Red, White and Q

02/05/2019

We don’t just do Q at home. We do Q wherever we are. Right now, that’s Hawaii.

Check out this feed from Big Jakes Island BBQ on the Big Island

17/03/2019

Simple Sunday feast. Chicken thighs. Beef skewers and salads. Bbq fast affordable and healthy

09/03/2019

Get around the double down pulled pork sandwich. 😀. Leftover pulled pork formed into a patty and grilled on cast iron til the surface gets a little crust. Melt one piece of cheese on the patty. Then put it on a bun with a bit of green stuff. Then add rasher bacon and a fried egg .... and one more piece of cheese. Double pork and double cheese 😍🔥🥰. What could possibly go wrong?

22/02/2019

19/02/2019

UIS debreif # (whatever, almost done): Brisket
Once again, we have to thank Adelaide Hills Beef...they got us a superb Sher Wagyu brisket ... and it was one of the nicest pieces of meat I have ever worked with...it cam beautifully trimmed...and was an absolute pleasure to shape for the cook...the flat was consistently marbled and had a great shape...the point was just enough for a good set of burnt ends.

Overall, I was happy. In the end, there were two things that I'd have tweaked...the flat ended up just a little dry and not quite as tender as I'd have liked...a little different boat/wrap strategy and just a little moisture would have helped a lot. The send one was that I made the burnt ends the way I like them...not the way others might...Next time I'll go for tender...with less stickiness and cut them a little smaller, making for a better box.

Overall, our best score: 42,80,129...great flavour...but a little disappointing on the appearance...texture was predictably off due to the tightness and slight dryness.

Once again, its the little things that make the difference...we could/should have refreshed the slices a big with some beef stock...and smaller, more uniform burnt ends would have helped... I also cut the slices a little thick... at this stage of the comp, I was just happy to cut in a straight line... it had been a long night... 😅

19/02/2019

Up in Smoke debreif #6: Pork

Well, this one was our Achilles heel. Having done soooo many pork cooks in my life, this one was one of my worst. We had a little trouble with one of our kettles and the cook went on too long, producing dry pork with nasty, bitter bark...To make matters worse, I stuffed up the money muscle, so the result was predictably bad...not good flavour...a 1 dimensional box and odd texture in the meat. No surprise the scores reflected all these weaknesses and pork was our worst score: 38,74,108

sooo many things we could/should have done better...I'm just going to chalk this one up and move on... I cant imagine doing such a bad pork smoke anytime soon 😞

19/02/2019

Ok, we're rollin with UIS debreif #5: Pork ribs.

I love pork ribs. I grew up in the heart of pork country USA and probably had pork 3 times a day more often than you would believe...so pork ribs is one of my comfort zones.

We had two killer racks from Adelaide Hills Beef that were trimmed within an inch of their lives by Rik and the team. The process is pretty standard: homemade pork rub, smoke, wrap, glaze.

I was very happy with these ribs and loved the flavour...to be honest, I was a little disappionted the judges didnt like them more...but I was very happy with what we put in the box...the texture was probably just a little soft for comp...but the bones all stayed in and the ribs sliced beautifully...

The judges said: 41 (appearance) 80 (texture) and 126 (taste)...one of our highest taste scores (after brisket)...

Seems they didnt love the appearance...and after seeing a few other boxes I get that... we need to be a little tighter on our box...and potentially add a few more ribs (eg 2 rows of 4)...we had the ribs...but it never occurred to us to but MORE in the box...go figure.

The leftovers were delicious.😍

19/02/2019

UIS debreif #4: Lamb
I'll confess at the outset that I did my first pulled lamb about a month ago. So, we went into this with less practice than any of our other proteins.

The plan was lamb in 2 parts: a nice bit of pulled lamp from a shoulder and then medallions of lamb from a backstrap.

For flavour we went off the map a little and started with a base of 'Gr**go' rub... then added a few things: garlic, thyme...and a few other bits and pieces... in a wet mixture with both oil and vinegar. both bits of lamb got the same treatment.

during the cook we used a little vinegar and some stock for moisture... smoke, wrap, rest pull as per standard for the lamb shoulder.

for the backstrap, we did a reverse sear on smoke until rare, then seared is hard on high heat, turning every 30 seconds.

The scores were ok, but could have been better...once again taste let us down and it was the small things that make a difference... in this case we added moisture after the pull in the form of apple cider vinegar, but didn't add more of our dry seasoning, which I think would have added a bit. Likewise the backstap pieces need a little refresh with a bit of sauce to finish...but in the moment, just getting it all together overshadowed the details...which is a lesson learnt.

Appearance: 42, texture 84, taste 120.

