Bourbon-Bathed Baby Backs with Memphis Magic Dust

First thing when I started getting my prep work done for this recipe, I already had a feeling it was going to be an ordeal -- not because this is a hard recipe to follow, mind you, but because of how ridiculous Sacramento-area grocery stores are. Seriously, how hard should it be to find two racks of fresh baby-back ribs? Isn't that a fairly common thing for people to throw on a grill? The only place I could find with baby back ribs that weren't frozen into a freakin' ice cube was Winco, of all places. Anyway, first things first...

After I located some baby backs, I had to get moving on making the marinade or my ribs wouldn't have enough time to soak before I got them on my smoker. I've never used this marinade before, but how could I not try it when it has bourbon and a can of beer in the ingredients list?!  All in all, the "Bourbon Bath" consisted of:

• 1/2 cup of Jim Beam
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 can of beer (I used Bud Light, since it's what I had on hand)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

I stirred that up, brought it up to a boil, then let it cool for about an hour. Then I put my racks of ribs into large Ziploc bags and poured in the marinade, sealed 'em up, and put them in the fridge to do their thing until just before cook time. Not gonna lie, the marinade smelled awesome so I was feeling pretty hopeful!

(Make sure you remove the membrane or "fell" from the rib bones before you start marinading or seasoning the meat!)

While I was waiting for the meat to be grill-ready, I went about putting together my own spin on what's known as Memphis Magic Dust. And the beautiful thing about this rub -- it's easy and I had all the ingredients! All I did was take the items below, stir them together in a metal mixing bowl, and cover them up until the ribs were done marinating.

• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup paprika
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
• 2 tablespoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons rosemary powder

(I made a few minor changes to the original rub recipe to suit my personal taste.)

Dry rub texture pre-smoke

So, after a few hours, I removed the ribs from the wet marinade and applied the dry rub. I wrapped them back up in plastic and refrigerated them a bit longer. While the meat was taking to the dry rub, I went ahead and pre-heated the smoker. It usually takes about 45 mins to an hour for my smoker to get to its target temperature of 240 degrees. I also started soaking my wood chunks that would be going into the smoker.

Right on schedule, I put the ribs onto the smoker. I chose hickory wood to create my smoke, which is usually my choice when doing pork. I closed up the smoker, not to open it again for around 3 hours. Then I got myself situated with a bucket full of beers, popped a movie in the DVD player, and kicked back for a while.  (One of my favorite things about slow cooking on the smoker!)

Three hours later, the rib meat was beginning to retract nicely from the tip of the bones. I went ahead and wrapped them in foil with just a little bit of apple juice inside, then put them back on the smoker. (Apple juice is known to help tenderize meat while maintaining internal moisture. The addition of juice, however, is optional.)  And so back on they went for another hour.

Note the golden color and rib retraction:
good signs!

Just before going in foil wrap

An hour passed and I was chomping at the bit to remove the ribs and get them sauced! I pulled them off the smoker and found that they had done just what I had in mind:  stayed moist, retracted from the bone a tad bit more, and the dry rub had formed a nice "bark" or semi-hard crust. From there, I chose a store-bought barbecue sauce and added a light coating to the meaty surface of the ribs. Then, into a pre-heated 350 degree oven they went -- to caramelize and crisp the sauce a little.

After receiving a light coat of sauce

While the ribs were in the oven, I kept an eye on them to make sure I didn't burn the sauce (or meat, for that matter). Once fifteen minutes had gone by, I felt like the sauce was sufficiently darkened and it was "time." I pulled the ribs out of the oven and covered them in foil for 10 more minutes to rest before being sliced up.

See the red "smoke ring"?

Oh my goodness was I pleased when I began to cut into the ribs! I was able to pull the ribs apart easily with just a bit of a tug, no knife required -- now that's what they mean when they say "falling off the bone." I also noticed that there was a good smoke ring around the outer layer of the flesh (indicates depth of smoke penetration/flavor into the meat). In the pictures below, it's the outside part of the meat that looks a pink-ish red.  I was super-stoked at how well these ribs came out, especially in light of my recently failed rib experiment!

Finished product

I would have taken better pictures of the ribs plated up, but I was in a hurry to eat. Do you blame me? 

The Baked Apple Dessert... Revived

I originally intended to make this variation on the baked apple this weekend, but I just couldn't wait any more. I found a cool idea on a BBQ website and decided to play with it a bit. Basically instead of the standard raisin (or whatever) filling, I put in a Snickers bar. I know, I know, that probably sounds pretty weird. Bear with me here.

So on the way home from the shop, I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up a few Fuji apples and a couple of Snickers bars. You can use whatever you like, but this tends to come out better with a more firm apple. I had all the other ingredients at home already, so it worked out nicely.


I peeled the apples, then removed the core with a paring knife and a melon baller. Then I took my Snickers bar, cut it in half, and inserted it into the cavity I'd created with the melon baller. I took the other half of the Snickers and shaved off some little pieces to help plug up the gaps between the walls of the "apple cup" and the piece of candy bar already inside. Once I had jammed all the little Snickers shards in there, it looked something like this...

