Black Eyed Pigz

Archive for April, 2009

I’m sure you’re familiar with this bean bag tossing game, commonly known in SC as Cornhole.  I didn’t name it, so don’t look at me.

Basically the object of the game is to toss corn-filled bean bags towards a target board, and is played much like horseshoes.  The upside to this game is that it’s safe and portable.  All you need are 2 boards and 8 bags of corn.  Simple stuff.

You can learn more about the game by visiting:  www.americancornhole.com

This is a great 2 or 4 person game and helps to pass the time between beers.  You can’t get much more fun that this game, and it’s easy to build your own.  A little lumber, some screws and some paint, and you’re on your way to Cornholin’ this summer during the BBQ!

More games and info will be coming soon.  Let us know about the games YOU love to play!

Mmm mmm Good!  Easy to make, easy to enjoy.

My way:

Get some metal skewers.  I don’t care how much or how long you soak those wooden/bamboo things, they BURN.  I don’t want to EAT burnt wood.

The Ingredients:

1lb Medium Shrimp, de-vained and thawed
1 Cup Margarita Mix (no alcohol, just the mix)
Citrus Grill Spice

Combine the shrimp and the margarita mix in a large zip-top bag, and refrigerate for about an hour.  Seafood sucks up the marinade really well so a longer time isn’t necessary.

Drain the shrimp and skewer about 8 or so per stick, leaving just a little space between them.  Lay some alumnium foil over your grill grate to prevent “fall through” while cooking.  Season your skewers with the Citrus Grill spice prior to cooking.  Lay the skewers on the foil and cook till pink on both sides.
Remove from heat, open a cold beer and chow down!

Ok, first of all, the swine flu is not a PIG flu.  It’s named Swine Flu because they are simply following standard medical naming procedures.  This “swine flu” is in fact, a hybrid of avian flu and human flu. 

I quote the following from Reuters News Service:

GENEVA – The World Health Organization said confirmed swine flu cases rose to 257 worldwide Thursday and announced it will would stop using the term “swine flu” to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs.

The global body said the number of confirmed cases in Mexico rose to 97 from 26, with seven deaths. The WHO confirmed tally from the United States now stands at 109, with one death.

Other confirmed cases include 19 in Canada, 13 in Spain, eight in Britain, three each in Germany and New Zealand, two in Israel and one each in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told reporters in Geneva that at least one of the Spanish cases involved a person who had not traveled to Mexico. Spanish officials said that was a man who apparently got the virus from his girlfriend, who recently returned from Mexico.

Thompson said the flu name change comes after the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency expressed concerns that the term “swine flu” was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to order the slaughter of pigs.

“Rather than calling this swine flu … we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A,” he said.

On Wednesday, Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs as precaution, even though experts said swine flu is not spread by eating pork.

There, read that last line again:  Swine Flu is NOT spread by eating PORK!

Good news BBQ lovers!  Your pulled pork sammiches are NOT in danger!  Keep cooking that other white meat friends, enjoy your BBQ’s and be sure to wash your hands often!

Because sugar and tomato sauce have a tendancy to burn, I recommend you use this sauce AFTER cooking, rather than during cooking.  But it’s up to you.

The Ingredients:

Place sweet onions in butter in a small saucepan and saute until soft and translucent. Add brown sugar, dry mustard, cider vinegar, pineapple, ketchup, lime juice, fruit juice, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until combined and cook over medium heat until reduced and thickened, 20 to 30 minutes.

Dip your wings!  It’s sweet but it’s good!

I love wings.  Usually the hotter the better.  But when I have company over, I can’t burn them like that, so I turn, instead to my Smoked & Choked BBQ Chicken Wings.  Here’s what you need:

Large pack of whole chicken wings (22-24 count)
1 Beer of your choice
Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
Durkee Grill Creations Citrus Grill spice blend (if you can’t find this, use the juice of 1 lemon, 1 lime, a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper)
2 gallon size Zip top bags

Combine all of your ingredients, except the wings, and stir to mix well.  Divide your wings between the two bags, and pour the mixture into each bag.  Remove excess air, zip tight and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Turn the bags from time to time to insure even distribution of the marinade to all wings.

