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I smoked a brisket last weekend and while it was tender, delicious, and amazing, that is just the start of this post.
One night last week, I made twice-baked potatoes with some of this tasty brisket and leftover pimento cheese that Alexis had made.
Twice-Baked Potatoes
The process is simple.
I baked two large Idaho bakers on the Egg until they were tender.
I sliced the top off and scoops the steaming potato pulp into a large bowl.
There I added about a cup of chopped brisket and a heaping amount of pimento cheese.
I stuffed most of this mix back into the potato shells.
I put the potatoes on a tray into a Big Green Egg set up for indirect heat and running at 350°f. I topped them with a few pats of butter and let them run for 20 minutes.
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Alexis and I made these fantastic little gems to take to a deck party at a friends house last weekend. The Luxardo cherry, teriyaki grilled pineapple, and honey-sriracha glazed pork belly were a powerful combination, and they disappeared pretty quickly.
Asian glazed pork belly with teriyaki grilled pineapple and sweet cherry.
The cocktail skewers are a good idea for party appetizers.
This is a recipe that we shared at our griddle class at Mannix Pools and Grills last month and it was a big hit. It is a crispy golden fritter that has homemade poblano-pimento cheese and minced chorizo with red pepper jelly sauce.
We got the idea from K Town Tavern here in Knoxville. See, who says Happy Hour can't be productive? We were there having drinks and appetizers and tried out their Big Orange Ham and Jam Fritters. They have chopped country ham, pimento cheese, and panko breadcrumbs.
Big Orange Ham and Jam Fritters at K Town Tavern in Knoxville.
They were the best thing we ate that night and before we left, we were already scheming about how we would make ours.
We use cured chorizo to boost the flavor of the pork.
For our homemade pimento cheese, we use fire roasted poblano, not just pimento.
Instead of deep frying, we flatten our fritters into medallions so that they cook better on a griddle or skillet.
This gets your guests involved - sort of like a fondue appetizer, but instead of a big pot of cheese or oil, the centerpiece is a Himalayan salt block.
Heating the salt block up on my SABER Grills 1500 Elite SSE. You have to gently heat up the salt blocks, so I started with it at low temps and raised off of the main cooking grates.
I marinated the shrimp in citrus and a Southwestern dry rub.
Look for a beef fillet that has good marbling like the one that I used.
My neighbor and BBQ teammate, John, makes the best pizzas. If it is Saturday evening, you can book that he is out by his Grill Dome firing up this week's version. They do them differently each time but the one constant is that they are crispy and delicious.
One reason that their pizzas are always so good is that they get a LOT of practice. But a key to their fantastic pies is cooking them on a kamado ceramic grill. The ceramic dome and wood coals mimic a wood fired pizza oven like all of the trendy pizza places use these days. You can cook a pizza on just about any grill but a ceramic grill gives it that perfect crisp crust and subtle smokiness.
Like I said, John's "house pizza" varies from week to week but here are his general guidelines for cooking pizza on your backyard pizza oven, also known as a kamado grill. If you are doing a pizza during the week, you can make this a 20 minute recipe by either making the dough ahead of time or cheat like I do and buy the dough at your local pizzeria. Most only charge a few bucks for a ball of dough.
John's House Pizza
source: John Makela
Ingredients
For the dough
2 1/2 cups bread flour (plus extra for dusting surfaces)
2 teaspoons yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 cup lukewarm water (plus a bit more if required)
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
For the sauce
28 ounce canned crushed San Marzano tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 leaves fresh basil cut into small ribbons (chiffonade for you fancy types)
salt to taste
desired toppings
Instructions
For The Dough
Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the wet ingredients together. Combine the two in a large bowl until in forms together in a ball.
Move to a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, adding more water if it gets dry and begins to break.
Cover with a towel and let rize until it doubles in size, anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on humidity, etc.
Then roll out as thin as possible into a 12 inch circle. He suggests putting the dough on parchment paper to cook and move to the pizza peel easily - idiot proof. He underestimates my idiocy.
For The Sauce
Combine ingredients and bring to a slow boil. Lower heat to a simmer and simmer for 30 minutes.
For The Toppings
Whatever floats your boat. For basic pizzas, John likes to start with a layer of thin sliced mozzarella or provolone on the top of the raw crust and then spoon a light amount of the sauce over this. Then top with shredded fresh mozzarella and your favorite toppings. See Variations for ideas.
For Grilling
Either indirect with a pizza stone on the cooking grid or raised direct with the main grid raised above the felt line and a pizza stone on it. It is very important to let the stone and ceramics of the kamado grill preheat to 500°F for 45 minutes to get the full "pizza oven" effect. The air temp will be 500°F quickly but it takes time for the ceramics to warm all the way up.
