Cooking Cheap

I muse on rub effectiveness, invent a reason for the previous BBQ huh? and provide an old time recipe for some decent potatoes.

I smoked up a store bought ham Saturday. Friday I scored the surface and rubbed it with a bourbon maple paste. It came out tasting like, hold on …. store bought injected cured ham! Go Damn figure. That’s OK, Ill be happy to use it for all kinds of meals for months to come, but the extra smoke from the BBQ and the rub and the glaze (I didn’t glaze)? It didn’t change the taste of the interior of the ham in any substantial way that I can detect. Yes, the outside bits are different and taste different, the inside did not turn into “some folks think it’s better than country ham”. Those folks are full of shit. A paste and a final cook in the smoker do not change the nature of that injection thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I ate a lot of it because it was tasty, and I’ll happily use the leftovers for many months, But it’s not worth the extra cost of the charcoal and the rub/paste/marinade ingredients to smoke it (again). That said, I still think it’s worth the effort to make a faux pastrami from a corned beef. Reality and doorknobs do mix if you fix reality.

There’s nothing wrong with the maple bourbon paste, but it’s not really worth my time to write it down here. It might be really good on a pork loin, where every slice is going to get a bit of the spice, but not a store bought 6 pound ham.

The ham also fooled me. I guessed it would take 6 hours in the smoker to get to 160F. After 4 hours, it was up to 140F (the smoker was running 235F). Cured meat doesn’t take that long, right? So I got busy on the side dish which takes an hour and half of baking. I opened the vents on the smoker a bit to increase the temp. 90 minutes later, the potatoes are done and the ham is all the way up to 153F (internal). Well, that sucks. I turned off the oven and let the potatoes sit in the over (over cook some might say). 30 minutes later , The ham reads 157F and twilight is upon me. Close enough to 160F in my book.

I had no trouble at all with getting the smoker up to 225-230 and keeping it there, so I don’t know what I did wrong on the previous pork shoulder smoke. I have a theory, of course. If you can’t make up a reason, you’re not BBQ’ing! In the all night smoke session, I placed some large chunks of apple wood and covered them with more charcoal and put the lit coals on the top. I watched it for a few hours and went to bed and when fully awake some hours later, the temp was way down to 170F.

Today’s theory is that the too large apple chunks were at the the same place in burn down to them time and they don’t burn like charcoal. Supporting evidence is the the smoker was pouring smoke. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it until I change it.

Back to yesterdays Ham. Not really worth the effort or expense. What was really yummy was the potatoes au-gratin. I don’t remember making scalloped potatoes from scratch or without a crock pot (slow cooker for our international readers). I’ve always bought that box of dehydrated taters chips and cheese dust. I’ve never made scalloped potatoes.

One reason is that it take a couple of hours, but if your BBQing that’s a short time. Turns out home made is pretty easy and very tasty. The following is only my latent best guess of measurements.

Au-Gratin Potatoes – serves 2 (or 1)
1 Idaho Baker, about 2/3 lb. These are “large” here but probably “small Idaho’s” to you.

Peel the potato. Slice into rounds, maybe 1/8 inch thick, or even, gasp, 3/16th’s . Chop a third of an yellow onion (medium here, probably “small” where you live), In a skillet on med low heat, melt 1 Tablespoon of butter, more or less. When foaming but not brown, stir in 1 or 2 Tbl of flour, stir often, simmer low to a light roux. It’s white sauce! Slowly add some milk. I used maybe a 1/2 C of whole milk. Or maybe it was 3/4 C. Depends on how much flour and fat. Add some salt and pepper (not much)

I really can’t be exact. Mixing fat, flour, and some liquid is pretty much all that any cook needs to learn and it has to be learned. Make a smooth sauce. I added a shake or two of ground nutmeg (curse you Rachel Ray). I added a lot of grated sharp cheddar cheese, maybe 1/3 lb. or 1/4lb . Added some more milk since the cheese will thicken it. Now its a cheese sauce. I’ve made Mac and Cheese this way and now potatoes too.

Smart people would grease a casserole dish. That’s probably a good idea. Put half the potato slices and half the onion in the dish. Cover with half the sauce. Layer on the rest of the potatoes, minced onion and sauce. Bake covered at at 350F for 30 minutes, then bake uncovered 60 minutes. Yes, that does seem like a long time. It’s worth it.

The Smoked Ham was OK, but the potatoes were simply awesome. The fat to flour to heat to liquid ratio is pretty much every thing a young cook needs to master. It’s all gravy from there.