My wife and I crossed into Kentucky from Indiana, on the way to Florida.
Our river crossing was overseen by a large billboard saying,
MUTTON BARBECUE. Not long after crossing the border we
were ordering some. I enjoyed it tremendously. Unfortunately,
I have not found it available anywhere else in my travels.
Recently I have been ordering brisket more often than anything else.
Texas here. I roll my own BBQ on a Weber kettle with a slow’n’sear. Great results, and if you have a kettle you can get started smoking for about $125. I smoked a brisket during the winter storm down here at zero degrees with no problems maintaining heat...actually I let the temp get away from me during the warm up period and smoked it hot and fast instead of low and slow...but it turned out good. Starting with prime brisket gives you a lot of leeway.
I do pork ribs, pork butts, and brisket either on the slow’n’sear or in a Pit Barrel Cooker. I keep the rub simple, salt and black pepper. I’ve found no reason to get an offset smoker yet.
Amazingribs.com is a great resource for the virgin BBQ’er.
I second that motion.Originally Posted by TR675
If it wasn't for them, I'd probably never learned about tri tip.
I'm going to deviate from my family here and say "unsweet".
Chris
I grew up in Oklahoma on Texas-style beef seasoned only with salt, pepper, and wood smoke. I can’t say that I’ve found a style I prefer over Texas.
I’ve had Hawaiian style once, at a luau at a big white hotel near a beach in Kona. They used gunny sacks instead of banana leaves. I’d like to try it again done properly.
During the couple of years that I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, I tried many variations of pulled pork with both types of sauce mentioned here. I felt like too many cooks tried to use the sauce to hide the sins of cheap or poorly chosen meat/fuel and it just never worked for me.
Western Washington has plenty of places that work in the St. Louis and KC styles, which is OK I suppose. We also have places that claim to be Texas style but that’s a lie. A stinking, goddamned lie.
Jack's (https://jacksbbq.com/algona/) starts serving brisket breakfast tacos at 0500 on weekdays and they’re on the way to the range. I'm there pretty often.
They have legit Texas-style brisket and beef ribs. FWIW, those are full-sized dinner forks shown for scale.
Sides run the gamut but I go deep on beans and collard greens. Jack's cooks both to taste like what they are instead of burying their flavor under a bunch of hot sauce. I always get extra of both so I can mix them with pieces of leftover brisket the next couple of days.
Okie John
“The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
"Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's
There is a local place that turned a competitive bbq hobby into a restaurant with two locations. The have a cardboard sixpack beer bootle caddy on each table with six different sauces. When I go to BBQ joints, unless I get a whif of a particular standout, best in category dish I go with the combo plate so I can sample everything. The wife and I went and sampled everything.
Their mustard sauce is one of the best I have ever tried, and one I may need to duplicate. It is sharp and vinegary and mustardy with a very surprisingly mild and sweet finish that I firmly believe is due to bread and butter pickle brine. The staff was no help.
pat
Apologies for further thread drift. Hoping this adds some good smoke flavor. Don't know why this never occurred to me before.
Even at it's best, it still sucks compared to good barbeque. Sadly we've got no great places here
Which places are you talking about in this and the earlier post? I think the only local, not a chain, place we've tried around Albuquerque is The County Line. They were passable but after a couple times bad service we stopped going.
Rudy's smokes their carne adovada, and Blakes used to, and I think they still do. Both places offer pulled pork type sandwiches, but as a very, very minor menu role. Both places make their own food either in the restaurant (Rudy's) or at a commissary to send to the restaurants (Blake's comissary is off of Candelaria? Commanche? Between Carlisle and the Interstate). It makes sense, if you have a semi popular food item, to try to stretch it in different dishes.
The place with the sauce sixpacks is Whole Hog Cafe. Main place is off of Montgomery/Eubank. Just a couple of of months ago I saw a location off of Central between the Interstate and Edith. Dunno how long it has been there.
And while the carne adovada at Rudy's is pretty good I am usually there for breakfast. The Smoked Brisket, Egg, and Green Chile breakfast taco is my hands down favorite. Blakes and Rudy's carne are both of the shredded type. While great, especially when smoked, I like chunks of red chile braised pork that shred themselves either on my fork or in my mouth. The shredded type tends to get you more meat per burrito/taco. The cubed pork is what my granddad used to make. And is pretty good, if it is not shredding itself, skewered and grilled, the carne kabobs I started making in college.
Too bad the tortillas Rudy's uses, just like the buns from Whattaburger, trigger bronchospasms that almost make me yak by the time I walk from the breakfast table to my car. Always worth it so far. Their potato salad ain't too bad, either.
I have heard all my life about the County Line, and have always been led to believe they were too pricy for me. Friends rave about their beef ribs and smoked duck. Once the dining in this state gets back to normal, I think there will be a date night. I'll even take the wife along!
Interesting side note for the natives: when I was a kid Blakes used to give you ketchup for your fries in the little clear plastic cups. I was so upset, because the little packets were, in my mind, better. I assumed the clear plastic cups were so that they could buy #10 cans of ketchup and portion out small amounts in the cups at a cost savings. I learned from a retired APD SWAT/Canine guy that I had in some classes, that when he worked there in highschool the ketchup was portioned out that way because the comissary made the ketchup in house, and sent it to the individual restaurants. I miss the ketchup from a place that cared enough to make their own. Especially now that the quality of their beef seems to have slipped. But standardization makes for a consistent product. When I was a kid Blakes was an ABQ thing and we were happy to get them when the Los Lunas location opened. Now they are all over the state, and moving into Az, Tx, and Co.
ETA: Also, by the comment that the staff was no help, the service was not bad at all, but when I asked about the mustard sauce (my first real experience with it) thay either didn't know, or wouldn't share how it was made. When I was in cooking school it was suggested that higher end joints would happily give customers recipes for many popular dishes. Even to the point of having high end recipe cards availabe to give to customers. When I was the chef for a day and adaped one of my childhood favorite recipes one of the teachers visiting our little restaurant didn't know me by name, but had taught me in an online class. He asked for the recipe, and I gave it. He went in to be the Food and Beverage Director for one of the high end hotels, with a couple of high end restaurants in town. It was one of my proudest moments in cooking school.
pat
Last edited by UNM1136; 02-22-2021 at 07:07 PM.
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