The National Barbecue of St. Louis

Let's be honest.  St. Louis is not known as a great barbecue town.  Now there are some decent places, but not nearly as many as Kansas City, Austin, Birmingham, or Memphis. 

But St. Louis does have one unique barbecue style that's not common elsewhere.  And that is the pork steak.

Pork steak?  What the heck is a pork steak?

Well, it's not really a steak as we know it.  Pork steaks are cut from the pork shoulder.  The butcher uses a band saw and slices the shoulder across the grain, about 1/2 inch thick.  There is bone in the steak and it's a fairly fatty cut of meat.

The locals cook the pork steaks by firing up a hot charcoal grill.  They liberally season the steaks with salt and pepper and toss them on to the hot fire.  It doesn't take long before the fat starts to melt and drip onto the hot coals and flame up.  Pretty soon the grill is awash in smoke and flames.  Since the steak is thin, it doesn't take long to cook.  When it's nearly done, the steak is slathered with barbecue sauce and the sauce is allowed to caramelize on the steak.  Only one sauce is acceptable, the national barbecue sauce of St. Louis:  Maull's.  This is a tangy, tomato-based sauce.  It does work well with the pork steaks, although it is not as sweet as some of the sauces that I like with pork.

Now these are tasty steaks, but they are a bit chewy.  Note that these are cooked fast off of a very tough cut of meat.  The only saving grace, as far as tenderness goes, is that the shoulder is sliced thin across the grain, resulting in a very short fiber that makes the meat seem less tough.

However, I have an improvement!

I take the pork steaks and one by one, layer them in a large pan suitable for placing in the oven.  As I layer the steaks, I liberally season them with a barbecue rub.  I then seal up the pan tightly with aluminum foil and place the pan into a 225 degree oven.  I'll leave them in the oven for 4-6 hours.  This time spent at low heat in a moist cooking environment allows some of the connective tissue to convert to gelatin, making the steak much more tender.  After the time in the oven, I toss these on the grill and finish off with a hearty dose of smoke and barbecue sauce.

Cook up a batch this weekend.

The Perfect Barbecue Dessert

There is one dessert that is perfect for barbecue:  banana pudding.  There are other good desserts for barbecue: pecan pie, blackberry or peach cobbler with ice cream, Coca-Cola cake, and the list goes on.  But banana pudding is the first choice.

No one knows the exact date of the origin of nanner puddin' as it is colloquially known.  Nabisco first started selling Nilla Wafers in 1901, and it is thought that banana pudding was developed shortly thereafter.  There is an early mention in a Kentucky cookbook from 1903.

Anyway, the pudding is now a standard in barbecue joints from Texas to South Carolina.  I regret that this pudding never made much of an impact in Illinois or Missouri, so I guess it's up to me to evangelize its creamy goodness.

Banana pudding is generally made by layering vanilla wafers, bananas, vanilla pudding, and a topping.  There are a couple of schools of thought on the topping.  Some prefer a classic meringue topping, while others worship in the house of whipped cream.  Cool Whip is not acceptable.  Again, repeat after me, "Cool Whip is not acceptable".  Personally, I am a devoted disciple of the whipped cream church of banana pudding.

We had some bananas left over from the biathlon yesterday that had already been cut in two, so they needed to be used quickly, so I decided to make the sacrifice and make banana pudding.  Here's the instructions.

Pick out 3-4 ripe bananas.  These should not be green, but neither should they be brown.  You also need vanilla wafers, vanilla pudding mix, milk, and whipping cream.

Take a 9-inch baking dish or pie pan and arrange vanilla wafers across the bottom and up the sides.  The dish should be nearly completely covered, although a few small gaps aren't a problem.  Slice the bananas thin and layer these over the cookies.  Again, try to cover thoroughly, but a few gaps are okay.

Now cook the pudding.  Note that I said cook.  Instant pudding simply does not work.  After you cook the pudding, pour it slowly over the bananas and vanilla wafers.  The hot pudding will soak into the cookies and extract flavor from the bananas in a way that can't be matched by cold, starchy instant pudding.  For a 9-inch dish, I use the big box of pudding, the one that uses three cups of milk. 

If you normally keep skim milk in your house, you may need to pick up some whole milk to make the pudding as skim milk does not contain enough fat to properly bond to the starch in the pudding.  In other words, if you use skim milk, you will get runny pudding.

If you have extra bananas, you might want to throw a few more slices on top of the pudding.  Take a piece of plastic wrap and lay on the surface of the pudding prior to placing it in the refrigerator to cool.  This prevents the formation of the dreaded "pudding skin".

After the pudding is completely chilled, remove the plastic wrap and cover the top with whipped cream. 

The perfect dessert for barbecue or anything else.

Rudy's Can't Fail

My apologies to Joe Strummer and The Clash for an obvious misuse of their song title.  But, if you want some authentic Texas barbecue, you could do a lot worse than stopping at one of the Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q.

