I don't like it when inanimate objects make me feel bad about myself. This happens more often than you might imagine. I'm notoriously clueless when it comes to a sense of direction. I thought that problem was solved when I got a smart phone, because Siri, the magical voice inside that phone, can give you step-for-step directions. I was trying to find Camden High School last basketball season for a one-game region title playoff and she guided me to Camden fine, but then directed me into a residential neighborhood and told me to turn left into some dude's driveway. "They aren't playing a basketball game in this guy's shed," I said. "Turn left!" she insisted. "This ain't the (bleepity bleepin) way you goob," I yelled back "I'm sorry you feel that way," Siri replied. A guilt trip from my phone. I SO don't need that. Of course, Siri has a woman's voice so... Anyway, it happened again this weekend. For some background, I should tell you that I have somehow become a pretty good cook in the past few years. That's hard to figure, because for much of my adult life, if it hadn't been for my microwave and people in paper hats handing me bags through take-out windows I'd have starved. I actually enjoy cooking now, particularly on my grill and in my smoker. There are only two instances I can think of when I made stuff that was just plain old, flat-out bad. One of those was recently. I saw some nice-looking cod for sale and bought it. I know you really should fry or bake it, but I'd read a recipe online that called for grilling it and I'd always rather grill something if I can, so I went for it. When I went to turn the cod, even with my giant, forklift-sized man spatula, it started falling to pieces. Duh...flaky, white fish comes apart on grill grates. I left it there for another few minutes then shoveled the crumbling globs of fish meat onto a plate. The flavor was actually pretty good, but the consistency was somewhere between candle wax and rubber tubing. It didn't really bother me, though, because I knew the whole time I was kind of pushing my luck to grill it. The other instance of outdoor-cooking nastiness has bothered me...quite a bit, actually. When I first got my smoker (in 2010) the first thing I cooked was ribs. They were pretty good from the start and have gotten better over time. After I'd been smoking ribs for a few months (all of the pork variety) I saw some beef ribs on sale for a dirt-cheap price at the grocery store. A little variety would be good, I thought, so I bought them. I basically prepared and smoked them in exactly the same way I did baby backs and "country-style" ribs. They looked pretty good when I was done with them, so I sliced one off (which wasn't as easy as it ought have been, which is what we in the writing business call foreshadowing) and took a bite. Let me amend that last sentence, I TRIED to take a bite. The things were so tough I could barely tear away any meat. The texture was sort of like if a big oak stick and a belt could somehow have a baby. There were a few spots, here-and-there, that were easy to bite and fairly succulent, but the flavor was off. Big, fat FAIL on my part. The things had no redeeming qualities whatsoever...they were tough and tasted like disappointment and dirty towels. I told myself it wasn't my fault...it was obviously bad, cheap meat, which is why the price was so low. And hey, I live in South Carolina, we barbecue pigs and chickens. Cows are for hamburger and steaks so up yours, cow. I haven't dwelled on it really, but those horrible beef ribs have popped in my mind from time-to-time, especially as I got OK at smoking brisket and got much better at other kinds of ribs. Obsessed is a strong word and indicates a level of craziness...it was a recurring thought. Let's use that description. So, fast-forward...I was at the grocery store Saturday and was looking through the meat when my eye caught a big ol' hunk of beef ribs. Now, this seems improbable, but the dang things started talking junk...they told me I couldn't cook them and sucked at barbecuing. I WILL NOT BE MOCKED BY MEAT! I bought the things, determined to show them who was boss. Like Clark Griswold taking his family to Wally World for the hap, hap, happiest flippin' vacation imaginable, I was not going to be diswayed from my goal by past failure or mishap. I cooked the ribs Sunday. I've learned quite a bit since my first ill-fated stab at beef ribs. Part of my mistake was treating them just like pork ribs, which was a big mistake since the cooking and preparation are very different. First of all, I don't think I removed the membrane the first time I cooked them and may not have known one was even there. You want to do that because it allows smoke and rub to permeate the meat better and because, with pork ribs, the membrane gets chewy and wax papery (if that's even a word) and detracts greatly from the pig-eating experience. With beef ribs, I've learned since last time, the membrane turns, basically, into a friggin' saddle. Taking these off of pork ribs is easy, requiring only that you make one incision with your knife, then give a tug. It's like turning back the covers on a delicious meat bed. It wasn't quite as easy with the beef ribs...some of it came off easily, the rest was tedious. I felt like Jason Vorhees hacking away at fornicating teens next to the lake with a machete as I cut, stabbed and yanked. I finally got most of it off and decided to marinate them for a while, both to add some flavor and to tenderize the meat. It was pretty elementary stuff, I just used beef stock and worcestershire sauce. After a while, I took the ribs out and prepared to rub them. The last time, I'd pretty much used the same rub I do for pork ribs, which has some sugar in it that provides some sweetness. That's an ill fit for beef, so I treated them a lot like I do brisket. I used salt and pepper, a little ancho-coffee rub and just a bit of some applewood-chipotle rub fellow blawger Jed Blackwell gave me for Christmas. Bold flavors for a bold piece of meat. Next came the smoker. The previous time, I'd used hickory and I think some fruit wood, which is a good mix for pork, but less so for beef. It would be straight-up hickory for the beef ribs. My smoker has a water pan in it, where I normally put a mix of water and fruit juice. It imparts flavor and keeps the meat I'm cooking moist. The one problem is that it lowers the smoker temp a little and I wanted to get the temp up, figuring that the ribs had enough fat (even after I'd cut some off) to stay moist on their own. I took out the water pan and put the ribs in. After an hour or so, I put the water pan back in. At the two-hour mark, I looked at the ribs and the meat was starting to draw in a little, exposing the ends of the rib bones. Perfect! I wrapped them in foil, which holds the temperature in, speeds up cooking and prevents more smoke from penetrating the meat (I figured they had enough smoke already) and put them back in for another 90 or so minutes. At that point I opened them up and applied sauce. Now, I am a mustard-based disciple, but that seemed an ill fit for beef. My wife doesn't care for mustard-based sauce (I love her anyway), so I have developed a red sauce that she enjoys. The problem with that sauce is that it's fairly sweet and again, I don't think (and have heard for a while now) that sweet sauce works on beef that well. My preference is to ALWAYS use my own sauces and rubs whenever possible, but I don't have a bold red sauce in my repertoire just yet. So, I found one in the fridge and cut it with a little worcestershire and vinegar till I got the flavor where I wanted it. I sauced the ribs, wrapped them back up and let them cook another 30 or 40 minutes. I opened them up and they looked like beef ribs are supposed to look, I guess. I let them rest and cool, then sliced one of the ribs off. It cut easily, but that didn't mean it would taste good, so I took a bite. The bite and chew were easy and the things actually tasted good. I tasted beef, a peppery note, smoke and the sauce. The fat had rendered out nicely and the ribs were very juicy and moist. I felt vindicated. I'd purged the awful memory of crappy, inedible ribs. I WON! "Suck it beef ribs!" I yelled. I took pictures of them and texted them to several people because, you know, who doesn't wanna take a gander at my beef? They were probably disinterested and I'm not normally prone to bragging at all, but it felt so good to have gotten my rematch and at least won on the scorecard if not in a knockout. I actually prefer pork ribs and may not make beef ribs that often, but now I know that I can if I want to. YOU'RE NEXT COD!
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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