You say "grilled flatbread" ... I say "pizza"

I realize that our society is hung up on words and phrases, but I don't understand it.  Somehow, we've transcended to a plane where you can rename a common thing and we'll willingly, lemming-like, accept it as the greatest new invention since sliced ... well ... anything.

Case in point:  Patagonian Toothfish.  The name alone is as unappetizing as a toothpaste sandwich.  It paints a mental picture of of a cross between Flipper, Shamoo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Jeff Dunham's Bubba J.  But, with a flurry of penmanship, the name morphs into "Chilean Seabass", which is now Seafood Watch's overfished list.  Has the fish changed?  No.  Has it gained additional, magical flavor?  No.  It's just gotten a "media makeover" and people have gone gonzo over it.  I'm not blaming Americans as the exclusive reason this is happening, in Japan it's called "mero" and is incredibly  expensive.

Where am I going with this?  In a word:  names.  I've seen it happen in restaurants over the past couple years, where what we used to call "pizza" is now being labeled as "grilled flatbread".  Is it new?  No.  Is it different?  No.  It's a flat piece of dough with toppings.  It's flipping pizza. Call it "farinata", "cecina", "tarte flambée", "Lahmacun", "pissaladiere", "calzone" or "stromboli" it all boils down to the same thing:  dough with toppings.  Period.

Sorry for the rant.  George Carlin passed away last week, and I've been a student of his analysis of language for years, so I get a bit carried away.  What I'm trying to say is this:  doesn't matter what you call it, it's a basic recipe that you can adapt to whatever you wish to top a slice of bread with. 

So enough of the rant, let's get topping!  If you've been following my adventures, you know I've got BBQ coming out of my ears, and have been having fun getting "BB-creative" with smoked meat in recipes.  Tonight it's a simple dish (I'm lazy, I'm tired, and I don't want to waste time, shoot me):  BBQ Pizza.

BBQ Pizza

This can be done on the grill or in your oven.  For the grill, get the coals going and set up the grill for "dual-zones" (a hot zone and a cool zone).  For the oven, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (the hotter, the better).

Take a Boboli prepared pizza crust (or, alternatively, you can us pita bread or something similar, for smaller "personal" pizzas) and brush with olive oil.

Sprinkle over the crust the ingredients:

• BBQ chopped or shredded pork (or brisket, each works well)
• BBQ Sauce (drizzle over the meat, less coverage than what you'd do with a marinara)
• shredded mozzarella cheese

Place the pizza on the cold size of the grill or in the oven and  bake for 10 minutes or less (depends on the heat of your grill/oven).  You're looking for a golden brown crust and melted cheese.

If you use the Boboli small crusts, you can let each guest create their own pizzas and vary the toppings.  Easy party food, since you don't have to cook it (the guests do the work and they love the participation factor).

Leftovers

Went back to pick up the rest of my gear from the gig this weekend (by the end of it, I was way too tired to pack up the truck).  I hurt in places I didn't know I had, but it's a good hurt.  Everyone left happy and I'm still basking in the afterglow. 

But enough about me, let's talk about leftovers.  No matter how good an estimator you are, no matter how accurate the guest count is, and no matter whether all the predicted guest show up (with no suprise additions), when you're doing a buffet you're going to have leftovers.  Part of it is basic planning technique (add 10% to your quantities when doing a buffet to accommodate people that don't show offset by people who go through the line multiple times), part of it is psychological:  An empty or near empty steam tray will empty even slower as no one wants to be the one to take the last serving of anything.  Well, almost anything:  I've seen people fight over the last cookie but completely pass up the last baby-back rib.  Weird.

The bottom line is this:  when you're done, you're going to have extra food.  What do you do with it?  For those of you screaming "donate" I have a word of caution:  not all charitable organizations who accept food will accept all kinds of food.  If it's cooked at a private party, probably not (many have rules about the production facilities), for health and safety reasons.  Just bear that in mind.

If you end up taking it home, and I can't bear to see good BBQ go to waste, you are then faced with the challenge of what to do with it.  Either eat it as is for as along as you have to, or get creative.  I opt for the latter.

