Right after culinary school I had a job at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. There were five restaurants on the property and I worked at "Masons", the best of all of them. When I started I was working the grill and was trained by this really cool black guy from South Carolina or some place like that.
One day he asked me what I was going to do on my weekend and I answered "Probably just hang out at home and barbecue."
He said excitedly "You barbecue?"
That was when I learned that there was a difference between "barbecue" and "grilling".
The internet was still a pretty new thing and I had never been on it before. It wasn't, as far as I knew a research tool that I could use to find anything about cooking, so I went to the bookstore and started looking at some barbecue cook books. To tell the truth, I didn't even think of the internet to answer my questions about the ins and outs of barbecue.
I also started really paying attention to the properties of the food when I went out to get some.
There was a great place down on Divisidero called "Brother-In-Law's #2". I don't know where or if there was a number one, but #2 was a wonderful hole in the wall that you would just as soon drive past and not give it another thought. It was small, had weird hours and had some funny and rather nice folks working there.
Almost all of their business was to go since there was only one table with four chairs.
Their ribs, chicken and links were all very juicy and delicious. Not like my ribs at home. mine were good, mind you, but they were doing something that I was not. I had to find out how to do that at home!
Today I am going to tell you how to make barbecue in two simple ways using the same basic ingredients that will make you the talk of all your friends after your next back yard barbecue.
We're going to make BBQ Chicken and BBQ Brisket.
The first thing you need to make is the dry rub, this is important.
Dry Rub:
3/4 C New Mexico Chile Powder
1/4 C Kosher Salt
1/4 C Granulated Sugar
2 T Yellow Mustard Powder
1/4 C Ground Cumin
2 T Ground Black Pepper
1/4 C Granulated Garlic
Place everything into a bowl and mix it thoroughly.
Next, make your sauce:
2 C Ketchup
1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 C Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 C Brown Sugar
2 T Molasses
2 T Yellow Mustard Powder
1 T Dry Rub
1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
1 T Hot Sauce (I used Chalula Chipotle Sauce)
2 oz Butter
Place all ingredients in a pot and simmer until the sauce thickens a bit, your call on how thick you want it.
First we'll make the chicken.
Cut the chicken into eight pieces: leg, thigh, and the breasts cut in half. I didn't use the wing, but you could if you like.
Coat the chicken with the dry rub and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or up to 1 day. I let mine go for about 5 hours.
Light a large amount of coals in your grill and place them all on one side.
place the chicken on the grill on the side without coals and put the lid down keeping the vents open.
After about fifteen minutes, turn them over and let it go for another 15 minutes or so.
Now the coals will have cooled a bit, they're still hot, but not blazing. Place the chicken skin-down over the coals and paint them liberally with your sauce. Let it roll for about ten minutes, turn the pieces over and repeat.
As the pieces in the center become finished, move them toward the out side of the grill or even away from the coals as the rest of the chicken cooks. I turned the chicken so that it spent two times on each side all the while adding sauce.
Remove from the grill and place on a platter for service.
I found that even the pieces that had some black on them were not bitter as they would have been if I had simply grilled them. Amazing. I'll never cook BBQ chicken the old way again!
Now on to the brisket.
I bought a 13 lb brisket from a local meat purveyor and removed some of the fat.
A good brisket should have a generous helping of fat and marbling, but they usually show up with more than I want. Set your oven to 220F (104C).
Next I placed it in a roasting pan, coated the entire piece of meat with the dry rub and covered the pan with aluminum foil
and cooked it from here
to here.
That's not 4 hours, that's 16! Start it the day/night before, you'll be glad you did.
There will be a great deal of drippings in the pan. Mine had 4 C of "juice" and a bout two Cups of rendered fat. Remove the fat and reduce the juice by 1/2.
Add to the reduced "juice":
2 C Ketchup
1 C Honey
1 tsp Chipotle Powder
Simmer it just like the sauce for the chicken.
After the brisket is cooked, lift it carefully with a large offset spatula and a wire rack.
The meat will literally fall apart if you are not careful.
You can also let it cool to make it easier to handle.
you can serve it as is, or in my case I cut it in half and placed it in my smoker for two hours.
Slice and serve.
Don't you just love cooking out door in the summer?
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