Get your smoker, or grill, fired up.  Place your wings on the grate, away from the fire, and throw the wood chips to your coals.  One handful is plenty for poultry.  I like applewood, but mesquite is nice too. 

After about 1.5 - 2 hours, turn your wings.  Rotate them around a little if some look more done than others and let it go for another 1.5 -2 hours.  Remove from heat, let them rest 20 minutes and enjoy.

Need something to dip them in?  That’s coming up next….

Folks, while I prefer to cook outdoors as much as possible, occasionally I get a hankering for some good ol’ fashioned country fried chicken.  My goal is to fire up the turkey fryer this summer and give it a try in there, just to do it outside, but you can definitely make this recipe on your stovetop and bring it to the party.  EVERYONE loves crispy fried chicken!

Now, I don’t want to hear about fried foods being bad for you, because if you’re frying it right, you’ll only be adding a teaspoon or so of fat to your entire meal. 

The trick is the fat you cook with and the temperature you cook it at.  Me, I don’t use a thermometer to check my grease, but you may want to until you get a “feel” for it.  Typically, you want your frying oil to maintain a temp of  350 degrees farenheit.  You can waiver about 10 - 15 degrees either direction, but try to keep it as close to 350 as possible.    Also, I use only Crisco type shortening to fry with on the stove top.  Why?  It tastes better in my opinion, and is MADE for frying.  Some oils will burn at temps of 350, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Now, for preparation of your chicken.  Some people will buy a whole fryer chicken and then cut it up at home.  Not me, I don’t like thighs AT ALL.  And my kids (all 4 of them) prefer legs and breasts anyways.  So, I usually buy a pack of each.

I will prepare the chicken at least 4 hours prior, but usually 24 hours prior, to frying time.  I soak it in a mixture of Buttermilk, fresh ground black pepper and kosher salt.  That’s it.  Nothing else is needed.  Also, I only use Self-Rising flour to coat the chicken with prior to cooking.  It makes for a crispier crust!

So, with my chicken marinaded, I have two bowls of flour, both with a pinch of kosher salt and black pepper mixed in.  I take the chicken and drain it on a rack, dredge in flour, dip it back in my milk, then dredge it once more.  Trust me, it makes all the difference in the world.

Some people like to start their chicken breasts meat side down, I always start bone side down.  Doesn’t seem to make much difference.  And I let it fry for up to 20 minutes for a breast 12 - 15 for legs.  Then i turn it and fry again for the same time.  If it seems to still need more cooking, I flip once more for 5 - 10 minutes and remove to let it drain on racks.  You can use paper towels, but it may affect the crispiness of your chicken sitting in the grease as it drains to the towels.

Give it about 20 minutes to drain and rest, and chow down.  You’ll be in LOVE with fried chicken!

Traditionally Brisket is a tough cut of meat.  It’s from the more muscular portion of the cow, thus making it very hard to cook and consume.  The same things that work against it as a roast, work FOR it as BBQ fodder. 

Brisket is a beef cut taken from the breast section beneath the first five ribs, behind the foreshank.

Fresh brisket is an inexpensive boneless cut that requires long, slow cooking to break down the collagen in the connective muscle tissues achieve tenderness. The long piece is cut in half for marketing. You’ll find it sold as a flat cut or a point cut. The flat cut is leaner, but the point cut has more flavor due to a bit of extra fat (called the deckel).

Texas pioneered the art of bbq brisket with the slow and low method of cooking.  This entails keeping your fire temps below 275 degrees farenheit for long periods of time.  Also, you don’t want to cook this DIRECTLY over your fuel source.  Using the indirect cooking method is essential for a good brisket.

It starts with a rub.  You can use any dry seasoning you prefer, but coat the meat on all sides very generously with a dry rub.  This helps add flavor throughout the cooking process and helps to form a crust to seal in juices. 

Get your smoker fired up and to cooking temp before placing the meat on the grate.  I will immediately throw a few handfuls of applewood or mesquite chips (thoroughly soaked in water) onto the coals, as soon as the meat is on the cooker.

After about an hour, I go back and throw another few handfuls of chips on the coals, I POUR the smoke to the meat for the first 2 hours.  The flavors from the wood smoke make brisket something really special.

