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.
› Continue reading…

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.

› Continue reading…

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.
› Continue reading…