Place pizza on the stone and cook until the toppings brown slightly and the crust is nicely browned, 5-15 minutes depending on the toppings, crust, and cook temperature. This will be about 5 minutes for Margherita style, 8-10 minutes for thin crust, and 10-15 minutes for thick crust.
Variations
Buffalo chicken - substitute pizza sauce with buffalo wing sauce, top with about 1/2 cup of cooked shredded chicken, your favorite cheeses (make sure to put some blue cheese in there) and some banana peppers.
BBQ pizza - Use BBQ sauce as your base, leftover chicken, pork or beef BBQ, cheese, and other toppings.
Margherita - Tomato, fresh basil, fresh mozarella, and a simple tomato sauce. You can do at the same temperature (500°F) or go higher for true Neopolitan style at temps north of 750°F and very short cook times.
Can't decide? Do a half and half!
Using the freshest ingredients make the best pizza so John and Anna Mae grow their own basil and tomatoes.
Have your kamado grill pre-heating while putting your pie together.
Rollin' rollin' rollin', get those pizzas rollin'!
John swears by using only high quality for his pizzas, says it makes a huge difference in the crust.
When moving the dough, Anna Mae rolls it up on the rolling pin to keep it from stretching out.
Notice the specks in the dough? That's because another variation they like to do is to sometimes add some Italian seasoning, rosemary, oregano. or other herbs to the mix. About 1-2 teaspoons total.
John says that sauce is one of those "less is more" things.
Dress it up the way you like it.
The parchment paper and pizza peel make transferring the pizza to the grill or oven easy.
Pizza ready to go on the grill while the poor basil plant has to watch.
Raising the pizza up above the felt line and closer to the dome lets you take advantage of the reflective heat from the dome.
Notice that while the parchment paper browns, it doesn't ignite during the cook as long as you trim the edges so they don't stick out too far past the pizza stone.
Pizza al fresco - the best way to eat pizza!
Nice crispy bottom, ingredients perfectly melted on top. If you like an extra crispy crust you can either A) cook the pizza lower in the grill so that the bottom is getting more heat or B) pre-cook the rolled out dough for 2-3 minutes before adding sauce, cheese, and toppings
Italian style
Breakfast Pizza
Buffalo chicken pizza being put together.
Buffalo chicken pizza - one of my person favorites that John makes.
Two faced pizza being put together.
Two faced pizza - half Buffalo chickens and half Italian.
So many pizzas - so little time!
[FTC Disclaimer] Grill Dome is a sponsor of our competition team and blog.
This is one of my favorite ideas in a long time - Burnt End Potato Bombs.
They are burnt ends inside of a twice baked red bliss potato and drizzled with au jus. Yeah, I know, right?
Burnt ends are one of the best things in BBQ. If you frequent Kansas City BBQ joints or have ever smoked your own briskets, then you have probably had these magic morsels of meat. They are the "point" from a smoked brisket that are cut into 1 inch squares, re-seasoned, possibly sauced, and then put back on the smoker. As they say around here, they are "to die for".
This past weekend I was doing a practice cook for my brisket for BBQ competitions. It was a 13.5 pound packer brisket. I separated the point and the flat. I injected both with Butcher's beef injection and then seasoned them with a combination of 4 rubs.
I put it on the Grill Dome at 3 in the morning. Wood was 3 splits of hickory.
It was a stubborn brisket and it cooked longer than any I have done with this method. At 202°F it was still firm as a brick so I let it ride. It got up to 205°F and stayed there another 90 minutes before it was probe tender. Thank goodness this was practice!
Burnt ends going back onto the Grill Dome for another spin.
Practice brisket turn in box. Yep, we actually go to the trouble of building blind boxes in our practice cooks. We do EVERYTHING we do at a competition. This was "turned in" right at 1:30PM on Saturday, just like if we were at a competition.
So here we were Saturday afternoon with two dozen burnt ends with no place to go when my muse bitch slapped me upside the head with the idea of a burnt end inside of a twice baked potato. Well, when the muse hits you like that, you don't wait around.
Baked some medium size red bliss potatoes for about 45 minutes at 425°F. Before cooking I rubbed them with oil and seasoned with garlic salt.
The first batch we used a 4 cheese Mexican blend. The second batch I used Boars Head 3 chile colby jack which was spot on perfect with this dish.
I sliced off the tops and scooped out the insides into a bowl with the cheese. It was about 1/2 cup of cheese and half a stick of unsalted butter. I also add some salt and BBQ rub. Mash all of this together.
I placed a reheated burnt end into each potato, filled around it with the potato mix, and then over stuffed it on top with more of the potato mix. Then I seasoned the tops with more of the BBQ rub. You can make these ahead of time up to this point and refrigerate them.
Back onto the Grill Dome kamado grill until golden and cooked through, about 20-25 minutes longer.
