Cultural exchange.

[David Anderson]

(food related – not fly fishing – sorry Zach !)

Hi guys,

Cameron and I have strengthened the bonds between the US and Australia with a food related culture exchange.

I sent red wine and he’s very kindly responded with southern BBQ sauce .
While we have lots of red wine down here, and most of it is pretty good, our BBQ sauce is mass produced crap and nothing like I remember from the mid-west.

Only thing is, I’m no legend on the BBQ and wouldn’t mind some pointers on cooking with this stuff.

The first two are Maurices’s

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[andrew grabham]

(food related – not fly fishing – sorry Zach !)

If you had a bunch of chicken breasts where would you start ?
🙂

Simple Dave – stay the hell out of the kitchen,

Andrew
and be grteful for whatever turned up on my plate 😉

[ethan smith]

David, if you want the real American BBQ thing then you probably need to start with a pork shoulder, chicken breast is the meat of last resort for BBQ. Beef brisket would be the second choice, but pork shoulder is probably what most people think of when they say BBQ.

Smoking or indirect cooking is the preferred method. So take a charcoal grill, gas will not do. Heat up the coals really well, and place an aluminum pan with wood chips on top of it. Most people use Hickory wood, but apple wood or any fruit tree wood will work, oak, maple they all lend a different flavor to the meat. Season your meat with whatever dry spices you want and then put your meat off to the other side of the grill, away from the heat. Close the lid of the grill. You want to maintain right around 225F degrees, or 107C but its not an exact science. Let it cook for like 8-10 hours, you need to watch your coals and keep them going and you might need to add some more wood chips too.

Then when the meat is done you can shred it or slice it, and serve your sauce on the side.

But in my humble opinion the sauce is the least important part. The vinegar sauce would be considered Carolina style, the tomato based would be Kansas City style sauce. Carolina style is usually served with cole slaw on the sandwich.

Chicken could be handled in much the same way, but its more common to buy a whole “Roaster Chicken” and smoke it whole rather than breasts. I’ve heard that the “flavor juice/ 10% solution”

[Cameron Mortenson]

David…down here they use the yellow mustard base sauce on chicken and pork.

[Aaron Christensen]

In the south, barbecue is a noun.  http://barbecueisanoun.com/ Roughly speaking, it is smoked meat and a cultural obsession in some circles.  (My neighbor’s son made that film.)

Sauce is an excellent gift and, as you probably know, a great way to explore regional differences in barbecue styles.  (For example, western North Carolina tends to use tomato based sauces, while eastern NC uses a vinegar based sauce w/o tomato.  Maurice’s mustard-based sauce comes from Columbia, SC, 90 miles south of Charlotte.)  I enjoy finding new sauces, as well.   Yesterday, I stopped at Bridge’s BBQ Lodge in Shelby, NC, on my way to the Davidson River.  

For BBQ aficionados, sauce should complement the meat rather than be the basis for flavor.  If you want to explore the world of barbecue (a field with followers every bit as rabid as fly fishers), a ceramic smoker is a great place to start.  My personal favorite is the grill dome (http://www.grilldome.com).  The small one will be fine for family use.  (I have the larger one and have cooked for 40 or more people on it.)  In the US, the most recognized name in ceramic smokers is the Big Green Egg.  Metal smokers are fine, too, but they tend to require more monitoring.  

The cooking style calls for low heat and long cooking times.  I  have had pork on the grill dome for over 18 hours.   Smaller amounts of meat will take less time so you can get it done in 8 hours, or so.

Without trying to be too complicated, chicken on the grill with sauce is good, too.  Brush the sauce on about 10 minutes before the chicken is done.  However, that is grilled chicken rather than BBQ.

[Cameron Mortenson]

Aaron…great film link.

[Mike McKeown]

I can’t profess to having great BBQ sauce, but I can bear testimony to some of our peri-peri sauces. Nando’s for those of you who might know.

I’ll do an exchange, for what have you…

[john michael white]

It’s interesting that in the East, BBQ is predominately pork.  In Texas, it is predominately beef!  Although, pork ribs, sausage, and chicken will do just fine as well.  I am not that much of a cook, so I can’t offer any recipes, but I can tell you where to find two of the best Sauces in Texas:

If you’re ever in Central Texas (or want to order it online), make a stop at Rudy’s BBQ.  https://rudysbbq.com/c-2-sause.aspx

or the Salt Lick BBQ.  http://www.saltlickbbq.com/

Rudy’s is more spicy and traditional while the Salt Lick’s sauce is more of a sweet sauce, which is amazing!  It is different from the traditional “red” Texas BBQ sauces.

There are also many lesser known local joints all over.  

