Cooking Cheap

[Updated May-14-04]

As you know, I don’t barbecue 20 pounds of animal protein. Most of the time, It’s just for me and the freezer (that’s called the black hole around here: stuff goes in and nothing gets out). You may also remember that your CEO doesn’t part with a penny if he doesn’t have to. Cheap cuts of meat and smoking or braising. I am such a peasant.

This week, 5/13/04, beef ribs (spares) seems to be the bargain. Eight or nine bones in a package. Albertsons is asking $1.19 per pound and Winco is $1.68. I went for the Winco. The ABS butcher removed everything resembling red meat. They should be called soup bones. The Winco package also had a dollar off coupon attached which brings the cost down to $1.35 per pound for 2.78 pounds. That might be enough to feed two people or just one. There’s a lot of bone there.

I created a rub of my own, sized for the small amount of this cooking session. Making lots of rub and storing the excess for later is on the other side of the event horizon of the black hole. It’s going to get sucked in and never used again. Better to size it properly for the amount of meat. I’ve got some refried beans in the fridge I’d like to use before they too pass beyond the event horizon, so a Southwestern rub seems right. I don’t like lots of rub on my ribs. More than a dusting but not a coating so thick and strong you can’t taste the meat for the rub. That’s me. If you want to throw away smoke spices on bones that’s your call.

Let’s get going? I removed the membrane by running a table knife under the membrane on the top of an end rib bone and gently lifting the knife to separate along the entire length of the bone. Then you can grab the membrane and pry it off, across the length of the slab (s). Easier to do than to describe if the ribs cooperate. These did. You can also do this for pork ribs, and I do. What’s the point of putting a rub on something you won’t eat? If you remove the membrane, there’s a chance the rub will find some meat to season.

Membrane off, I lightly smeared some cheap yellow mustard on both sides, maybe a tablespoon per side, not much, it’s mostly bone you know? I like mustard. To me, mustard and some black pepper might be all I need for beef ribs but I’d already mixed up the rub. There was only a tablespoon left of the rub after using a light hand. I tossed the excess here and there on any part of the ribs that looked too bare. Covered in plastic wrap and placed in the black hole reefer.

The hardest part of a rub is coming up with a name for it, just in the off chance it turns out really good. I think I’ll call this one “Don’t Be Rubbing Me If You’re Teasing”. DBRMIYT. Pronounced “De-brim-it” or “De-rim-it” or “Drimit “. This marketing stuff is hard. Oops! I meant “Effective marketing requires professional consultants”.

Drimit Rub

for 3lb of meat [and bones] (it would also make a nice bowl of Red)

1. 1 TBL New Mexico chile powder
2. 1 TBL Ancho chile powder
3. 1/2 TBL Kosher salt
4. 1/2 TBL ground Cumin
5. 1/4 Tsp dried oregano, crushed to powder in your fingers
6. 1 Tsp freshly ground black pepper
7. 1/2 Tsp garlic powder
8. 1/2 Tsp onion powder

I’ll put it to the Apple wood test tomorrow. If it’s bad, I’ll delete this post. Unlike some other rubs, this one smells balanced to me and not harsh. We shall see. Note how little sugar there is (none) and how little salt (nearly none). If I re-discovered your secret recipe, well then I’ll quote the damn frogs in my pond: “Drimit, Drimit, DRIMIT! DRIMIT! drimit”. Hey, what can you do with a bunch of frogs?

[May 14, 2004, a Friday]

I don’t know if the ribs will turn out well or not, They’ve only been in there for 4 hours. I do have better control on the temperature this session so it’s already a success. There’s two methods of firing up the smoker, the “standard” method and the “Minion”. Lot’s of variations on each, of course. The standard method is to fire up a chimney, spread them on the bottom and add as much unlit charcoal to the top as you think you need and when they all get grey, you’re ready to go. The problem is that is a hot fire (in BBQ temperatures) and it is going to get hotter. Also burns a lot of charcoal and you’ll have to replenish.

This time I tried the Minion method which is both simple and more economical. Fill the bowl with the amount of charcoal you think you need. Then spread the chimney of hots coals on the top of the unlit ones. It works. If you start with a low fire, it spreads slowly down the ring of charcoal. Even so, with the bottom vents completely closed I have to regulate the temperature with the top vent which I can do since there’s no thermometer stuck in the top vent to prevent me from closing the top. Fascinating.

The Minion method says light 20 coals in a chimney. I suspect the number is not about twenty. Exactly twenty, maybe plus or minus one for weather conditions. Of course, I didn’t count the number of coals in the chimney but the theory and practice is now part of my lower brain stem. Time to eat.

Oh my, have I done good! I’m pretty harsh on my own cooking but I’ve never had BBQ this good, mine or anybody else’s. The rub is just right for my taste. You could slow smoke iron rods in that rub and it would be good. Maybe it was the Apple wood. I have no idea what I would do better next time. I just hope I can do it again. No Cecil BS this time. it was awesome.

Some would argue that smoked corned beef is not pastrami. Who am I to say otherwise? In fact, the wine you call Champagne is probably labeled “Brut sparkling wine”. It can only be called Champagne if it comes from France (and a specific region of France). It’s rules. Well excuse me. If it tastes like Champagne that’s what I’m calling it. If it tastes like Pastrami. that’s what I’m going to call it.

This recipe has been floating around the web for years, it’s not mine, I’m not even sure I could find the owner. Basically you take a supermarket corned beef, rinse it, rub it down with spices and smoke it. Of course you’re free to pick an alternate method, rub, name or report me to the pastrami department at Homeland Security for re-education at tax payer expense. I’ll even mention what I would do differently. If you do your own web search for Pastrami recipes you’ll discover some conflicting information. This report is really more about how I resolved the conflicting information.

