Recipes & Techniques
Barbecue University™
How to Cold Smoke Cheese at Home
If you’re looking for an easy project to expand your grilling and smoking repertoire, there’s nothing more gratifying than cold smoking cheese. It’s easy, requires very little in the way of equipment, is relatively inexpensive, and is a fantastic addition your pantry. (Not to mention, it makes a great gift.) Wintertime is the perfect time to try your hand at cold-smoking; you should have no trouble maintaining temperatures below 90 degrees in your smoker or grill, especially if you live in a northern state. If you’re...
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Perfect For Winter: Grilled Soups
From Kentucky’s beloved burgoo to Virginia’s Brunswick stew to cowboy chili, America has a long history with soups cooked over live fire. And yet, mention grilling soup to nearly anyone, and they’ll look at you like you’ve ingested too much smoke—and not necessarily the kind generated by hardwoods. If you spent any time with your grill or smoker this past year, you surely grilled or smoked meat and charred vegetables for a salad or side dish. So it’s not a leap to imagine using one or the other or both to create...
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Your Guide To Roasting Or Smoking Holiday Meats
Many are the times when my best friend, Kathy, with whom I often host a Christmas Eve open house, has asked me to grill or smoke the beef tenderloin or prime rib. Knowing she has paid nearly $100 (or more) for these gorgeous hunks of meat, you can imagine the pressure! Like me, she prefers her beef (and lamb) rosy rare. I always use the outdoor grill as her double oven is usually full of other things. (Plus, I love the peace and quiet!) Like students at Steven’s famous Barbecue University, party guests often...
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Steak and Potatoes: Florentine Steak and Garlic Fingerlings
Several weeks ago, we posted the first installment in our new series, “Steak and Potatoes.” We thought now was an appropriate time to post another as everyone is weary of Thanksgiving leftovers and hungry for a good piece of steak! Tuscany’s cuisine is primarily based on the concept of “cucina povera,” which translates to “poor kitchen.” Pasta, beans, local vegetables, and olive oil are the primary building blocks of Tuscan cuisine. Which is why it’s ironic that one...
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Watch Steven Smoke Seafood to Perfection
If you've been following our blog lately, you know that we've been compiling recipes and tips to help you take advantage of October's spectacular food holidays. National Pizza Month brought out our frugal side, while National Pork Month and National Sausage Month had us reexamining our most popular recipes and keeping it fresh with new twists on the classics. In honor of National Seafood Month this October, we'd rather watch the recipes come to life than read about them. Words...
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How to Make the Smoked Beef Tacos of Your Dreams
A buddy of mine—Dallas-based food and travel writer extraordinaire Mike Hiller—recently posted a photo on Facebook of a taco that stopped me in my tracks: It was composed of tender shards of chorizo-spiced beef plate ribs and flame-roasted salsa verde and topped with crunchy chicharrones (fried pork rinds). He encountered this sexy taco while judging an event called Chefs for Farmers. The taco’s creator was talented chef Cody Sharp of Dallas’ Wheelhouse restaurant. Mike made online introductions,...
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4 Ways to Use Coffee To Up Your Barbecue Game
O Coffee how we love thee! Strong coffee and espresso have helped us survive long overnight smoke sessions and clear early morning mental fog enough to prep a brisket for an all-day cook. Perhaps it is the reliance on caffeine that inspired the first barbecuers to use coffee in their recipes. Whatever the reason that introduced coffee to the barbecue scene, it has been a happy marriage between the two. Have YOU tried coffee in your barbecue routine? There are several...
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Winning Baby Backs for Your Backyard Bash
If ribs epitomize barbecue for most Americans, the baby back epitomizes ribs. Cut from high on the hog, just next to the spine, baby backs have tender meat—more so than spareribs—abundant fat, and a convenient shape and size that makes one rack perfect for feeding two people if side dishes are served. (A rack contains 8 ribs at a minimum and 13 at a maximum.) You’ve heard the phrase “fall-off-the-bone tender.” Never, in my opinion, have five words done more harm to the notion of what constitutes good eating. Show me ribs...
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How to Smoke a Whole Pig
A whole pig is the apex of barbecue. As you climb the ladder of smoking enlightenment, at some point you’ll want to try one. There are too many variables (hog size, smoker design, weather, wood, and so on) to cover in a single recipe, but here are the basic guidelines. The pig: Hogs range in size from 20-pound suckling pigs to 225-pound behemoths. The first time you smoke a hog, I recommend a 50-pounder (that’s gutted weight, by the way, but with the head on). It’s small enough...
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Sweet Corn Steps Up to the Plate
A company well-known for canned and frozen vegetables recently announced America’s favorite vegetable is . . . drum roll, please . . . broccoli. Sorry, but I’m not buying it. And not just because they only polled 4,000 people. What I am buying is sweet corn—from roadside stands, the farmers’ market, and when they’re selling fresh local ears, even the supermarket. Just-picked sweet corn is in season in many states right now, making it one of the best things about August and the dog days of summer. Corn has its...
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