If you are not from California, there is a very good chance that you have no idea what the hell tri-tip is. In California they love and revere this particular cut of beef. In Texas they consider it dog food. And in the rest of the world it gets cut up and sold as stewing beef, which is the worst sort of tragedy. Tri-tip is easily the second-most flavourful cut of beef, trailing only brisket in this regard and miles ahead of the second runners-up like prime rib and top sirloin. The cut is an odd triangular chunk from the very bottom of the sirloin. Your butcher probably knows what it is. If he or she doesn’t know what it is you should either get a new butcher or whip out your phone and show the mope this handy diagram. I vote for the new butcher.

Remember this layout and memorize it. Later this summer we’ll do some tri-tip here and hopefully introduce you to a new world of beefy goodness.

So what does this have to do with the reader mail? Easy – today’s comment and question comes from Tammy (apparently no “awesome” in her signature) sunny California. She points out that the Basic Chicken For Dipping also reheats just fine after freezing (this I did not know!). She also wonders just how many pieces of that insanely good dipped chicken she should make for guests. A good rule of thumb here is to never ever (eeeeever) come up short. The average joe will eat two pieces of chicken as part of a meal. So put on three per person – this gives you more for the folks that crave another piece (this is crave-worthy chicken!) and if you do have any extra its no chore at all for you to heat the leftovers up the next day and indulge again.
Just remember that you want the dip to be hot, and you dont want to dip your chicken pieces until they are about to hit the plate. If you are serving informally, put the platter of chicken out beside some sort of vessel containing the hot dip, and instruct your guests on the process. Don’t forget to provide tongs! They can dip each piece as they take it, they’ll have a bit of fun, you’ll look like a star, and the leftovers will be in their pristine and un-dipped state for easy reheating the next day.

Win, win, and win. You’re welcome.

It’s a pretty safe bet that you love a nice meatball sandwich. Why? Because everyone loves a nice meatball sandwich, that’s why. Unless you a vegan or something, in which case you are totally on the wrong web site anyway.

With that in mind, my current project it so make insanely good meatballs specifically for sandwiches. This is the recipe as it stands so far – in a break from the tradition here I am posting the “work in progress” before deeming it 100% complete. If you were so inclined, feel free to give it a whirl and dump in some feedback before I commit this to its final form. This weekend I will repost this with any changes and with the requisite silly pictures. If you want to have your say, do it before then.

Quick and dirty instructions after the jump!
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This started out as a quest for a dipping sauce for chicken, and ended with a super simple bit of liquid love that you can dip damn near anything into with delicious results. The name, if you were wondering, is a reference to the old T-Rex song “Get It On” (the original, please, not that defective Power Station remake) and specifically the line “you’re dirty and sweet, oh yeah.” This sauce is dirty and sweet at the same time – it’s as sweet as your grade 9 girlfriend and it’s as dirty and skanky as that nasty Kate Gosselin chick.

If you were wondering, no, you don’t have to play the song while you cook this. But it doesn’t hurt, either. Marc Bolan was a genius.

So – you may not know that “dipped” is a classic way to serve fried or roasted chicken. And I don’t mean dipped in little fork-bites at the table (a la Swiss Pigeon), i mean dipped as whole pieces in sauce when those pieces are just hot out of the oil or the oven. If you have never had chicken this way – a method that was inspiration for the first “buffalo wings” – then you are missing out on one of the great taste explosions of our time. But don’t stop there – and don’t shy away from making this if you aren’t planning on piece-cooked chicken. I have been dunking and/or exposing all sorts of things to this little concoction, and when push comes to shove you can pair this with pretty much any meat that is served hot and has any sort of salt in it’s seasoning profile.

Best of all, this is super simple. It has a a mere four ingredients (if you are like me and count this as one ingredient) and takes 5 minutes to make. Full details, some ideas on use, and random ranting after the jump.