This was my first session with my new WSM (Weber Smokey Mountain Bullet) so I’ll toss in some notes about that too. Why pastrami for the first session? I was hoping it would be cheap with all those corned beef briskets left over in the case from St. Paddies day counting down to the use by date. I was wrong about the cheap. Corned beef is a cured beef brisket and a brisket has two parts, the point and the flat. Connected together it’s called a “packers” cut and 11 to 13 pounds is a typical weight for a full brisket. The point is relatively small and thinner than the flat. I prefer the flat for several reasons. I think it tastes better and it’s more uniform in thickness and you can figure out the grain. If I was boiling corned beef with it’s spice packet, I might not care. I’ve heard point cut is less expensive than the flat cut. Since my corned beef was only 2.75 pounds it must have been a very small cow (which would have labeled as veal for $12/#) or it was a part of a bigger flat. Whatever you think.

The curing (brining) solution for pastrami and corned beef are remarkable similar, as the the ingredients in the “boil with” packet and a pastrami rub. I’m more than willing to believe that corning (brine curing you own brisket (or navel or belly or …) in Dad’s brine produces a better corned beef & pastrami than a prepackaged, commercially injected corned beer. Go ahead, corn a brisket yourself, if you like. Raise your own cow. free range on organic feed and use a PETA approved Feng Shui & Kosher butcher. Nothing wrong with those choices. I just want a really good sandwich from my new smoker.

I got a good sandwich. A very good sandwich and I know how to make it even better. Perhaps I’ve only achieved 80% of perfection. Or 90% or 98%. I don’t know, I’ll probably never know and it doesn’t matter to me. OK, I’ve mentioned food purists, the pastrami police and PETA. Time time make Pastrami. Or Smoked Corned Beef which I type as “Pastrami”

Reading the recipes on the websites, the first choice is how and how long to rinse the corned beef. On person says cold water changed every 30 minutes for two hours and cook it to 185 F. Another authority says 2 or 3 days, water changed daily and 160F. I went with the first choice. The result was very tasty but it was most definitely salty. The first authority said cook to 185F which as you know is pretty high for anything using animal parts. I don’t know if rinsing time and final temperature are related, they may be, in ways I don’t understand.

Next time, I’ll rinse longer. it really was too salty and I’ll cook it to to 185 again because something happens in the WSM I don’t have a feel for yet and it most definitely was moist with great texture which I suspect in the water smoke. If I had an offset wood burner, I might do it differently.

The overnight rub is
2 T black pepper, ground
0.5 T coriander seeds, ground
0.5 T onion powder
1 tsp dried Thyme, crushed
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder

That means 2 T of whole black pepper corns, measured before grinding. I think I upped the coriander seeds to 1 full Tablespoons because I can’t read directions. I’m certain I used a full T of onion powder. before I caught my mistake. Live and don’t learn. Notice that there is no salt (all you want is inside the corned beef). It smelled just like that packet of corned beef boiling stuff I threw away.The recipe really is more than you want for a small corned beef like mine (2 and 3/4 pounds) but I loaded it up heavy and wrapped in plastic wrap for an overnight. Before I forget, let me state that that rub is one fine thing. I ground the pepper corns and coriander seeds in the Molcajete until I was tired of deal with them. It was a mix of power and cracked and it’s really a treat to get a taste and a crunch, but then I do like black pepper.

This being the first smoking run with the WSM, I had no idea how much unlit charcoal to put in the ring at the bottom for the time I wanted. The Website said to fully ignite a chimney full of charcoal, spread the hot ones on the bottom of the WSM, then toss on the charcoal you think you need and when the whole mess gets covered in ash and not one damn minute before, put on the wood chunks, fill the water pan and put on the meat and close the bottom vents, give or talk a half hour between those steps. The Bullet was running well past 275 after as the chimney coals were spread and I didn’t want to wait for another layer of charcoal to go grey. I added what seemed like decent amount of unlit charcoal, filled up the water basin with water and tossed the meat on the top rack. An hour later and every 5 minutes up to that hour, it was still running hot at 275. which is what my version of the recipe calls for. Recipe be damned I want to understand my new best friend. I turned the bottom vents to 1/3 open and then to completely closed and the temp stayed at 220 to 230 for many hours.. That’s measured at the top of dome.

The remote probe thermometer (the best $20 you can spend) shows the meat is stuck at 154F. I want 185, remember. I stirred the coals after 4 hours when the meat should have been done based on 1.5 hours per pound. Web wisdom is if you need to feed the fire box because you didn’t start with enough unlit charcoal, you first burn another chimney starter of coal. I’m not saying that’s the wrong thing to do, just that I didn’t do that. I just tossed a bunch of unlit briquettes into the fire pan and sure enough the lid temperature started to rise although the probe temp fell to 152. I tossed more unlit charcoal and tweaked the vents again based on some sort recently acquired grok-i-nes. Holding steady at at 275F and then something happened to the meat. It only took an hour to go from 152 to 185 internally. Linearity (or the absence of) is what separates TV dinners from cooks.

It was very, very good pastrami. I used one chunk of soaked Hickory and a bunch of soaked chips roughly the size of the chunk. Thats a light smoke and that’s a clue stick on the side of the head. There is a flavor imparted from grilling or smoking over charcoal (or just wood burning slow). It tastes just as good the next day. This is good stuff.