I will add, this was MY first box..and putting it together and getting in it felt fantastic. Doing the first one myself was a great moment in our first comp.

19/02/2019

Up in Smoke Debrief #3: Chicken
You know the expression 'that's gold?' That was our thinking with our UIS Chicken entry...

Chef Dreadly did the knife work on those fiddley chicken thighs at silly o'clock in the morning...and produced some tidy little parcels of chicken magic. Then, she added the secret ingredient: our house made Carolina Gold sauce... a tangy mustard based mixture that we both really like with chicken...the appearance is a little different than the traditional shiny red glaze, but the judges didn't seem to mind.

Our scores were 45 for appearance (9 average); 84 for texture (8s and 9s) and 120 for taste, which ended up hurting us a little as taste has a 3x multiplier... for a total of 249 which put us 39/45

We are happy enough with the result and have few ideas about bumping up those taste scores 😎

19/02/2019

Up in Smoke Debrief #2: SCA Ancillaries---
Well, where to start? Maybe the punchline is the place to start... we didn't fare very well.

Our 'on a stick' concept was a version of a traditional Japanese taiyaki cake...a fish shaped cake cooked in what is basically a fish shaped waffle iron... in Japan these are often filled with red bean paste or custard... we went in another direction and filled them with a mixture of cream cheese, cherry compote, vanilla and walnuts ... In my opinion: delicious. For visual impact we made our batter pink...and added a sugary pink glaze. The thought process was 'carnival food'--pink fish on a stick. The scores were low...not sure exactly what place, but bottom 5 I think... we were a little surprised as we had good feedback from tasters and the leftovers went in a flash...but the standard of creativity in this category was high... and perhaps we just missed the mark.

Our jaffle was a twist on a peanut butter and jam: smoked chili peanut butter with onion jam AND, for a sweet n sour effect a mix of preserved lemon and tamarind paste...the combo is nutty, smokey and savoury with a strong hit of the sweet and sour to finish. we used one slice of dark bread as the base and one white slice on top...with nice grill marks from the Jaffle iron. In the end, the judges really didn't like it... We know it didnt look particularly good (its a jaffle with brown filling)...but there were obviously some tasty jaffles out there (brisket, cheeseburger, smores, etc). Our take was that we hit a bad middle ground: not really recognised combinations of flavours in the bbq wheelhouse and not really over-the-top creativity... Also, we used a jaffle iron over a gas burner...in hindsight an electric jaffle iron would have been sooooo much easier... In hindsight, our plan B would have been better: Reuben Jaffle 😍

19/02/2019

Well, Up in Smoke is done and dusted...so now that we've had a good nights sleep (or two), its time to debrief the comp...it was our first competition and I think its fair to say we made our share of rookie mistakes. Things didn't always go to plan, but that's competition, right?

First up is Steak...which is the showpiece of the SCA comp on saturday. Steak was definitely one of those categories we'll practice and make adjustments for next time.

We were really impressed with the quality of the steaks provided in the competition...80+ beeee-u-ti-ful rib eyes to choose from...we drew number 11 (out of about 40) and so had a chance to pick a nice steak early...and a decent steak later. All the steaks were pretty good...so we didn't feel hard done by at all...

Unlike many others, we chose not to reverse sear out steak, but rather to go a direct sear on a hot fire. We started with a homemade steak rub which was mostly salt and pepper with a bit ot smoked paprika, garlic, onion and a pinch of ancho chili powder....the steaks got a good couple of hours on the dry rub before we cooked them.

Having not practiced steak quite as much as we should have, our approach was too get a stable temp, cook the second (lower quality) steak, cut it to check it...then make adjustments on cook times for the better steak.

Truth be told, we had a little trouble getting our temps up...cooking on a Weber GA with grill grates...and getting things started early enough but not too early ...our timings were a little off...and I think our coals were cooling before we got the steak on...and so ended up cooking around 400 degrees...which was about 100 lower than we had practiced...but, in the heat of battle, we rolled with it. Thus, we extended the cook times and adjusted on the fly...The first steak came out ok, probably slightly over...and we reduced the cook time by 30 seconds over all on the second one. Steaks had nice grill marks from the grates...and were finished with a butter mixture.

Scores from the judges were nearly 45s across the board...which put us about 30th in the ~40 entries (38?). We have room to improve in all areas, including nailing the done-ness and improving the taste. In future, we'll practice and go to a reverse sear...and dial in our seasoning mixture a little more.

Every one likes more steak practice, right?

17/02/2019

We did it! Our last hand in for Up in Smoke! Sexy brisket with extra love. Big fat juicy burnt ends! Thanks Adelaide Hills Beef for the beautiful protein. Sher Wagyu we love your products.