mild heat. Improvements I would make may be a few cans of tomato paste to make it thicker, add more jalapenos or a hotter pepper to give it more heat, and maybe a can of beer to it. There is definitely the smoke flavor there from the brisket. It's not too salty, not over bearing. All around delicious. We'll see what the office has to say about it tomorrow.

Smoked Brisket Chili!

Smoked Brisket Chili Rough Draft

1lb Smoked beef brisket

2 8oz cans stewed tomatoes chopped with juice

2 Red onions Chopped

5 Jalapeno peppers sliced

3 8oz cans of kidney beans (strained)

2 cups water

¼ cup dry rub

Combine in slow cooker for 3 hours on high stirring occasionally add more rub to taste a tea spoon at a time.

Analysis soon to come. I've tasted some of the broth, and it's glorious, so we'll see.

Coming Soon, Smoked Brisket Chili

Right now I'm smoking a brisket for an experimental chili. It's the practice chili for the Camden Chili Cook Off. Taste testing by the office on Monday. Stay tuned.

Porterhouse Steaks, Twice Baked Tatos, and Roasted Asparagus

Porterhouse Steaks, Twice Baked Tatos, and Roasted Asparagus

This time on Dinner Bromantic we have a special guest. I don’t even know if one could call it “BROmantic” as we were making dinner for our ladies. Our special guest this time was Thomas Waldrop, a chef in training at Coastal Georgia College here in Camden County Georgia.

We began our evening with a trip to Kingsland Meats. Thomas’ idea was to just go in and browse the selection to see what inspires us. As we scanned the beef selections Thomas mentioned Porterhouses. A Porterhouse is from the same cut of the T-Bone. A T-Bone and Porterhouse both have Fillet on one side of the bone and Strip Steak on the other. The difference between them is that a Porterhouse has nearly equal portions of Fillet and Strip. We purchased the steaks and 6 baking potatoes from Kingsland Meats. Then we went to Publix.

At Publix we got the ingredients to make our sides: asparagus, cheese, a variety of spices and sauce bases, sour cream, unsalted butter, scallions, pineapple juice, and bacon. Then off to the house.

When we arrived I poured Thomas and I a glass of my new favorite bourbon and gingerale (Jim Beam Double Aged). Then we prepped the potatoes for baking while we waited for the oven to heat to 400. It’s important to get the potatoes in the oven first, as they take the longest to cook. While the potatoes were baking, get started on the terryaki sauce (optional). We made terryaki sauce because my wife Amber loves some terryaki with her steak.

For the terryaki sauce:

You will need: 1 cup of soy sauce, ½ cup of brown sugar, 14oz of pineapple juice about 1 ¾ cup, ¼ cup of mirin (sweet cooking rice wine), ¼ teaspoon of ginger (add more to your liking), ¼ cup diced scallion (steeped), and 1 large clove of garlic whole and steeped in the sauce.

Combine all the ingredients into a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a medium high heat simmer, stirring occasionally until the sauce has reached a desired thickness.

For the twice baked tatos:

You will need: 6 baking potatoes, ½ cup chopped bacon bits, 2 cups sour cream, 1 stick unsalted butter, ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce, ½ lb shredded cheddar, ½ lb shredded mozzarella, 1 spoon full of bacon grease.

-Bake the potatoes whole for an hour and a half at 400. Check them about 1 hour into cooking as ovens vary.

KEEP THE OVEN ON FOR LATER

*GO START YOUR GRILL IF IT IS CHARCOAL

-Once baked take out of the oven to cool for about 5 minutes.

-Once the potatoes go from piping hot to warm slice them in half long ways and hollow out each half potato.

-Combine the potato into a mixing bowl with the rest of the above contents (if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, it speeds up the process) If not you can mash them by hand in the bowl.

-Once completely mixed, scoop out the mixture into each of the potato skins.

-Wait for the asparagus to be prepped before putting the potatoes back in the oven for the amount of time it takes to cook your steaks.

For the asparagus you will need:

Whole asparagus, sea salt, garlic powder, olive oil, black pepper.

-Trim the asparagus about a 1/5^th of the way up from the bottom.

-Wash and place in a large roasting pan.

-Lightly dust with olive oil, sea salt, garlic powder, and fresh ground black pepper.

-Place in oven with the potatoes while you are grilling steaks.

Steaks:

-Make sure the grill is hot.

-Place your steaks on the grill and season the top with Weber Chicago Steak seasoning.

-Grill to your liking on the first side, then flip season again and grill to your liking (for a good medium, I like to do about 3 minutes on each side).

Hope you all enjoy!

BBQ Pork Shoulder Part 2

And we're back.... After about 6 hours take a meat thermometer and stick it deep into your shoulder. If the temperature is 170, the meat is cooked all the way through. The meat is good to take off at this time, but if you like pulled pork rather than chopped pork, let it smoke for at least 3 more hours.

Once you pull the meat of the smoker wrap it in aluminum foil and let it rest in a cooler or oven for at least 15 minutes. While the meat is resting you could check on whichever side items you choose to have with the meat, or toast some buns for a sandwich.

