- Opening a restaurant during COVID has had its challenges.
We are still trying to do stuff,
not only for ourselves, but there's other people
in this hospitality industry that need help as well.
That's where O.C. Smoke Kitchen came about.
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We're hoping to feed at least 800 people at this event.
We're actually gonna do some pulled pork tortas.
And hopefully, just get people in a better mood.
We have 40 pork butts, which is about 360 pounds worth
of pork, that's on the smoker right now.
Pork is just, I think, a really flavorful piece of meat,
it's something that's on the cheaper end,
especially with the food shortage
that we're going on right now.
Right in the middle, right in the middle.
There's one over the top, like that.
One over this way, tuck it down, same with the other side.
Push it down, make sure there's no air in it at all.
And then, place it right back in front of you.
'Kay, keep going.
I just put together this badass crew,
my friends in the hospitality industry,
guys that I knew, that could handle that amount of people.
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A lot of folks offered just to come work,
because they didn't wanna sit at home.
(smoker squeaks)
We pull at least 10 butts off and start breaking 'em down.
We're gonna chop it up.
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We're gonna start setting up the table.
So, the way it's gonna work is we're gonna do bread,
and then, we're gonna have our avocado, our beans.
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And then, salsa, and sausage is going on there too.
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(wood clanking)
We are going to be building a fire,
with our California white oak.
I like this wood, because it's a really neutral wood,
you can cook different proteins with it.
It won't overpower another protein
that we might be cooking in the smoker.
I love the baked cookies kinda smell that you get with this.
My kids love it too, they really think that,
sometimes they think there's waffles being made,
or something like that.
Light 'er up.
The hardest part of having something like this, here,
in California, it's something
that they've never seen before, as far
as our local health departments.
So, I worked really closely with my pit builder.
These are the very first smokers
to be NSF certified in the state of California.
Big milestone, not just for our restaurant, here,
but for craft barbecue.
(gas hissing)
We like to experiment and take chances on things.
There's always something different,
and that's me in a nutshell.
So, what we have here is a full packer's cut brisket.
Because of the meat shortage that we're having right now,
we're basically at the mercy of trying
to get whatever protein we can.
Just because this isn't something that's prime or wagyu,
doesn't mean that it's not gonna be as great.
We are gonna start building our brisket roulade.
We're cuttin' this so we can roll it up.
So, it's a little different than doing
a traditional brisket.
But yeah, I'm pretty happy with this.
And I'm gonna have Nick take over and butterfly it here.
Here with Chef Nicholas Echaore.
- Hi, guys. - He's our chef de cuisine.
- Roulade is a dish that consists of meat
that's wrapped around some kind of filling.
First thing we do is we just make a line in the center.
And then, this is where we're gonna start butterflying
it out from, right here.
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For our filling, we kinda do a take on a duxelles.
There are some mushrooms in here, caramelized onions,
mirepoix, rosemary, garlic, thyme, and parsley,
and, a whole lot of bourbon too,
'cause we want that flavor to kinda come through.
You know, when we do this, we don't have
to worry about everything being too perfect,
the imperfections are kinda nice,
'cause, again, this is barbecue.
So, now, we're just rolling it up, here.
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- [Daniel] We have our rub, here, this consists
of rosemary, thyme, paprika, onion powder,
garlic powder, a salt, and black pepper.
- Here's the finished product.
So, we'll let this sit overnight.
And then, it'll be ready for our smoker.
(smoker squeaks)
- Mmm, we're gonna eat today.
We make Central Texas barbecue work in California,
because it's something that hasn't been done here,
in a restaurant form.
We're introducing a lot of people
to things that they've never had before,
as far as barbecue goes.
(power saw grinding)
We had these beautiful whiskey barrels delivered to us.
Thought it would be great to take a ham
and cure it in a bourbon barrel.
This is the b********** version of a Virginia ham.
It's not aged as long, but, this is gonna be cooked
and smoked, and we're still gonna apply a cure.
So, we're gonna do a 14-day cure on this,
and it's actually gonna rest
in a bourbon barrel from Texas.
- So, all we're doin' is we're gonna take
the skin off, and then, we're also gonna take
a lot of the fat off too.
Yeah, we want the cure, and we want
the flavor of the barrel to get into the meat.
So, now, what we're doin' is just seasoning this thing,
and then, we're gonna hang it inside
of our barrel afterwords.
(relaxed music)
- All right, so now, we're just gonna put some
of our curing seasoning on the bottom, here,
just sprinkle it around the bourbon barrel,
just so it has a little bed to sit on.
And, we're just gonna lay it right in there, with the ash.
All right, so we're gonna just lay it on there.
Really try to get the meat to absorb all
those flavors from the barrel,
a lot of those charred flavors,
a lot of that vanilla, caramel notes
that come through whiskey.
So, we're gonna be making a bourbon glaze
for our pit-smoked ham.
Some really good Texas bourbon.
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Pork and bourbon just goes great together.
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So, this is Chef Josh Lozano.
We've become good friends,
over the last few years or so.
He's doing these awesome cheesecakes,
and, something that I think that we really wanted
to showcase at the restaurant.
- So, barbecue cheesecake,
I made this cheesecake, initially, for my wife, at home.
And, I had an extra one, and I wanted
to give it to Chef Danny, he really enjoyed it,
and he had the bright idea of, hey, let's put
it on the smoker and see what happens.
So, this is a rye shortbread crust,
which is not super traditional.
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'Cause the way that it'll cook, in the smoker,
from the top down, and, the way that
the smokers are built is the heat will rise
to the top and it kinda spirals down,
all the way down the tank.
So, here, it is cooking from the top down,
so we wanted to try it, and we did,
and it came out super awesome.
(smoker squeaks)
- All right, so, we got two boneless pork butts, here.
And, so, we're gonna cube these up,
so we can grind it for our sausage.
And we're gonna be doing two different types of sausage,
our red chorizo and our green chorizo.
(instrumental music)
This is pork belly, that we smoked last week,
and we vacuum-sealed it.
This is gonna go into our sausage mix,
and just gonna add another level of flavor.
But, these hogs are special, because they eat acorns,
on the ranch, so that's why they got
this crazy amount of fat.
When it's raw, you wanna eat it,
just 'cause of the way it smells, it smells super sweet.
This is our wet ingredient, here, now.
This is a mixture of jalapeno, cilantro,
parsley, and green onions.
The green chorizo, it's a really herbaceous sausage.
When it starts sticking to my hand,
where I have to pull it off my glove,
I know that it's where I want it to be.
And, you can really see how green
this stuff's starting to turn.
This is for our red chorizo.
So, this is guajillo chiles, that we reconstituted
in some tallow, along with some garlic, and some onions.
From the green chorizo, that we did,
that's really bright and fresh,
this is on the other side of the spectrum.
This one has a little bit of kick to it,
it's a little bit more savory.
It'll be a completely different flavor profile
from the green one.
Now, we're gonna have our sausage party.
(upbeat music)
We're one of the few to be opening
a restaurant during this pandemic.
The community wants us, probably, more open than anybody.
So, they're rootin' for us, and we're really trying
to get open for them, so they can get their barbecue.
(relaxed music)
Hey, how are you doin'?
You good?
- Just chillin', brother.
Thank you guys.
- You're welcome.
Do you guys want another one?
(uplifting music)
Being one of the few craft barbecue destinations
in Southern California, I want it
to push the boundaries of what American barbecue can be.
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Before getting into barbecue,
to be quite honest, I didn't really know
what I really wanted to do.
It kept me out of trouble and gave me a purpose.
And, it was really just an obsession.
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