About halfway through the process

So far, this process had taken me all of about 10 minutes to prep three apples. Pretty easy so far, right? Anyway, next I shook some cinnamon onto the outer flesh of the apple and rubbed it around so it had a light, even coating. All that was left to do was top it off with some brown sugar, wrap, and pop it in the oven. (I used the common store-variety brown sugar, but I think that the darker type might even be better. Maybe I'll try that next time.) I used a tablespoon and made a brown sugar "cap" over the top of the hole and packed it down. 

I wrapped the apples tightly in foil, placed them in a baking pan, and put them into the oven at 250 degrees. I guessed the bake time would be right about 2 hours but, in the interest of not burning the apples, I decided to check them at the 90 minute mark. My thinking was that the foil would help retain moisture and that I could drizzle whatever juices might accumulate in the pan over the top of the apples before serving.

I suppose I could have cooked this dish in the barbecue, keeping with the theme of the dishes I've made up to this point. It just seemed like a lot of unnecessary trouble to fire up the smoker or a light bunch of charcoal in the Weber kettle grill just to cook three apples. Had I been grilling some other dish at the same time, I probably would have done that. But in this case, it was just easier to use the oven -- and easy, after all, is the whole point of this dessert. 

...Ninety minutes came and went, and not nearly fast enough! I wanted dessert! I pulled the apples out, opened up the foil and checked how they were coming along. Everything looked good, but I felt like a bit more time baking would be beneficial. Back into the oven for another 20 minutes or so...

And after what seemed like an eternity, particularly for a hungry guy with a sweet-tooth, the baked apples were ready! I let them rest another ten minutes in their foil wrapping to retain juices, then served with vanilla bean ice cream. It looked just like I had hoped and the texture seemed just right. Success!

Voila! Random, but good!

Rotisserie Whole Chicken

Had a friend request that I do a dish with chicken. I like that idea, since I've been spending waaaay too much money on meats lately and chicken is relatively easy to do. Plus I have this lovely new rotisserie attachment for the gas grill, so I figured today was a good day to give that a test run. (And by new, I mean I've had it for I don't know how many months and never bothered to get it out of the box. haha)

Took me about 30 minutes to get the rotisserie installed on the grill and run the cords to it in such away that the dogs won't be tempted to snack on the cords.

Then I went down to Winco and picked up a whole chicken. Prepping a chicken is definitely not one of my favorite things to do, even if it is easy. Something about reaching inside a cold, clammy animal carcass is less than appealing to me. Shudder.

Anyway, I got back from the store, hollowed the chicken out, put it on the rotisserie rod, and began adding the dry rub. It consisted of:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon French thyme
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon "Sweet mesquite" seasoning (from Costco)

I put all those things into a shaker jar, mixed them together and headed out to season the chicken. 

Now, last time I did a barbecue chicken, the skin was very soft and basically fell off when I was carving the bird. To avoid that, I went searching through various internet forums to find a trick to crisp the skin without burning the chicken. There were a few different pieces of advice from fellow barbecue enthusiasts ranging from rubbing the chicken with mayo to using a blowtorch to crisp it. I decided on a more moderate approach:  spraying the skin with Pam, then applying the seasoning, then giving it another light dusting of Pam. 

After shaking the seasoning on, I pinned down the wings and tied up the thighs so they wouldn't flap around (pardon the pun). Then I inserted a pan with water underneath, meant to catch drips and also keep the chicken nice and moist. 

Tied up and ready to roll

Seasoning applied

Once everything was ready, I turned on the burners and switched on the rotisserie motor. My gas grill has four burners and the chicken was positioned right in the middle of the grill. In the interest of not having any flare ups or too much direct heat, I turned on the outer two burners to a medium level. Once I closed the lid, the temperature was holding at about 300 degrees (right where I wanted it).

After about a half hour, I started thinking some smoke would be a nice addition. I set up a small foil "smoke box" with a couple pieces of charcoal and a soaked chunk of mesquite. It smoked away for a little while, but eventually caught fire and spoiled that plan. On a charcoal grill that would have been no problem, but on a gas grill it didn't work out too well. I scrapped that plan and moved on. No harm done.

While the bird was turning, I decided to make a basting sauce for the chicken. Shortly before taking the chicken off the rotisserie, I figured I would baste the chicken with the sauce, crisp it, then wrap in foil and serve. I took a recipe for sauce I've used before and made a few changes for this particular dish (namely the chicken broth, lemon juice, garlic, and honey). When all was said and done, it contained:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon Louisiana hot sauce
• 5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic

(By the way, if you happen to be making this sauce at some point and it smells very strongly of vinegar and/or very acidic as you're boiling it, don't worry -- that cooks off and will leave you with a sweet and tangy sauce without the weird smell. Worse case, if it really bothers you then scale back the amount of cider vinegar and lemon juice by about half.)

I combined all those items in a pan, brought them to a boil, the reduced to a simmer for it to thicken. That took around a half hour. Then I proceeded to crank up the heat to around 400 degrees and baste the chicken while crisping the skin a bit more. 