Now that some time is passed, take out the wrapped meat and unwrap it. Now you can pull out the bone and get chopping or pulling. Serve it up with your favorite bbq sauce. I recommend a sweet mustard sauce.

Take it off the grill once the meat core temperature is 170 F

Let it rest for at least 15 minutes then unwrap.

And chop it up. If you cook for a very long time (9 hours or more) you may be able to pull the bone right out and pull the meat apart with your hands or shred with a fork.

BBQ Pork Shoulder Part 1

Ideal temp

We're cookin'

Firebox open

Jeremy here with a special guest (chef in training) Thomas Waldrop. So here it goes... For Christmas/Birthday, since my birthday falls 2.5 weeks before Christmas I wanted three things: Smoker with fire box, bike rack, and mountain bike. I was blessed with all three. So I put my smoker together in my living room the day after Christmas (with no extra parts left over). Tuesday night I decided to smoke some baby back ribs. Sadly, that was a fail. When I've rigged up my Weber grill to smoke with, I have used lighter fluid to get the fire started. I thought that would be ok with this smoker. Unfortunately I was well corrected when my baby backs started making one's tongue numb from the taste of lighter fluid. Once you got past that first tingle, they weren't that bad. Anyway.... So I went to Lowes this week and bought a charcoal chimney, and two bundles of hickory firewood. For those of you not familiar with a charcoal chimney, it is roughly the size of a large paint can, with a grate to hold the charcoal, a handle and vents throughout to get the fire going. What you do is load the charcoal on top and pack the bottom with balled up newspaper. You then set the chimney on a well ventilated surface with a fireproof bottom. Your driveway should do. Then you light the paper and wait. Once your coals are ready you pour them into your firebox. Then add wood chunks to the coals. Adjust your dampers till your temp is maintaining between 225 and 250 degrees F.

Prepping the shoulder:

Get a sharp knife. Very sharp!

-Skin the pork skin off

-Heavily coat the pork shoulder with rub.

-Place on grill for 6-9 hours. (we are cooking ours for 7.5 hours)

-Continue to add wood and adjust dampers to maintain temperature for the whole cook time.

Rub:

Sorry guys and gals, I'm not giving our my rub recipe but I will tell you the ingredients so you can come up with your own.

-sea salt

-garlic powder

-onion powder

-chili powder

Oh man, I almost forgot and this is KEY! You must, must, must, must keep a large foil pan with water in it under your meat. Dry meat is no meat of mine. Keep an eye on it too. Don't let it dry up. You can also add beer or apple cider vinegar to the moisture. I've tried both. It turns out well.

More to come....

Meatball Subs

Jeremy's Sub

Lance's Sub

Well....we're back! We were going to do grilled shrimp po boys, but we changed our mind. This was a quick Dinner Bromantic, as Jeremy was headed to the airport later in the evening to pick up his buddie Chase. Total cook and prep took about 30 minutes, but then again that is with 2 cooks. It's been a while since we got together for this and we think this is one for the win column. It was both our first times cooking meatballs. We hope you all enjoy.

For the Meatballs:

You will need: 2lbs of ground beef, ½ onion (we used red), 1 cup of Italian bread crumbs, 2 eggs, 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar, 3 jalapeno peppers, a few shakes of salt and some fresh ground pepper, hoagie rolls, and shredded mozzarella cheese.

For the meatballs:

Combine these contents into a mixing bowl and mix well:

-2lbs of ground beef

-2 eggs

-1 cup of Italian bread crumbs

-3 chopped jalapeno peppers

-1/2 chopped onion

-A few shakes of salt (about a tea spoon)

-1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

-About a teaspoon of ground black pepper

Set the oven to 400 degrees. While the oven is heating, get a regular size cupcake pan and mold your meatballs into about the size of a racquet ball and put one in each of the cupcake slots. The grease drippings will end up giving your meatballs a “fried” effect. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

For the sauce:

You will need: About 12 large tomatoes, 6 cloves of garlic, 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt, 1 cup of fresh basil, 1 cup fresh oregano, and about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

- Quarter and seed your tomatoes, then puree them in the food processor or blender

- Finely chop about a cup of fresh basil and a cup of fresh oregano.

- Mince 6 cloves of garlic

- Cover the bottom of your sauce pan with a thin layer of olive oil and the 6cloves of minced garlic.

- Turn the burner on medium high heat.

- Simmer until garlic becomes soft.

- Add the tomatoes, oregano, basil, and salt to taste.

- Bring to a boil, reduce heat and stir occasionally for 30 minutes or until sauce is a deep red color.

Plate it up with a fresh baked hoagie topped with 3 meatballs, sauce

and fresh shredded mozzarella cheese.

Serves about 6-7 six in sandwiches, enjoy!

Jeremy's analysis:

I like it, the sauce isn't quite perfect yet. Maybe it needs something to sweeten it up a bit. I do think we need to try cooking something "not spicy" Maybe it can't be done? The meatball was moist, well cooked, and a great balance of flavors.

Lance's analysis:

It all comes together beautifully. A perfect balance of heat and flavor. The sauce does need something else. I'm just not sure what that might be. Excellent crunch with the onion and pepper. All around, a great dish.