Let’s get saucy!
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First things first. The name. This is called “Saturn 5″ chili because, like the legendary booster it is named after, it has three stages. And trust me, despite this not being a “hot” chili, there is a definite “rocket effect” the next day. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So – the main deal here is that this chili uses already cooked beef – either a traditionally smoked brisket or the world-famous True North Emergency Brisket – to build the basic beef flavour without having to sit there and brown the chunks of beef all afternoon before you even get started. And – in my humble and pretty-much-correct opinion – you get a bigger and better beef flavour this way than any traditional browning method. The flavour experience is more “warm” than “flaming hot” but the heat does sneak up on you, so don’t poo-poo this as some sort of gutless white-bread wet-lettuce chili. After a full bowl you will have a nice roast going on. Promise.

No pictures in this one, because once you get the stuff in the pot it pretty much looks all the same. Full details and some notes about the ingredients (there is one that you might not be able to find) after the jump.

Ready for launch!
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So a few people had a few questions about the whole brisket thing. And I thought I would be a helluva guy and take the time to impart some wisdom on the whole subject. You’re welcome.

What is up with cooking to 195 degrees? I thought beef was well done at 160 and after that was a burnt mess?

Yes, those would be accurate statements – for regular old beef for the masses. We are talking about something special here – a cut of meat that has huge ropes of connective tissue running all through it. That connective tissue makes the meat tough – really tough. But, at about 175 degrees fahrenheit, something interesting happens: The collagen in that connective tissue turns into gylcerine, and the fat that surrounds it starts to render into tallow. The combination of glycerine and tallow running through the meat is the magic combination that turns an otherwise leathery chunk of cow into a butter-tender hunk of meat that has more beef flavour than anything you will have in any other way. Getting the meat to this temperature for as long as possible is what lets you violate the universal rule of beef – the tougher the meat, the tastier. In this case the toughest cut of meat on the whole animal retains every bit of its flavour but becomes as tender as the best prime rib.

What is really interesting is that the process of collagen-to-glycerine uses up literally all of the heat energy that you are pumping into the beef mass – at that point in time, there is no energy going into the cooking process at all, and the internal temperature of the meat will “stall” here, sitting at 175-180 degrees for a startlingly long time and sometimes even dropping down despite the heat input remaining constant. This is good, the longer you keep it here the better. Once it crosses this plateau the temperature will run up to 195 pretty quickly, so using a remote thermometer probe is a must.

The only reason we take it to 195, if you were wondering, is to make sure that all of the places where there are little fat pockets inside – which can be somewhat insulated – have a chance to get the full benefit of the process.

So why isn’t all dried out like my mom’s pot roast?

It’s because we protected the meat. First we put a sear on the outside to seal in the moisture, and then we took it through the rest of the roasting process at a temperature that was low enough that we didn’t drive the moisture past this barrier. Low and slow, kids, low and slow. Note that if you are doing the brisket in a real barbeque pit and cooking it with smoke, you dont need the searing step. The natural smoke ring protects the moisture in the same way.

So why do I need the “whole” brisket? What is wrong with the piece that they sell at the supermarket?

The fact that they sell it at the supermarket is the first thing that is wrong with it. Besides giving you the wrong cut, there is a very good chance that they are injecting it full of salt water before they sell it to you. Look for the key word “seasoned” on the sticker. This is not meat you want to cook, and not and industry that you want to support.

However, and to be less preachy about it, you need the full brisket cut (both the point and the flat) because the interface between them is where the biggest share of the above-mentioned collagen is hiding. You need that layer, and you need it to be attached to the two other pieces of meat. This is key.

So quit arguing and get yourself a proper butcher already!

Where the hell am I going to find a butcher?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe you could search the freaking internet? Sheesh.

What am I going to do with all this meat?

Make friends with your neighbours – you never know when you are going to need a favour, and buying some goodwill with free brisket on a bun never hurt in that regard. After that, slice up some for your own sandwiches and freeze it into individual servings. And take at least a kilo and a half (three pounds for you colonial types) and make it into chili. And yes, I will give you a recipe.

Do you cook it fat up or fat down? Does it matter?

