Pork Belly Burnt Ends on the Big Green Egg

24 Sunday May 2020

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big green egg, pork belly on the big green egg

I have been experimenting lately with burnt ends- Pork belly works really well, is versatile and relatively easy. You will need the following, besides a charcoal grill. If you don’t have a Kamado style smoker then a Weber Kettle will work. Just arrange the charcoal in a daisy chain on the outer portion of the grill with a drip pan in the middle, starting the charcoal at one end so it burns slowly. Adding wood every so often in your chain will allow for a nice smokiness.

Charcoal
6 Lbs Pork belly, cut into roughly 1 inch cubes
dry rub
aluminum pans (at least 3)
foil
Honey
Brown Sugar
Stick of butter
BBQ sauce

The following video will show you how to make delicious Pork Belly burnt ends! Enjoy

Daisy Chain the charcoal for an even slow cook

Maker’s White Bourbon, Kentucky USA

02 Monday Sep 2019

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bourbon, Kentucky

My friend visited us a few weeks ago from Kentucky. Knowing I had plenty of wine, he went to the Maker’s Mark Distillery and purchased this Unicorn. You can’t buy them anywhere else and each bottle is signed. I was excited to taste it and last night the stars aligned. I poured two glasses, one with ice, the other- neat. I tasted the neat one first and then rotated around between the two.

Banana, grain, bread. On the palate it is really smooth until the very end, when I get a touch of heat. It has a definitive corn and grain note that I don’t normally get with Bourbon. The finish lingers, with a gum tingling component that I can’t quite place. On the rocks- the banana component still exists, albeit somewhat muted. The temperature of the liquid, under ice, released less flavor. On the palate it is much smoother, more balanced and easier to drink. It does have that aftertaste but it’s not cloying or obtrusive. Grain, corn, ripe plantains and a very mild dose of alcohol are the key components of the iced version. I strongly recommend a cube or 4, it makes all the difference. This is a unique Bourbon that you should seek to try if you are into them, but it’s not what you are used to. Salut….

Pork Belly on the Big Green Egg

20 Thursday Jun 2019

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I know this is a wine blog, but I also love cooking on the Big Green Egg and when I do a new recipe, I feel obliged to share it with you all. In fact, my most visited pages are for Lamb on the Big Green Egg, you should see the stats around Easter!

Anyway, I saw this Pork Belly at the local supermarket, and knowing my 16 year old son loves belly I decided to try something new. I slit the fat cap every 1/4 inch, rubbed it with a dry rub and placed the meat on a bed of carrots and onion. The whole ensemble was bathed in a can of beer to keep it moist and give flavor. I started the charcoal and let ‘er rip up to 500F with just two small chunks of wood amongst the lump. I was not going for a smoky slab, preferring the taste of the rub and some crispy bark instead.

Once the meat was placed over the heat diffuser, I let it cook at 500F for an hour. The vents were closed and the temp steadied at 350F for another hour before the meat registered 195F internally. That was my target so I had to remove it, before the skin was the right consistency that I was looking for. In order to finish it the way I wanted, I then broiled it in the oven very briefly to get the skin just right. I sliced the meat in thin strips and had a winner on the table! I would serve a dry white or even rose’ with it to help cut the fat somewhat. Red would overpower I think. Try it and let me know what you think. Salut….

Tri-Tip on the Big Green Egg

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

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big green egg, grilled tri tip, santa maria tri tip on big green egg, santa maria try-tip, try-tip, try-tip on big green egg

I have had much success cooking various meats on the Big Green Egg including Leg of Lamb, Chicken, Turkey, Brisket, Pulled Pork and Ribs but this is my first foray into Tri-Tip. The cut is very popular in California, rarely seen in Virginia but I figured out that my local Wegman’s stocks some. The first one I made was on the Weber gas grill. It was awesome. Once I got the courage up I was ready to try it on the BGE.

First try- on the Weber

Perfection on the gas

It was Moxie’s birthday yesterday so I got the biggest slab of tri-tip I could find. It’s not expensive per pound and it serves up well on day two as a sandwich filler so I was inclined to go big rather than risk running out.