These were drizzled with au jus but we have also liked them topped with sour cream and drizzled with BBQ sauce too.
These are pretty flippin' fantastic if I do say so myself.
Sure there are BBQ places that serve a "loaded baked potato" or "hawgback potato" which is a big baked potato stuffed with bbq (pork or brisket), cheese, butter, sauce, and more but if you eat one of those, it's your meal. These aren't just smaller versions of that. They are twice baked and the burnt ends put them over the top.
[FTC Standard Disclaimer] Grill Dome is a sponsor of this blog and our competition team. We have no affiliation with Boars Head. We also have no affiliation with whoever makes that melon ball scooper and I'm too lazy right now to go downstairs to find out who makes it.
We will be one of 7 teams cooking for a crowd of 50,000 people over the weekend. It is going to be crazy busy but a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. Pitmasters for this year's event include -
Shane Draper
Mike Mills
Moe Cason
Carey Bringle
Craig Kimmel
Shelly Frisch
Brad and Cindy Simmons
Unlike BBQ contests where the focus is on the teams and judging, this festival is focused on the visitors' experience and the celebration of BBQ. If you are anywhere near Danville that weekend, it will be worth the drive to come check it out.
One of the things I will be doing is helping cook our team's entry for the VIP party on Friday night. Shane D, Alethea B, and I have been kicking around ideas for a BBQ Quesadilla. This is a very good "test subject" from this weekend's experiments. Creamy mac and cheese, bacon, roasted chiles, and delcious smoked pork in a crispy fried tortilla, yum! I ruled it out only due to difficulty of preparation for 300 people on a remote site. It kicks butt at home though.
You can do these all at one time if you have a flat top grill or one or two at a time in a griddle pan.
BBQ - Mac and Cheese Quesadillas
www.nibblemethis.com
Makes: 8 servings (16 appetizer portions)
Ingredients
8 burrito sized flour tortillas (regular burrito, not Mission style)
1 cup chopped smoked pork
1 fire roasted jalapeno, peeled, seeded, and diced (how to)
1 teaspoon all purpose BBQ rub
4 slices cooked bacon
4 cups macaroni and cheese
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
oil for frying
Instructions
Preheat a griddle over medium high heat.
In a medium bowl, toss the pork, jalapeno, and BBQ rub together to mix evenly.
Assemble quesadillas: Place two ice cream scoops or large spoonfuls of mac and cheese on one half of a tortilla. Top with 1 ounce of the smoked pork mixture and spread evenly. Crumble a half slice of bacon over that. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the BBQ sauce. Fold the empty half of the tortilla over the full side and gently press down.
When the griddle is hot, coat the griddle surface with oil and wait a minute until the oil shimmers. Place the quesadillas on the griddle and cook on both sides until golden brown, about 2-2 1/2 minutes per side.
Place on a cutting board and use a sharp knife or pizza cutter to slice into 4 wedges. Serve with condiments like Mexican crema, salsa, or more bbq sauce.
For the mac and cheese, we made our favorite baked version, Kelli's Creamy Mac and Cheese. It was blazing hot outside so we did the baking portion on Alexis' kamado grill instead of firing up the oven. I probably would not use a stove top mac and cheese for this recipe unless you make sure it isn't too runny.
A half order of the linked recipe is just the right amount for a half steam pan.
To set the kamado grill up for baking, I normally use a plate setter but today I am trying out The Raiser from Innovations by Chance. It is a multi-purpose rig that can be used for indirect heat, raised direct heat, and other configurations. I'll be reviewing it in more detail in the next few weeks, but so far I'm impressed.
Indirect set up using the Raiser. You could also use a plate setter or other heat deflector set up.
Closer view of the Raiser used in the shot above.
Ready to bake, cooking on the kamado not only keeps it cool inside but adds a subtle smokiness to it.
I don't care if Velveeta is reviled by a lot of foodies, it makes THE best mac and cheese.
Since we have to cook quesadillas for 300 people in a relatively short period, we are going to need a heavy duty flat top grill for the event so we got one at Lowes. Yeah, like I needed another grill, but we really do for this event.
This is a real flat top grill and will enable us to cook 24 servings every 4-5 minutes.
Cooking bacon is a great way to season a flat top.
Two of the other test BBQuesadillas we tried out this weekend. My favorite was a blend of pepper jack and colby jack cheeses, pulled pork, fire roasted jalapenos, bacon, BBQ rub, and BBQ sauce.
We ate so many varieties of quesadillas in testing that my 15 year old is tired of them for now. That is saying a lot.
Mmmm gooey cheese!
BBQ Mac and Cheese Quesadillas
Quesadillas are great to make because they are quick, easy, and you can do just about any flavor combination. What are your favorite quesadilla ingredients?
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