Wow! A good question! Actually, in the long run it doesn’t matter all that much for the overall taste. If you can, cook it fat up so that the fat renders off more evenly and you get a better crust on top without washing all of your rub away. Do that if you are oven roasting or cooking in a smoker where the fire is off to the side in a seperate chamber. BUT – if you are cooking it in a veritcal smoker (where the heat comes from below, like a Weber Smokey Mountain) or in a ceramic cooker like a Big Green Egg or on a grill with the burners on the side turned on, then you should put it fat side down. The fat cap will protect the meat from some of the inevitable hot spots that develop on the bottom side of the meat. Mail me if you aren’t sure which way to go.

Do I have to do that part with it sitting in the foil and wait for it? I’m hungry!

Then eat a carrot or something. You can’t rush this. If you’re in a rush, you are in the wrong place. Close the door on the way out, you heathen.

In previous posts I have made passing mention of – and will expand later this week upon – the fact that smoking brisket isn’t hard, tricky, or any great arcade mystery. All you really need is the right cut of meat and some patience. A lot of patience, since cooking a brisket the traditional way can take anywhere from 12 to 20 hours. Generally, this is not an issue – when you cook brisket you plan ahead, you clear your day, and you turn the cooking (and the subsequent eating of the meat) an event.

However, there will eventually come a time when you either need or want a nicely-cooked brisket but you don’t have the time or the equipment to do it in the time-honoured fashion. What then?

Obviously, I have an answer, or I wouldn’t be writing this. The answer is “Emergency Brisket” and you can do it in as little as 6 hours total time, with a 4 hour cook. However, there are two items you need to have to make this work:

A probe-style thermometer that you can insert into the meat and leave in during the cook so you know the exact point to pull the meat out of your oven

A roasting pan that is deep enough to cover with foil and not have the brisket touching the cover

It would also be helpful to have a second roasting pan that has shallow sides, but it is not necessary.

So – if you have your equipment, follow the jump to the main recipe and lets make some beefy goodness! And be sure to read through the whole thing first to make sure you have the tools you need and understand when to change pans and when to use the rack and when to take it out. Ready? Let’s cook!
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After some fiddling, some cursing, some serious head-scratching, and a couple of dozen dogs down the hatch … I think I have a valid starting point for a workable Detroit-style coney sauce. It is by no means perfect and I still have a sneaking suspicion that the memories I am working from are less-than-razor-sharp, but the result was tasty, enjoyable, and – for now, anyway – tasted like what I think I remember a coney dog should taste like.

The full recipe is after the jump if you want to indulge on your own (see note below) but if you just want the highlights and keys, here is a quick rundown:

1. You can’t make Detroit-style coney sauce without using beef heart. Period. There is no other way to get that slightly gamey and verging-on-too-rich taste.
2. Get your butcher to grind the meat as fine as he can, triple-grind if you can talk him into it.
3. You can’t screw around with half-measures for the rendering of the meat, you have to use lard.
4. Adding the roux after simmering down the stock is the trick to getting a passably-wet texture.

Where this first attempt comes up short is in the texture. Detroit-style sauce is very wet – it is more of a “sauce flavoured with meat” than it is a “meat sauce”. This sauce was wet, but not wet enough, even after the final step of pureeing some of the sauce into a kind of a “meat juice” and adding it back in to the main show. Also, while the flavour is in the ball park, I think I am missing at least one crucial ingredient. One of the hallmarks of a great Coney Dog is the need to head to the can for a Truly Atrocious Dump about 2 hours after eating. My “dog-to-dump” time was about 24 hours, which makes me thing that something is definitely amiss. On the other hand, the dumps were pretty atrocious, so it could just be that the ingredients are all there and just out of balance. There is hope.

If you grew up with Coney Dogs and you are missing them as badly as I, try this mix and let me know what you think. If you have never tried a Coney before and are feeling brave, feel free to jump on the bandwagon. But do it on a day when you can open your windows – if you aren’t used to the aroma, it can be a bit … er … repellent.
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FAUX-Q ALERT! This is a dish that you can – if you don’t have access to a smoker or barbeque pit – quite happily make in your oven and get a result that won’t have the same taste as smoked beef ribs, but will have an excellent flavour profile and be insanely tender and juicy. Oven instructions will be included for those of you that want to give this a try.