I started with a rubbing of olive oil to help coat the meat with a dry rub- onion powder, garlic, salt, white pepper. The meat was left out to normalize while I lit the charcoal. Searing at full heat for 2 minutes per side plus another 2 minutes per side to get the cross hatch patterns. I removed the meat from the grill, put the heat diffuser in and placed the roast back in the center, adjusting the vents for 325F indirect heat. I cooked until internal temps hit 140F. Once done the meat was tented under foil for 20 minutes then cut across the grain. It was amazing. I highly recommend looking for this cut. If using a gas grill, sear on high heat, then turn a burner off. Place the meat over that burner and adjust the others to maintain the 325F or so temp that will slowly cook this tasty cut into perfection. I paired it with salad and sautéed mushrooms. For wine- a Cosentino Cabernet Franc did the trick. Salut….

The slab, slathered in Olive oil

Covered in onion, garlic, salt and pepper rub

Crispy perfection

Just right inside

Pulled Pork on the Big Green Egg

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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big green egg, pulled pork on big green egg, smoked pork on big green egg

I smoke a Pork Butt on the Big Green Egg at least once a month. All my boys love it and my youngest son will fry up leftovers in the mornings with some Taco seasoning sprinkled for an added twist. It’s delicious with eggs and salsa too!

I started this cook with two 6 pound Boston Butts, they were on sale for $0.99 per pound- literally a steal. The Egg was preheated to about 250F and the Pork was prepared with a slathering of plain old yellow mustard and liberally coated with BBQ Bros Carolina rub. This is the second style of their rub that I have used.

A liberal coating of Carolina style BBQ Bros rub

Pork is so easy, it doesn’t really care about the temperature that much and is pretty much ready when the internal temp is between 195-205F. I like to let mine go to the 205 mark as the meat, fat and tendons are fully rendered at that point. It makes the meat literally fall apart. I use meat shredders now as I cook this cut so often, but if you are just getting started you can cheat and use two spaghetti spoons, or two large forks. You will eventually buy the shredders.

Shredders, you will thank me later

My two hunks took 12 hours with the average temperature at 250F. The outside was dark in color, the smoke ring evident and the internal meat was succulent with a hint of smoke. The tasty rub added a nice zing. Bang for the buck this is the best way to get to know your Big Green Egg or other Kamado style smoker. Try different rubs, different mustards, different hardwood chunks ( I do not soak mine BTW). I tend to buy a big bag of Mesquite chunks for my smoker and the flavors I get from 4-5 chunks per cook are exactly the level of smoke I like. I ended up drinking red wine with my dinner, but beer works great too. Some people get all fancy with foil baths, injections of spice- the simpler the better in this case. Salut….

Ready to go!

Turkey Breast on the Big Green Egg

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

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big green egg, smoked turkey, turkey on the big green egg

Some of you may know that my youngest son is a competitive Ice Dancer, as in he trains 6 hours per day right now. This makes him a very hungry boy, so he asked for and got a smoked Turkey, albeit just the breast as June is not really Turkey season.

I looked up some recipes and thought about how I did them at Thanksgiving time. Opting for a more smoked dish, I did somethings different this time. The breast was basically the whole bird, minus the drums and wings, but was pretty hefty at 9 pounds. The directions on the package said to roast at 350F for 3 1/2 hours. I covered the bird in a light coating of avocado oil so the skin would crisp, then I rubbed some BBQ Bros California rub that I just got onto the bird. The Egg had been preheating to 350F and I made sure to add lots of wood chunks before placing the heat diffuser in.

After barely 2 hours, the internal temps indicated the bird was cooked at 180 degrees, which surprised me somewhat. Next time, I will go for a lower internal temp of 170 at the most. I removed it from the grill, tented it and left it in the cool oven. At dinner time, I split the breasts off the carcass and sliced the meat across the grain. This method makes sure each piece has a section of skin, which was delicious, smoky and crisp all at the same time. I recommend this technique and will be doing it that way from now on. Overall a very satisfying dinner that had my older kids clamoring for leftovers in the middle of the night!

Covered in rub, 350 degrees

California Rub

The finished bird

Across the grain!

Beef Brisket on the Big Green Egg

16 Friday Jun 2017

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beef brisket, beff brisket on big green egg, big green egg, big green egg grill

I have made several Briskets since I first wrote about it in my 2014 Brisket on the Big Green Egg post. I have come a long way since then. I just re-read the post and cringed, thinking of the mistakes I made then versus now. One thing is still true and is of the utmost importance- constant temperature control. I used to go with 250, that has changed. 225 is the average I shoot for now. 210-235 is the limit for me. It seems to take about 12 hours for a medium sized slab of brisket. I cook till 195 internal temperature and do nothing fancy with foils, baths or flipping. I simply rub the meat with yellow mustard and cover in dry rub. Fat side down seems to work best as it protects the meat. That’s all there is to it. The dry rubs I have tried and mixed at home are all very good, so I bought a whole bunch of new ones to try out, today we are going with the Butt Rub.

