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What people should know about American Barbecue - is that it's all the art of the type of protein
that you have, the wood you're cooking on, and controlling the smoke. People tend to
underestimate the art of barbecue. Barbecue, like many other things in food or cooking, is
or can be a matter of perception. We talk to people who feel that - if there is no real wood and fire -
you don't have the right to call something barbecue. And we talk to Pit Masters that feel
that you can generate the same result with maybe using different tools, like bricks or briquettes.
I think there are a few components to the technique of barbecue, some of them are
real to every barbecue we've seen. Heat, you know, if it's wood... then you also have the
whole components of, like, what type of woods, and how dry the wood is, and burning it to the right
coal. But then, maintaining the temperature and babysitting the pit, or your smoking vessel. And
then, just the amount of smoke, all the way up to what cut of meat are you cooking. How do you trim
it? How do you cook it? How long does it need? Then the seasoning. Do you season, at all? Juices
and ... only with salt and pepper? Is it a rub? Is it a rub before you're cooking? Is it a rub when
it's done? And then saucing. You don't sauce at all? Do you sauce towards the end? Or do you leave
saucing .... a dining table so every diner can sauce at will? And I think that - kind of - was
almost a commonality around the different regions that we've seen. Pork, in general, seems more
predominant to the Carolinas, in Tennessee, where in Texas, just by nature of what is available,
it's more beef driven barbecue. And maybe the influence, also, of the Tex Mex type of [cuisine]...
Especially at Valentina's.
Wood, also, it's what's available to you. So, you can have post oak, or oak, or
a hickory, uh. In some scenarios, pecan, where we've seen here in South Carolina, as well.
Barbecue is associated with smoke or smoking. Right? This is the essence of barbecue. I think we tend to
think about, "oh, it's also the barbecue sauce," but it's not. It really is the smoke and cooking over,
over coals or charcoals and really getting this balance of smokiness. People think, "oh, it's a flavor."
Just like salt, you want to control the amount of of a very powerful cooking medium. And it's a fine
balance between letting the meat that you cook shine and the right moisture and the right balance of smoke.
And then whatever seasoning that you may or may not add with the wood. It really depends.
We heard different approaches and it depends on your pit, right? So, if you have a big burning
burrow and you can cook the wood down to charcoals in one big fire, then it may not be as important to
have dry wood. But if you want to utilize smaller vessels that you may have access to, in a smaller
operation, or your kitchen, it's important to remember that the wood needs to be smaller, that
it needs to be drier so it will catch fire faster. And then controlling the smoke. A lot of smoke,
dense smoke, darker smoke... It's probably not the smoke that you look for. And those things....
I didn't know, coming into this! You know, you turn your barbecue or your grill at your backyard or
your operation on, and you think, "Welp, smoke! There is smoke coming out, so I guess i'm smoking!"
The ... mastering the heat and the art of, like, the type of smoke the amount of smoke that
is coming up - is something that people need to learn to perfect. After going on that journey, if
there is something that I can suggest to any chef that wants to dab in smoking: is to start
first by understanding the parameters of what they have in their kitchen, and then what is the best
vessel within those parameters, and then start with one thing - the one thing that you want to put on the
menu, that you want to smoke or barbecue. Is it a brisket? Are those ribs? But hone in on perfecting
this to understand your cooking medium, and controlling the smoke and the heat, and then you
can take that and apply it further to other things. Don't think that if you set a smoker up, then you
can smoke whatever you have in their pantry. I think that the cut of meat, the size, the density,
the thickness - are important to know how long and, more or less, what heat, once wants to cook it on.
Whole hogs, as we've seen, took anywhere from 12 to 18 hours, while the ribs could be two to four
hours depending, depending on their size. And it really depends on your cooking vessel. Is it wood?
Is it charcoals? What type of pit or smoker are you working on? You want to have some sort of a vessel
that allows airflow. Feeding oxygen through the fire will generate more heat and turn the heat on.
Choking the fire, through manipulating those airways, will calm the fire down, and so reduces the temperature.
That's why I'm going back to the point of understanding the vessel you're cooking on.
You know, sometimes you may need to move your protein to a different part of your smoker if
your heat is picking up, or shuffle the wood chips or your coals, to one way or another. You have so
many variants that you need to be aware of. And if there is one thing I learned: is not -
it's not to fight it, to understand what you're cooking with, know how to dance around it, and get to the
results that you want, with what you have.
Top three mistakes chefs can make while trying to barbecue:
Is generate too much smoke, denser smoke, and end up with something that tastes closer to an ashtray
rather than a balanced smoke item.
Another thing that is very common is putting the sauce - barbecue sauce -
on while you're cooking, not understanding it's high in sugar, and gets the sticky, burn, sugar type
of flavor, overwhelming the protein. And overcooking is another mistake, where you have it -- essentially
taking a really good meat and causing it to be a dry end result. So whole hog barbecue
is the original way of barbecuing in the Carolinas, in Tennessee, and we see less and less of that.
And now I understand why. With a yield of 30 percent, barbecuing a whole hog is different
than barbecuing parts of the animal. Just like anything else in cooking, when you cook it with
skin on, and bone-in, lean meats, dark meats, all combined together, all those flavors are
just well balanced at the end result. Where you have different elements and lots of moisture
in a hog that was cooked whole. Maybe this is the one occasion when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Low and slow means around 250 degrees of temperature, for duration of anywhere from 3 to 18 hours
depending what you're cooking. So, in essence, it's breaking all the components of the animal
slowly, rather than throwing a steak on - on a sauté pan. Perfect doneness, for ribs, is when
the ribs are tender, but still holding on to the bone. So you want a tag on the bone. You
do not want to cut the ribs, and have it fall apart. And I think that's another misconception.
We want things to fall off the bone, but this is not braising. You really want to have them
holding on while you cut it and really melting in your mouth when you bite into it. Pork ribs
have a membrane on the backside, and we've seen both approaches to either removing this membrane or not.
Remove the membrane because it can be chewy, and don't remove the membrane, because it helps
holding the rack together, or the ribs together, and really slowly disintegrates throughout the cooking.
From what we've tasted, they're equally good, so I think it's an operator's choice of how
to go about it. Barbecue is a dry cooking technique, and even though you have fat that
inherently based the part you're cooking, you also always have parts that can get
too dry. So introducing moisture to the cooking is important, either by spraying or mopping. We've seen
different elements, usually with a component of acid, to really cut the fat and up the moisture.
With the sides to a traditional barbecue, they may vary in different regions. For the most
part, you have your coleslaw, you may have your mac and cheese, or potato salad. But I think, in
general, in most places, they seem to me more like a second thought to the main event.
And my advice to operators will be, maybe....
you know, to really also play up the sides, as long as they complement
the main protein that you barbecue.
Good examples where the sides are amazing by themselves, but amazing complement to the barbecue as well,
was the barbecue in Austin, Texas.
I think the sides were so well done, and between the right amount of acidity and freshness
to go with the smoky, sweeter, fattier meat.
It was just the amazing balance.
You have people that feel very strongly about barbecue
and may look funny at people that are trying to push the envelope with it, and do something
different, and you have the other people - maybe the newer pit masters, or the people who are
coming to it later with a different background, that are trying to put a different spin on it.
I don't think it makes it less of a barbecue, just makes it different, right? And that's - and that's the
beauty of of food in general.
So barbecue, like any cooking medium, once you master it, can be applied to things that are not protein,
and can be plant-forward. You can slow barbecue a cauliflower or a celery root
or a jicama or char some broccoli, and I would think - enjoy it just as much!
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