Now just sit back and maintain your cooking temps.  Add fuel when needed, avoid opening the chamber to “have a look”  this lets all your heat out and slows down the cooking process.  A process, I might add, that can take up to 15 hours depending on the size of your brisket.

Now, here’s where I deviate from the traditional TEXAS method of cooking.  At about the 6 - 8 hour marks, I will place my brisket in an aluminum tray, pour in some apple cider enough to just cover the bottom of the tray and over the brisket with foil.  This is blasphemous in many circles, but it makes for a juicier brisket in my opinion.  4 dozen friends and family members agree.

From this point on, I just maintain the fire and let it cook.  After about 12 hours, I will stick it with a thermometer to see if it’s done.  You want to cook this to an internal temperature of about 165 degrees.  Do not stick this in the thin portion, find the thickest part of the meat and try to avoid the fat as that will give you a false reading.  Once your meat is up to temp, remove it from the fire and let it rest.  I usually let mine sit until the next day’s dinner, and toss it back on the smoker for about 1 - 2 hours to reheat it, but you can do this in your oven.

If you’ve followed my methods, you will not be able to slice this meat, as it will just simply fall apart.  It will be super tender and juicy, and flooded with flavor from your rub.  I doubt you’ll even want BBQ sauce for it.  And don’t be surprised if there’s none left.  I buy HUGE 20lb briskets at the local butcher shop, and they yield between 8 and 12lbs of meat when all is said and done, and I’m lucky to have enough left over the next day for a sandwich.  It turns even the most careful eater into a ravenous animal who will gorge himself because it’s just THAT good!

If you decide to try a brisket, let me know how it goes.  And don’t be disappointed if your first one isn’t spectacular, keep notes on what you did and you’ll be able to spot where the problems arose.

While I much prefer smoking meat to grilling it, there’s something to be said for an easy to make griller’s specialty.  And here’s one of my favorites. 

Bacon Wrapped BBQ Prawns (really big shrimp)

You’re going to need about 20 - 25 Shrimp (21-25 count size) peeled and deveined
1/2 pound of bacon, partially cooked and cut in half
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup Canola oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 oz Dijon Mustard
3 tablespoons chipotle pepper
1/4 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoons black pepper
5 to 8 bamboo skewers

Before anything else, soak your skewers in water, to keep them from burning while grilling.  Alternately, you can use metal skewers.

Cook your bacon about half way to give it a good head start.  Don’t cook it till crisp, or it won’t work for you.  Wrap the bacon around the shrimp and skewer through the point where the bacon ends meet.  You can put 3 to 5 shrimp on a skewer.

Combine all ingredients in a blender, except of course your bacon/shrimp skewers, and puree.  Separate about half the sauce for basting and the other half for dipping.

Cook the shrimp on your grill, trying to maintain a medium temp.  When the shrimp turn pink, begin basting with sauce.

When done, get ready to fight off the crowds.  Man this is good stuff.

Ok everyone, I’ve taken some time off from blogging to get some of my mile-long honey-do list taken care of, and while it’s still about .99 miles long, I think I can get back to what’s important here:  BBQ!  For Easter dinner this year, we’re having bbq brisket instead of ham.  Ham is boring.  So, I’ll be firing up the smoker this Friday for a 14+ hour cook to provide dinner to a houseful of people on Saturday.  Why Saturday?  Well, I have to work Easter Sunday and they just don’t value food and family over dollars and cents.  What can I do?

I will be bringing you some recipes for my wife’s homemade BBQ sauce, fully customizeable for your particular tastes, we always change it up from batch to batch.  Also, I’ll be including her Potato Salad recipe, my Smashed Potato Salad recipe, and much much more.  It’s just a matter of time until the smoke hits the meat, and I’m already champing at the bit to get on the grills.

If you have a recipe you’d like to contribute, by all means, use the contact form located here and we’ll be sure to post it and credit you 100% for the contribution.

I’m always looking for good recipes and if it involves BACON????!!!!  You might just win a free BlackEyedPigz.com T-shirt (coming soon). 

So, with that friends, I bid you farewell for now and will be back blogging at you real soon.  In the meantime, head on over to your local butcher shop and place your order for an Easter Brisket this week.  You won’t be disappointed.