Beef ribs are one of the great underrated cuts of meat. They have ridiculous amounts of flavour, are fun to eat, and make a real splash when you plunk a big ol’ platter of them on the table. They are also something most people don’t buy, either because they haven’t a clue what do do with them or because their supermarket doesn’t have any worth buying. But there is no great mystery here, the same principles of any great barbeque hold true: Rub the meat, cook it with indirect heat from a wood fire, and do it low and slow. You will get amazing results and giant mouthfuls of beef flavour that you just aren’t going to get any other way – and the smell is amazing. The total cook time here is a very reasonable 3 hours.
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Okay, grillheads, listen up – this one is for you. Just because you aren’t cooking barbeque doesn’t mean you cant benefit from some barbeque techniques and lore. So fire up those grills, get out the ground chuck, and take heed:

• Never use lean ground beef. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but I see lemmings at the grocery store buying “lean” and “extra lean” ground and it just makes me cringe. Barbeque aficionados know that fat = flavour. Period. Get regular ground, and don’t just get any old ground beef. Ask for ground chuck. If the place you shop wont give it to you, go elsewhere. Try going to a real butcher instead of some big box Supr-Save-Mart. And demand ground chuck.
• Don’t compress your patty. I’m not talking about on the grill, i am talking about when you make the damn things. Don’t press them flat! Don’t use a patty stacker or some other K-Tel tomfoolery. Rule of thumb with beef – the more you handle it, the tougher it gets. And this goes double for ground meat. Gently pat them into shape – your patties should be loose. If you are worried about them falling apart, put them in the freezer for 20 minutes before you grill.
• Baste your meat. People seem to forget the basic principles of cooking with fire when it comes to burgers. Here is a super easy mix that will knock your socks off: Blend one part dark ale, one part barbeque sauce (this one would do nicely) and one part melted butter. If you use a quarter cup of each, that will be good for two good-sized patties – adjust the amounts as needed for your feast. 3/4 of a cup for two patties seems like a lot, but remember that this isn’t a sauce – it is a baste or a mop – so you will need quite a bit as each coat soaks into the patty. Gently baste your burgers once a minute the entire time they are on the grill. You will go mental for the result.
• Buttter your buns. Really. If you toast your buns on the grill, butter the cut sides first, and put them butter-down on the grill. Don’t argue, just do it. If you only follow one tip here, this is the one.

Okay. Commit this stuff to memory, and then get grilling. Spatulas, ho!

One more recipe to get you going here.  While the vast majority of barbeque spice comes from rubs instead of saucing – the cooking process is so long that most sauces end up burning or hardening – there is still a place for sauces, usually in either finishing or serving.  You will find that most serious barbeque cooks have a different sauce for each kind of meat – like rubs, there are different flavour points that tend to work best with different textures and tastes – but I have been experimenting with a single “top level” sauce that you can then finish in different ways for whatever meat you happen to be thinking about using it with.  The advantage here comes from the fact that – unlike rubs, where you just mix ‘em and put them on a shelf somewhere – you need to invest some cooking time here and you need to store the finished product in the fridge.  Having a single sauce that you can then drive off in different directions helps to maximize the return on both of these requirements.

This mix is for a single load, about two full mason jars worth.  If you are having a big cook or have the fridge space to spare, just double everything for a bigger batch.

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Rubs for beef are a real bone of contention with a lot of people. There is a large and vocal brigade out there that believes that the flavour of beef is so rich and complex to begin with that the only thing you need in a rub is salt, pepper, and maybe some garlic. And honestly, I can’t convince myself that these people are wrong – for the most part those are the only three things I use on steaks and brisket. However, some people like more flavour – or maybe they just like to mix stuff, I dunno – and for those folks I present a serviceable beef rub.
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