I'm starting to fade now (long day), but I'll leave you with a quick and dirty recipe for BBQ hash.  I made it this morning for breakfast and it was wonderful.  The idea is to use the BBQ pork as a bacon substitute, so think about other recipes using bacon that might benefit from a change up to smoked pork.

BBQ Breakfast Hash

Put a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat with a little olive oil.

While it's heating, dice up a medium potato and a quarter of an onion.  Make the potato dice smaller than the onion (this helps to even out the cooking time).  Rinse the potato to wash off some of the excess starch, pat dry, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and your favorite herbage (I like to use a little Mrs. Dash).

Add the potato to the hot skillet and saute for a few minutes to start the browning process.  When it starts to brown and is soft when you poke a piece with a knife, add the onion and a half cup of pulled or chopped smoked pork.  Saute for a little longer.  We're not trying to completely cook down the onion, just soften it a bit and give it a little color.  The pork will lend it's fat to the browning process as it heats through.  When the onion's barely soft and the pork is warmed through (and may have some nice crispy bits), plate, cover and set aside.

Crack two eggs into the skillet and cook to your preference, plate on top of the hash.  Alternatively, you could mix the egg in the skillet with the other ingredients (the "breakfast scramble"), or if you're really lazy, crack the eggs in on top of the hash, cook on the stove top for a couple minutes then put under the broiler to finish.

Eat!

G'Nite, Internets.

BBQ For the Truly Lazy

With Independence Day tomorrow, grills will be out in force around the country.  I'll be doing more smoking than grilling, since I have to cook for a friend's wedding this Saturday and he wanted some of my 'Q (Not much ... just enough to feed 70 people).  I love summer but, even more, I love BBQ.

For those of you serious about your BBQ, you know there's only one way to do it:  low and slow.  Every pitmaster has their own rules, but generally:

• Smoke at temperatures below 300° F and closer to 225° F (I personally aim for 215-235° F).  This is often referred to as cold smoking.
• Pork shoulder (also called Boston Butt) should be cooked to an internal temperature of 180° F, so the meat is tender yet still juicy and ready for pulling or chopping (depending on the kind of sandwich you like).  This translates to around 1.5 hours/pound of smoking time (roughly). 

Everything boils down to the amount of heat applied (focus on temp not time, and you'll always have great 'Q), so monitoring the temperature is critical.  Many BBQ fanatics recommend 2 probe thermometers when smoking:

• One stuck in a wine cork and wedged into the grill grates of the smoker to measure ambient temperature.  Make sure you push the probe all the way through so the end is exposed.  Also make sure the end does not touch the grates (or your readings will be way off).
• One stuck in the meat itself.  Aim for the center of the thickest piece of meat, avoiding any bones.

If you get probes with alarms, so much the better.  Set the temperatures you're looking for and go do something else.  In the case of the ambient monitor, set the alarm to a temperature 5-10 degrees below what you want not to exceed.  You may even wish to use 2 ambient probes:  one for the upper and one for the lower limit of your optimal smoking range (if you do that, you are truly a BBQ geek).  However you do it, the smoker will then alert you when it needs tending.  As an added benefit, this keeps you from continuously opening the lid and peeking at your creation in the making which, while good for the ego, slows down the cooking time as the heat (and smoke) escape.

But what if you find yourself in a time and coordination crunch.  You want to throw a party, but can't afford to sit and watch a smoker for 8-10 hours (or more).  How can you possibly BBQ when you've got a smaller grill and still have fun at the party?  It's easy, as long as you're willing to bend the rules a bit and braise your meat before you smoke it:

Braised, Smoked, Chopped Pork Sandwiches

Ingredients

• A boneless pork shoulder (boston butt), sized to how many people you're feeding (# people / 3 = lbs of pork)
• Your favorite BBQ rub
• A can of your favorite beer

The Braise

Preheat oven to 275° F.

Rinse the pork to get rid of the excess blood.  Pat dry with paper towels, and place in an aluminum half-sheet pan (like those used for disposable buffets).