Once the chicken got to around 180-185 degrees internal temperature (average of three different test sites after about 2 hours of cook time), I shut off the burners and wrapped it in foil to rest for about 15 minutes. The idea is to make sure the juices stay in and that the internal temperature can even out throughout the various areas of the meat without continuing to apply heat from the burners, or so I'm told.

After the chicken was done resting, I went to slice it up. Apparently rotisserie is the way to go for tender chicken! When I went to cut the drumsticks from the body, the bones slipped right out in my hand! I sliced up the rest and served it, giving it another light coat of the sauce I made. I think it came out great, particularly for a first effort using the rotisserie! The pictures speak for themselves. Not bad for an $8 meal!  Hope yours turns out even better! 

Smoked Leg of Lamb Dinner

...So, as this is my first post, I thought I would take a moment to explain what this little blog is all about.

Hi. My name is Peter. I drive a tow truck. I also love to cook and, most recently, have developed an obsession with barbecue. It is, after all, the tail end of summer which, in my mind, is the perfect time to be outdoors cooking.

My goal is to try a new dish, or variation thereof, each week and chronicle my triumphs and/or epic culinary failures (though I hope those will be few and far between). After each dish, I'll share some of the feedback I got, my own thoughts on the dish, and what might be better for next time. With any luck, things will go smoothly.

Now, since we've gotten all that business out of the way -- on to lamb!

I recently purchased an electric smoker unit (known in some circles as "ECB" for "El Cheapo Brinkman"), which makes it much easier to cook low-and-slow or to properly cook a very thick cut of meat without turning the outer layer into a nicely seasoned sheet of charcoal. I'll be using that on this particular dish.
The game plan is to season the lamb with some various complimentary herbs, then toss it on the smoker at around 240 degrees for around 3 hours (give or take) with some hickory wood imparting additional flavor along the way.

I used a seasoning blend of rosemary, thyme, herb de Provance (spelling? IDK, it's French), Kosher salt, lemon pepper, and summer savory. While I was doing that, I realized that no lamb is complete without garlic. I mean, garlic and rosemary are practically required when you make something like this. So, I shaved some slivers of garlic with a razor blade and tucked them into little 3/4 inch slits I made in the skin of the lamb along with adding about a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder (not garlic salt) into the herb mix.  After getting a solid whiff of the herb concoction in front of me, I decided that would be plenty and proceeded to sprinkle it onto the meat, patting it down as I went.

I let the boneless lamb leg stand for a few minutes while I got the smoker prepped. Once the temperature got up to the 225-240 degree range, I put the lamb on the top rack, added some soaked hickory near the heating element, and closed'er up.  I have to be careful not to keep opening that smoker to check the meat too often -- it's a nasty habit I've developed that seems to lead to longer-than-necessary cook times.  :/

After about an hour, I checked the lamb and found it's internal temperature was in the 109-112 degree range... still quite rare. I closed it back up and let it keep doing its thing -- 135-140 degrees is medium rare for lamb and I want to get as close to that as possible before searing it.

Meantime, I decided to make a mint sauce from a recipe I found online. Personally, I don't think a mint sauce sounds like a good choice with lamb, but every book I've read says it's practically mandatory. It was a simple sauce consisting of water, sugar, salt, pepper, mint, and cider vinegar. After reducing that down some (too much water), I let it steep for a bit and went back to check my lamb.

By this point, an hour and a half later, the lamb was upwards of 135 degrees and it seemed like the perfect time to remove it from the smoker and give it a quick sear. I transferred the lamb to my Weber charcoal grill, which I had ready and waiting. Temperature on the grill was around 700 degrees, which is perfect to get some nice grill marks and a slight char flavor. I let it sear for about a minute on each side. Then I removed it from the grill, wrapped it in foil, then wrapped that with a couple old towels and put it in a warm cooler which I had heated up a bit with hot water.

The lamb rested in the foil for around a half hour to make sure the juices were sealed in -- didn't want to slice into it too early and lose moisture/flavor.

When I finally sliced into the meat, it was extremely tender and the flesh coloring was dead on with the medium rare pieces I'd seen in various cookbooks. The inside was nicely marbled, although I felt like the fat-cap (or whatever it's called) on the top was too thick. In retrospect, I probably should have trimmed that better pre-grill. Oh well.

Inside the meat, after slicing

I added a bit of the mint sauce and took a bite, fully expecting to wince from the mint flavor being totally overpowering compared with the meat. To my surprise, it was not overpowering at all and, instead, gave the meat an extra dimension of flavor, bringing out some subtleties that I hadn't noticed before. All things considered, I was very pleased with the outcome.

I threw together a few other items including a Mediterranean salad in Balsamic dressing, garlic pesto bread, long wild rice with an herb butter to complete the plate. Then, dinner was served! The family thought it was great!

The finished plate

Were I to make this again, I think I might try a different seasoning blend or dry rub, but just for the sake of trying something new -- the one I used turned out just the way I had hoped.