From The "Pit" at Home

Pulled Pork

I’m a huge BBQ guy.  As a kid, I had been to summer BBQ’s, pig roasts and always loved the BBQ rib sub for school lunch, which later I realized was pretty much trademarked as the McRib® by Mickey D’s. But then I found out what true BBQ was!

In college I dated a girl with family out in Texas. I took a trip to the lone star state and after getting a taste of Texas BBQ, my eyes were opened to what I had been missing. Smoked brisket, pulled pork, beef ribs, pork ribs, dry rubs and sauces; I was in BBQ heaven. Rarely do I come across a place with the same amazing flavors produced by hours of careful monitoring and babying of every square inch of the grill. The only exception I have found in the Boston area so far is a personal favorite in Brookline, Village Smokehouse. Its close, but not quite the same as Texas BBQ. So, similar to many things in life, if they can’t get it right, you have to do it yourself! Hence, I give you my spicy BBQ pulled pork recipe. Fair warning; this takes at least 16+ hours. If you have a smoker, you can get the perfect smoky flavor of a smokehouse as well. If not, you will still have some killer BBQ pulled pork!

What you need:

Crockpot

Additional Tools:

Smoker (optional)

Ingredients:

5-8 lbs pork butt or pork shoulder, 6oz of cola, ¼ c. Worcestershire sauce, 1 large onion, 8 cloves of garlic, 20 oz. favorite BBQ sauce, 1-2 hot peppers (optional), 1 T. salt, 1 T. pepper, ¼ c. yellow mustard or brown mustard, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 3 T. paprika, 1 t. chili powder 

Directions:

The preparation is pretty easy here. Most of the time is in cooking and you can prep the night before. Store your pre-filled crock in the fridge over night if you don’t want to do this first thing in the morning and let it cook all day while you are off doing whatever you need to do.

In a bowl, mix paprika, black pepper, salt and chili powder. This is your dry rub. Completely cover your pork with all of the mixture. Don’t be afraid to get dirty, its going to happen. Clean your hands off and open the bottle of mustard. If you don’t have squeeze bottles, spoon about a ¼ cup of mustard into a bowl. Squeeze or spoon the mustard all over the pork. Cover the entire piece of meat. When you have finished you should see nothing but red and yellow. Take the pork and set it into your crockpot fat side up. Finely dice up the onion and add the cloves of garlic. A red, yellow or white onion is fine (I prefer red). Toss the onion and garlic into the crockpot around the meat. If you like it spicy, also add one or two small hot peppers (I usually use one habanero). You need about 20 ounces of your favorite BBQ sauce added to the crockpot. Add the Worcestershire sauce and then top off the pork with the cola. Why cola you ask? The acidity of the cola helps break down the meat and the caramel/sugar adds a nice sweet flavor to the pulled pork.

If you are done and it is 5:30 in the morning, well done, you are clearly a morning person! Otherwise, put the lid on the crock and toss it into the fridge. The timing comes down to your schedule. I prefer to prep in the afternoon and put the crock into the fridge. Around 11 or midnight, Ill put the crock into its holder; turn it to low, and let cook for about 8-10 hours (depending on the size of pork used).  At this point your kitchen smells like heaven and you want to devour the entire pot. 

If you have a smoker, take the meat out of the pot (it will most likely be in a few big pieces) and put it into a metal bowl (disposable is best, the bowl will be covered in soot). Leave the sauce in the crock. Smoke the meat for about 2 hours, and then return it to the crockpot. 

If you don’t have a smoker, skip to here. Remove any bones from your meat (usually pork shoulders and butts have 2 big bones and 1-2 small pieces). While the pork sits in the sauces, take 2 large forks and start to pull the pork apart. This should be very easy and all the meat will take about 5-7 minutes to pull apart. Mix the meat with the sauce and let sit for another 20 minutes on low. If you like a more saucy pork, add more to your taste now. Take a second to wipe the drool off the side of your face, grab a big toasted bulky roll and some coleslaw, pile on an absurd amount of pulled pork and enjoy! Cheers!

The perks of the job.

Beef Jerky

Beef Jerky has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. I had a neighbor across the street that would make beef jerky. I would mow his lawn every couple weeks in the summer and he would pay me with a $20 bill and a few pieces of beef jerky. I’ve had beef jerky from the jar in the convenience store, the Jack Links bag of jerky and even the classic machine formed treasure, Slim Jims (I don’t think it can even be called real beef). Still, nothing matched the taste of the homemade stuff.