One thing that still freaks me out is “The Stall’. I usually get the charcoal started early in the morning, say 6:30 am and have the meat on the rack by 7. The internal temps rise rapidly to about 155 or so, which always makes me wonder if dinner is going to be ready by 11 am! Well, the meat stalls at that temperature for a few hours. The basic physics of this phenomenon is Evaporative Cooling, otherwise known as Sweating. Once it stalls, the meat stays at that temperature for what seems an eternity, perhaps 4 hours or longer. Past the stall, it continues to cook and the internals get to between 195-203 before I pull the meat, tent it in foil for at least 10 minutes and then slice it across the grain in thin strips.

The dreaded STALL

Lately I have not even been using BBQ sauce, the meat is so tender, smoky and flavorful that it is best served up in a simple manner. Tonight we are going with a salad, some Seasoned Field Peas with Snaps and perhaps a cold beer or two….

Spring cleaning the garage

The Dry Rub shipment just arrived!

Aeration

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

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aerating wine, decanter, double decanting, vinturi

Much has been written about decanting a wine. The often misguided advice of aged wines needing decanting are incorrect. In fact, I find that decanting old wines reduces whatever freshness they may still have and reduces their intensity. Having said that, there may be a need to decant an older bottle if there is a great deal of sediment. I only do this if there is a chance that the wine will be ruined by deposits in the bottom of the bottle or if I smell the wine and it has a bad aroma. Often times it is a release of gases that would otherwise spoil the drinking experience.

When decanting an old wine for the purposes of sediment avoidance, I use a candle under and behind the neck of the bottle so that I can see the sediment start to pour into the decanter, that is when I stop pouring.

When it comes to young wines, this is where I often deploy either my Vinturi, or my double decanter. What are these gadgets you ask… The Vinturi is a device that uses Bernoulli’s principle, much like a carburetor to mix a great deal of air to the wine as it is poured through the device. If you look closely at the side of it you will see two holes on opposing sides that allow the air to enter the unit and mix with the wine, giving it a large dose of aerating and helping to soften the wine and tame the tannins.

The Vinturi

To double decant means you first decant the wine into a vessel, then return it to the bottle, both procedures adding air to the wine. My unit was designed to greatly aerate by virtue of the way the wine flows into it whereby a large amount of surface area is made available for the wine to come into contact with air. Once it is decanted, simply turn the unit upside down for it to decant back into the bottle.

The double decanter

Finished decanting

I double decanted the rather tannic Bulgariana wine that I previously wrote about and to my amazement the wine took on a whole new persona. I was faced with a subdued nose as I was cooking onions in the kitchen that overpowered anything I could coax from the glass but the palate was alive and kicking. Beautiful black currant hints with much subdued tannins were the tertiary flavors after I got a tremendous coffee profile on my initial taste. On the mid palate, Nutmeg. This wine ceases to amaze me and is a whole different beast when really well aerated. I recommended it to a friend who normally drinks Pinot, he did not like the dryness and full bodied nature of this beast, each to his own I guess. If you are into this style, you can’t go wrong for under $10.

My advice is to experiment with decanting, try out a Vinturi and have some fun. (I have even heard of people using a blender to aerate their harsh and tannic reds!). DO you decant and if so, old or new wines or both? Salut….

Baby Back Ribs on the Big Green Egg

21 Thursday Jul 2016

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I know, this is a wine blog. But I also love cooking on the Big Green Egg ceramic grill. I have done chicken, turkey, steaks, legs of lamb, brisket but never ribs. Today is the trial. I am using a slow cook of 5 hours with a portion of that time spent in a tin foil bath of apple juice.

I started off with two racks of baby back ribs, to which I slathered a thin coating of mustard. I do this with all my slow cooks as it gives the meat a moist base for the rub to stick to without overpowering the flavors. For the actual rub, I bought some Pork Barrel BBQ rub from Costco to try out. I normally mix my own, but rubs are generally pretty standard and this brand happens to have some good sauces:

Salt
Garlic powder
Onion Powder
Chili
Paprika
Cilantro
Pepper
Anything else in the cupboard

Once the meat was rubbed and the coals set to about 230F I put the diffuser in the Egg, placed a water bath on top of it and laid the meat on to the grate so there was no direct heating.