[Zach Matthews]

David –

There’s a lot of regional variation in the US with regard to the different kinds of barbecue sauce.  I think your mustard sauce is a North Carolina standard.  My home state of Arkansas, specifically around the Mississippi river, is famous for tomato-based hot, sweet sauce, usually served on pulled pork or ribs.  Up in Kansas City, which was the terminus for the old cattle-drive trails from Texas, you’ll mostly find beef brisket barbecue.  Texas, for obvious reasons, uses all sorts of beef.  South Carolina barbecue, if I recall correctly, is vinegar-based and not particularly hot.  The barbecue restaurant I plan to take everyone to this weekend in Bryson City, North Carolina is at a geographical nexus of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina barbecue.  As I recall, they offered like eight different homemade sauces.

When I got married, Lauren’s dad arranged for a 160 lb. hog to be delivered to my house.  I got a family friend to provide the smoker (a converted propane tank such as would supply a family of 5 for a year and which is welded to a trailer for transport).  My friend and some of his friends worked all day from 4:00AM on that hog, basting it with barbecue sauce.  By the time I had finished my dawn fishing trip with my groomsmen, gotten dressed, married Lauren, and returned with 400 guests in tow, the hog was literally falling off the bone.  Lauren’s family had a family friend who somehow got ahold of a barbecue sauce recipe which a restaurant had once paid $30,000 for (thus, it is “the $30,000 barbecue sauce”).  We went through a 160 lb. hog and a frigging vat of that sauce in half an hour.  My friends still talk about what a hell of a party our wedding reception was.  (Cops broke it up at 1:00AM because the neighbors a quarter mile down the road were complaining about the noise of the outdoor dance floor.  We had invited all the other neighbors within that 1/4 mile radius, probably buying us a good hour).

Zach

[Mike Cline]

Mike’s Baby Back Ribs
Make the following Dry Rub (This keeps well in a sealed container):
• 1 Part Ground Cumin
• 1 Part Ground Mustard
• 1 Part Powdered Onion
• 1 Part Powdered Garlic
• ½ Part Powdered Herb (Oregano, Thyme, or Mixed)
• ¼ Part Chili Powder
Sprinkle Ribs with generous amount of rub on both sides
Double wrap ribs in Aluminum foil – (Insure no holes as there will be significant juices)
Cook ribs in 350° oven for 2 – 2.5 hours
Remove ribs from foil and drain juices
Place ribs on hot barbeque for 10-20 minutes to brown turning a couple of times while basting with favorite sauce.

Its the cooking, not the sauce

[Cameron Mortenson]

Here is a website that I found this evening that breaks down the history of the sauces of South Carolina.

[ethan smith]

To Zach’s point the nice part about buying the whole pig and roasting it at home is you have access to the part of the Canadian bacon known around our area as “the fish”. Probably because its shaped like a fish.

It is by far the best pieces of pork you will ever have. No sauce, no spice needed. From what I’ve heard the fish doesn’t usually make it to the table because the pit master or carver always gets it. I think of it as reward for what a lot of people view as gruesome, the carving. Its usually all the men at the party, no offense ladies.

[David Anderson]

Geez, I’ve clearly forgot how complex BBQ is.. 😮 ;D

In Australia it’s a simple affair.

For the men:

Gather at grill with beer – drink beer.
Fry onions – drink beer.
Throw on some snags (sausage) – drink beer.
Add steaks – drink beer.
Shuffle everything around grill until charred – drink beer.
Serve – drink beer.
Drink more beer.

For the ladies:

Chill lots of beer.
Chop onions.
Make salads.
Set table.
Eat.
Clean up after men.
Driven pissed men home.
Wish you were born a man.
😉 ;D

Thanks for all the info, will be gathering the boys and putting some of this stuff to the test in a couple weeks.

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[Simon Chu]

Bring your skills over in Dec DA.
Just bought a new barby.

Beer is cold.
Wear a pinny. ;D 😉

[regan c. kenyon jr.]

Having a father from St. Louis, I grew up in a St. Louis style household.

[Zach Matthews]

What is a pinny?

[David Anderson]

You Southlanders are different.

Yep Zach, they’re an odd bunch, but we have to be nice to them so they let us over to fish.. 😉 😀

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[andrew_bell]

You Southlanders are different.

Yep Zach, they’re an odd bunch, but we have to be nice to them so they let us over to fish.. 😉 😀

Do We ???, I thought we just quietly followed them to their best rivers and then jumped in 100m upstream………………  😀

I must qualify Dave’s BBQ description…………thats just for Sydney Softc….c’s

Out here in the real world the Women drink Beer too, the Kids will drive you all home and there’s no such thing as a sausage…………. Its all Rump  😉

[David Anderson]

Its all Rump  😉

On the beer drinking women or the BBQ ?

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[andrew_bell]

Nah , on the Southland Heifers

[Author]

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