Sprinkle BBQ rub liberally over the pork, getting all sides and into the folds.  If there's a large fat "cap" on the pork, position it in the pan so the cap is on top (to baste the meat as it cooks).  Pour about 1/3-1/3 of the beer over the pork (you don't need much, as the meat already has a good deal of liquid in it).

Cover the pan with aluminum foil tightly (no cracks or leaks), place in the oven, and braise for about 6 hours.  Remove from oven, leave covered while preparing the grill/smoker.

The Smoke

Put some hickory chunks in another pan and pour the rest of the beer over them.  Add enough water so the chunks can soak and let them soak for at least 30 minutes before you need them.

After the chunks have soaked for 15 minutes or so, fire up a chimney of coals (or start the coals in your grill), and let them burn for 15 minutes until they get nicely covered with fine white ash.  Rake the coals to one side of the grill (creating hot and cold zones), toss a couple of the soaked chunks on the coals, cover the grill and let it sit for a couple minutes and start smoking.  Position the lid so the lid vent is over the cold side of the grill.

Once smoke is coming through the vent, take the foil off the pan, drain off the liquid that's accumulated, and place the pork pan and all on the cold side of the smoker (you may wish to put a few more wood chunks on the coals).  Put the lid back on and let it sit for at least 30 minutes to an hour.  At this point, you're not cooking the pork (you don't need to), you're imparting smoky goodness into the exposed meat ("building a bark" as they say).

After an hour, the meat should have a crusty mahogany color to it.  Take off the grill, cover, and let it rest for 15 minutes, then chop it up (or pull it apart with a couple forks).  Be sure to mix it up so you combine the smokey exterior meat with the juicy interior meat. 

Serve with sauce, slaw, pickles, whatever trips your trigger.

You can do the braising overnight in your oven, and the meat will be ready to finish in the morning for you.  The purists will argue that "it's not true BBQ".  Whatever.  It still tastes darned good.

In Retrospect: BBQ Party

I did a private BBQ for about 20 people last night. The menu included:

• BBQ Ribs
• Chopped Pork Sandwiches
• Beer Can Chicken
• Grilled Shrimp
• Grilled Salmon
• Cole Slaw
• BBQ Baked Beans
• Cornbread

(recipes will be posted ... later)

Others brought desserts (fruit pizza ... outstanding!), still others beverages. My job was the main course(s) and manning the steam tables. All in all, it was an awesome evening (I should have some pictures up soon). 6 grills ... 6 ... man, that was fun. Three for smoking, 2 for indirect grilling, one nice big 22" kettle for the chickens ... it was amazing. I won't blow my own horn ... hell I won't, I did a damn good job ... at least, that's what everyone said, and that's really all that matters: happy eaters.

If you're gonna have fun cooking for gatherings like this, you also need to accept the downside ... cleaning. So, here I am tonight, dishes are cleaned, staples packed away, and I'm finishing the night with a good bottle of wine (Jest Red ... if you like reds, this is an outstanding value) and cooking off some of the extras I didn't get to (or need to ... I always like having more ... running out is a personal paranoia of mine) prepare. Braised porn loin with mushrooms and garlic ... and a couple more beer can chickens.

As I was prepping the birds for the oven, getting them cleaned, oiled, rubbed down w/ a little seasoning (I like Mrs. Dash for this job right now), I noticed that one of the chickens had a broken leg, just above the knee joint ... and I felt a twinge of sadness when I found it. You know the kind I'm talking about: it's the feeling you get when you empathize with the physical discomfort of someone (or something) else. You hear a friend mention they got their finger slammed in a car door and you feel pain yourself. Well, there I was ... empathizing with what was about to become dinner.

Now, if any of you think I'm going to turn vegan ... forget it. I'm more curious about why I felt this ... why I actually found myself feeling sorry for the bird, even though the leg was no doubt broken long after death, sometime during the packing process. It's strange how it affected me ...

... though not enough for me not to pop them in the oven. I can smell them now ... fantastic!