Rudy's has several locations in the southwest. I was down in Austin earlier this week and decided that I had to feed my need for some Q.  I went over to Rudy's to pick up some dinner.  Rudy's is a rustic sort of place, somewhat pre-fabricated to look like the country stores and gas stations of 1950's west Texas.  Now while this decor may sound a bit kitschy, rest assured the meat is authentic.

Rudy's does not have table service.  You don't even get a plate.  You stand in line and order meat at the counter and they give it to you on butcher paper.  Yes, meat, not a meal.  You can purchase sides of potato salad and slaw, but the meat is the real feature.  They also throw in several slices of white bread to go along with the meat.

I ordered a half pound of brisket and half of a sausage link.  They included the white bread as noted above.  To round out a complete meal, I got some sauce (contain tomato) and pickles (cucumber) on the side to serve as vegetables.  And a container of banana pudding for good measure.

The meat was delicious.  Smoky, but not overwhelming.  Tender, lean, and moist.  Rudy's has a nice sauce to go along with the brisket, tomato based and spicy.  I like a sweet and vinegar type sauce on pork, but this sauce is a perfect match for the brisket.

Some detractors will claim that Rudy's is a chain.  Well, it is.  But it's a good chain and a good franchise.  Any investor's out there?  I'm ready to open one up in St. Louis.

A Little Surprise

Some of you have had the chance to eat my pulled pork along with my special secret barbecue sauce.  What's so secret?  Well, it's made specifically to go with pulled pork, a balance of sweet and sour and spicy, with the appropriate consistency to distribute itself through the pork and not sit on top or run through and soak the bottom bun.  Actually, the recipe is not so secret anymore.  My mom published it in her church cookbook with a brisket recipe.  It's good sauce, but it really doesn't go with brisket.

I made a big batch of barbecue (pork shoulders and picnics) for my son's Eagle Scout dinner last weekend.  I was low on sauce and needed a new batch.  I usually use ground red pepper flakes.  We were out and I substituted ground chipotle pepper.  I didn't think the smokiness would detract and I thought the Scoville units should match.

It turns out the Scoville was much higher on the chipotle.  The sauce was still good, just packed with an unexpected extra kick of heat.

Oven Wings!!!

There's not much going on in the barbecue world this time of year.  I don't even know if you can light charcoal when it's 3 degrees outside.  And while barbecue is my favorite type of food, there's also some other wholesome foods that should be considered.  And one of the most wholesome of all is chicken wings.

Okay, they're not all that wholesome.  But they are tasty. And while BWW does a pretty good job with the wings, you can also make them at home, even without a deep fryer.  And the oven version of these will have significantly less fat than the deep-fried version.

First of all, buy the wings.  Whole wings are cheaper, but you have to cut them up.  Sometimes you can find good deals on frozen bags of pre-cut wings.  Either will work.  Go ahead and buy some wing sauce while you're at it. 

Now that you have your wings, you are ready to cook.  Pre-heat the oven to 225 degrees.  Yes, 225 is not a very hot oven, but that's the point.  Take a cookie sheet and place a wire rack on it.  Lay out the wings on the rack.  You don't really need to space them very far apart, but they shouldn't be stacked on top of each other.  If you're using frozen wings, there's no need to thaw prior to cooking.

Put the wings in the oven for 3 hours or so.  The wings will cook very slowly and render off much of the excess fat.  After the three hours are up, remove the wings from the oven and turn the oven up to 500 degrees.  Yes, 500 degrees. 

Pick up the wire rack with the chicken wings and transfer to a clean cookie sheet.  You don't want all of the rendered fat to go back in the oven or significant smoke will occur.  Very significant.  Put the wings back into the oven once it gets to 500.  Cook for 15 more minutes.  The chicken skin will crisp up nicely.  There will be a little smoke from the oven, but it won't be too bad.

Take the wings out, toss in your favorite sauce and enjoy.  Meanwhile, send one of the kids out to shovel a path to the grill.

Turkey in the Brine

Yesterday's bird was a success, even if it wasn't cooked on the Weber.  For the record, this is probably the first time in about 10 years that I've cooked a turkey in the oven instead of the Weber kettle charcoal grill.

What's my cooking method?

1. Brine the bird.  See Alton Brown and Good Eats to learn more.
2. Put the bird in a hot oven.  Start the bird out at 500 degrees for 30 minutes.
3. Foil the bird and turn down the oven.  300 degrees is good.
4. Cook until the bird gets to 165 degrees.  Then take it out.  It will go up a few more.
5. Let sit for 30 minutes before carving.  It keeps the juice in.
6. Enjoy with a beer.  Yesterday I had the turkey with Sam Adams Winter Ale.

If you choose to go the Weber route, use indirect cooking and a really hot fire to start.  This will crisp the skin.  As the fire burns down, add a few coals every so often to keep the fire going.  The bird will slowly cook through.  Use a digital meat thermometer and it will be tasty.