When I went into high school and had my first real job, my summer days were in the sporting goods store, not mowing my neighbor’s lawn. The store didn’t hand out paychecks with a piece of beef jerky either, unfortunately. But on occasion if I ran into my neighbor and he had a fresh batch made, he would come out and give me a few pieces. I had asked multiple times how it was made, but it always seemed so complicated to do myself.

Fast-forwarding to my post-college life, I looked into making my own beef jerky. It is not as hard as I once thought as a youngster; you just need to have a food dehydrator. There are quite a few brands on the market, both fancy and basic, but they all do the same thing. I went onto eBay and bought a used machine for about $30. From there, the rest has been history in the making!

What you need:

Food Dehydrator, electric outlet timer (optional)

Ingredients:

3-8 pounds top round beef or similar

1/4c. Soy sauce

Cola

1T. Onion power

1T. Garlic powder

Squeeze of lemon juice

1/4c. Teriyaki sauce,

1/4c. BBQ sauce,

3T. Brown sugar

3T. Honey

Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

Black pepper to taste

Directions:

Start with a small batch and work your way up as you find flavors you like. The recipe above is the main go-to recipe I use. You can easily tweak the recipe and add more of a certain flavor you may fancy, or venture off into your own mixture. Start by trimming the fat off the outer edges of the meat. Next, you need to slice the meat thin. This is not an easy task with a large piece of meat. If you have a deli slicer, that is the best option for even, thin pieces. For the majority of us who don’t own a slicer, the best way to get nice even slices is to put the meat in the freezer for an hour to an hour and a half. The meat will be semi solid, but still easy to cut. Slice pieces to a desired size, but make sure they are not thicker than a 1/4 in. A 1/8 in is an ideal size. Place all of the sliced meat into a large bowl. Add your dry ingredients and toss the meat so the pieces are evenly covered. Add all the remaining ingredients. When everything is evenly coated, use cola to fill the bowl until all of your meat is submerged. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place the bowl in the fridge for 24-36 hours. Once the meat has marinated, plug your dehydrator into your timer (if you have one) and set it to stay on for 8 hours. Make sure the dehydrator is on the meat setting or set to 165 degrees. Place the marinated meat on the dehydrator racks. Try to keep all the meat evenly spaced. The pieces can be touching, but don’t overlap them. If you want a little more pepper flavor or a little more heat, you can lightly sprinkle black pepper or crushed red pepper flakes on the meat once the trays are full. After the 8 hours, you will notice the meat has shriveled to about half the size of the original marinated pieces. Don’t freak out, his is normal and the beef jerky is done! You can eat the jerky immediately. Seal the jerky in a plastic bag and consume with in about a week. Fair warning, it never lasts that long and you won’t want to share! Cheers!

The grill master is no pro...

The Beef Burger

The burger seems to be as American as America gets. The beach, the backyard, the 4th of July; Its all about grilling burgers. You have the grill fired up and neighbors three blocks over can smell you cooking. For many, it brings back memories of childhood and past warm weather holidays. When you sink your teeth into that mouth-watering burger you can’t wait to taste all those juicy flavors. But then BAM, it hits you like sandpaper on your knuckles. The burger is dry, overcooked and slightly disappointing. Who are we kidding; it’s very disappointing! Why is this? 

Lets backtrack to the grill. There are a few issues with what the so-called “grill master” did while cooking. Most likely they made the #1 mistake with burgers on the grill; slapping the spatula down on your juicy, flavor-filled hunk of ground "Angus grade" cow, just so that pyro could see flames flying sky high out of the grill. All of those mouth-watering juices you wanted to taste just went up in flames... Literally. 

Note: NEVER PRESS DOWN ON THE BURGERS. Use a hot grill to get a nice sear on the burger. The seared bottom will hold the juices in and as the burger cooks, the outer meat will cook enough to hold those juices in for when you finally flip the burger over. Only flip the burger once to make sure those juices stay in there. You want to flip the burger when its about 65-70% cooked. The last 30% will sear up the other side, melt the cheese and then you are done! Toss it in a toasted bun with your favorite sauces gently doused on top and enjoy the burger that you were hoping for! Cooking times vary by grill and temperature, depending how well done you want your burger. No matter what, the rules apply to all your beef burgers. Cheers!

The non-professional foodie!

Hello!

Are you a foodie or inspired to become one? I am. I started cooking about 15 years ago and have continuously challenged myself with new and exciting projects! I have perfected (I swear I’m not full of myself) some amazing recipes that you could find all over the world! I have created, broiled, smoked, cured, boiled and steamed just about everything in the kitchen, including myself, so I can share my recipes and projects with you! Join me; become inspired and challenge yourself to create culinary masterpieces that will blow your family and friends away! Welcome to Truly Homemade!

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