Mustard and Dry Rub

Indirect 230F heat/smoke

The meat was cooked for 2 hours of indirect heat followed by two hours wrapped up in foil with some apple juice. The juice adds moisture and allows the meat to fall off the bone. The final hour of the 5 hour cook will be spent without the foil, ensuring the crust gets a little crispy. I really enjoyed these ribs and will tinker some more with rubs, cooking times and sauces. All you need is some cold beer or perhaps a glass of Shiraz! Salut….

The ribs, in all their glory.

Post #600 with a little Napa and Sonoma segway

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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It’s been a while since I have written, several things have kept me busy and I wanted to save up for the big #600 post. It started when I decided to take my youngest son with me to San Francisco and then on to Hong Kong, a kind of ‘bring your kid to work day’. I booked the tickets, made plans for a day of touristy stuff in the bay area and confirmed that one of my friends was going to be there so we could take the kids to an ice skating rink. You see, my #3 boy and daughter (he is 12, she is 10) skate competitively, synchronized teams, theater on ice and ice dancing. His goal was to skate San Fran and Hong Kong. I was happy to oblige.

The problems began a month before the trip when I ended up with a stress fracture in the my left foot, from too much gyming. My trainer is a beast and had my old body doing jumps and squats and other inhumane forms of torture. Why, oh why do I pay him for such treatment? Anyway, I initially thought all would be fine by the time the trip rolled around. I left my somewhat stinky boot at home, boarded our flight and headed west. That night upon our arrival we were met at the airport by my friend and we headed downtown to take in some pizza before our public skate. On the way I felt the need to have an emergency bottle just in case we got thirsty, a stop at the local quick mart yielded a decent Malbec for $12. I carry a corkscrew at all times and some red plastic cups took care of the rest. Jet (my son’s nickname) got to the ice and we opened the vino.

Day two was preplanned with a tour of Alcatraz followed by a Segway tour, by far the highlight so far. It’s amazing how natural those things are! Funny thing is that my son rode the same exact Segway his brother rode nearly two years previous, out of 100 units that’s pretty weird.

Then it dawned on me that my foot really was not better. A visit to the urgent care confirmed my fears. Our Asian adventure was now going to be a Cali adventure. A few calls, some internet time, map gazing and I had secured a car, hotels and a few sightseeing ideas for the next 4 days.

Our trip started with a drive to Santa Rosa so that Jet could visit the Charles Schultz museum followed by skating on Snoopy’s Home ice, he was so excited!

Our next day was insane…. We drove to the Sonoma airport and took a look around. We made enquiries and ended up driving over to the Alexander Valley Vineyards, where we got a tour and I got to taste some very delicious wines. I brought some home and will be reviewing them soon. The people there were super nice and the free tour of their property and cellars was well worth the drive.

We returned to the Sonoma airport and toured the museum, which was stuffed full of old gems. Next up was a 45 minute tour of the Russian River in a Cessna. I made sure Jet got some stick time and he loved it! Our pilot was a retired firefighter and was super cool.

We drove through the petrified forest to Calistoga where we ended up at Cosentino Winery. Moxie and I had visited previously but I was unable to partake as I was working that afternoon. This trip was different! Cosentino makes outstanding wines that I have enjoyed for several years, tasting the full range was certainly a treat. I ended up on the mailing list and just got my first shipment.

We trekked south from there to Santa Clara to spend the night enroute to the Monterey Peninsula. We stared out the day at the aquarium nad did some sightseeing. Our hotel had a pool and jacuzzi so Jet got to buy a swimsuit and get wet. That night we had dinner in Carmel and a friend’s restaurant, Lugano Swiss Bistro. If you are in the area you must stop by and sample the Schnitzel or Fondue. Both divine and worth a detour.

Our last full day and we headed back to the bay. Our two attempts at different go-kart venues proved fruitless, but a trampoline experience was a close second. Jet was all tuckered out and hungry for dinner. We met friends in Burlingame for a leisurely evening meal and finished it off with some Nitrogen chilled ice cream, certainly a treat!

Our flight home was uneventful and we were both glad to be in our own beds, yet thankful of the great father/son week chock full of great memories.