Bronze Behemoth Game On! 2

[mguerra]

For some reason Bronze Behemoth Game On! thread is locked. Anyhow here's something tasty. There is a local Mexican place we go to often for carnitas. These are some of the best I've ever had, until getting the KK...
Now I make my own.
Do a pork butt per usual and pull it. Don't shred it, pull it so it's chunky. Try to make your chunks about bite sized. Take the pulled chunks and saute 'em up in a cast iron skillet with a little pork fat til they get a crusty, crispy skin on them. Now you kind of have a luscious porky version of burnt ends.
There's your carnitas.
You can do anything with them, turn them in with some pasta, make tacos, pork stroganoff, put them on pizza, use your imagination! We made a burrito bowl like they serve at Chipotle. It's a bowl of rice, black beans, corn, chipotle peppers, carnitas and some guacamole if you like. Durn good eats.

[seanwiley]

I agree. And if you used a vinegar mop when you were cooking then adding just a little bit of that to the skillet will give a nice little zing to it also.

[mguerra]

When my pig was processed, I had them cut the hams into 2" thick steaks. So that is like a round steak in beef. I have one out there cooking now at 300. Never cooked this cut before, not sure what's going to happen!

[mguerra]

Well, it looks good, cooked the ham steak to 160 and is now resting in foil wrapped in a beach towel. Supper time will tell the tale.

[mguerra]

The pork round steak came out super, had the texture of ham but of course not cured nor salty. It had just the right light amount of smoke flavor, not overpowering. We were talking about naan on another thread so I whipped up a batch of that too. I just threw the whole wad of dough on the Lodge pizza pan! It was Manjoula's recipe from youtube. Gave me something to do while watching the Masters.

[mguerra]

You would think by now I would not make this mistake, but I did. If you want a sub 300 degree cook, don't start too much charcoal. If you have a large amount of lump fired up, even tiny vent openings won't keep the temp down. I started a fire in about three spots and left the lid open to go prep ribs. By the time I got back to put them on, there was a raging fire going. No problem I thought, the KK isn't heat soaked because the lid was open; I'll just crack the vents, put on the cool heat deflector and the cold ribs, shut the cool lid, and get the temp at 250. The temp stabilized about 305 with just tiny slivers of vent openings. I could not get it lower. I really thought that airflow control could keep a lower temp with even a lot of charcoal going, but that is not the case. The ribs were OK, but the point is just start a little lump for a lower temp cook, shut the lid, narrow down the vents and don't let it get away. It will come up slower this way, but not get too hot.

[Conodo12]

Don't beat yourself up too hard Doc - no value in it -

We have all done this. At the end of the day, I find that just closing down the KK is the best way to snuff that fire down and extinguish as much of the burning coals as possible. Takes a bit of time, but you can get your temps down where you want them after an accidental over-lighting of the coals...

[mguerra]

We have talked about this before, but the point was re-empahasized to me the other night. We went out to eat at a reputable upscale place in San Antonio. I ordered a filet, medium. As we have repeatedly observed, once you learn to cook well on your KK, restaurant steaks just don't cut it. They are not even close to the quality of what we do with our KK's. With each bite I kept thinking "This is the blandest filet I ever ate!" Your KK totally ruins you for "outside" beef. I marinade my steaks in Worcestershire, soy sauce and garlic for a while before grilling them on mesquite. Morton's, Ruth's Chris, whatever, they don't come close to what we do!!!

[primeats]

Totally agree with you Doc! It's usually seafood for me, or duck! Nobody can fix a steak the way I like it at home!

[LarryR]

Doc, I had the same thing happen to me in San Antonio three weeks ago, took some customers and clients out for a nice steak and found myself very disappointed with the ribeye I ordered and wishing I'd gotten something else, something that I couldn't have cooked better.

I only go to a steakhouse for business, I no longer will visit one in my personal life; if we're going out we'll go for sushi, can't do that on my KK

[mguerra]

Yep, sushi sounds right to me. Doubt I'll ever order a steak again at a restaurant. Unless they open a KK place like that big Weber restaurant in Chicago!

[mguerra]

Here's another topic revisited. Mainly for all our new KK owners who have just come on board. We talked about this at great length last year. The foiled brisket. My point of emphasis is the juice you capture with this method. If you foil properly you'll collect well over a cup of juice, sometimes two or more. When you reheat your brisket leftovers with some of the juice, it's delish! I did a high temp brisket on Sunday and saved all the juice, just had some with todays leftovers for lunch. Takes a really good brisket and pushes it right over the top. For those of you new to the forums, check the "Techniques" section for the high temp brisket sticky. This method gets such excellent, moist, reproducible results that I am doing at least three a month lately. And they are so fast you can do one after work if you get home early enough.
Remember a while back we were talking about how a chuck roll is so much easier and better than a brisket? Not so, with this trick. If you haven't tried it yet, grab a brisket this week and give it a whirl!

[mguerra]

I did another fast hot brisket this afternoon and it was super as usual. Someone mentioned the thought of doing the second part of the cook, the foiled part, in a pan with foil on top. I tried it and it works great. No worries about losing your juice! Once the brisket hit 165 I put it in a big baking pan and sealed the top with foil. Then cooked til probe tender. I did the first part of the cook at 235 to get a little more smoke and smoke ring on it, rather than the fast hot method of 300 plus. Then after foiling, kicked it up to 310. 5 hours total cook time. The pan makes it easy to carry, too. After pouring off all the juice, you can deglaze the pan with a couple tablespoons of red wine and then pour that back in to the juice. I dribbled some juice on the meat and do another trick as well. Separate the point from the flat and scrape off all the fat. Slice some point and some flat and include a little of both with every bite. Oh baby that's heaven!

[mguerra]

This should be old news to most grillers, but if you have not tried it...
Roast some corn on your KK. The current crop is super sweet, at least what we have here in Texas. Pull back the husks, strip out the silk, put the husks back, soak in a pot of water for a little while, shake out the excess water and grill. I had mine high up in the dome on the sear grill above a brisket. I put them on when I foiled the brisket, and ran the temp at 295. I just left them up there wrapped in their husks til the brisket was done and that was 2 hours. My plan was to melt a little creme fresh and some comino and other mexi-spices and put the corn taken off the cobs in there, but that was over-ruled! Several of us tried the corn straight off the cob and it was fantastic! Had just enough of a smoke favor you could tell it was grilled, but not overpowering. It was sublime. I cut it off the cobs, put a little salt, pepper and butter and that was it. Best corn I've ever eaten. The slight hint of smoke made it out of this world tasty.

[T Rex]

Hey Doc, I have been doing the same with corn on the cob and it is outstanding! I am going to try my first roti with an 11 lb. fresh organic turkey today, I will report back later if it turns out........

T Rex