First hot-fast brisket - amazing results!

I just finished my first hot & fast CAB choice brisket today on the WSM 22 at about 300 degrees. It was an eye-opening experience (thanks, Konrad!). One thing I tried which was a bit of extra work was to separate the point and flat and trim of all the excess fat. These I panned separately. I flipped them over and foiled the pans as each got to 165. In the pans was the au jus that the brisket had created to which I added some water and flavoring liquid.

Without having to heat up all that fat must have made an immense difference! The panned point was at 200 after only 3 hours, and the flat was at 185! Half an hour later I checked the flat at 200, and pulled it as well. They rested for an hour in a 170 degree warming oven, swimming in the juices. Doing the pieces separately made it easy to control consistency without it being a compromise. Both had a great smoke ring as well. I saw no issues from having removed all that fat cap and the stuff surrounding the point. It was still very juicy, very tender and had a great flavor.

That's going from into the pit to into the stomach in less than 5 hours, including resting, for a 14+ lb. brisket.

Pomegranate Glaze/Sauce

Here is a terrific glaze for chicken and pork. Using the base of pomegranate juice makes for a tasty but hard-to-identify flavor that makes you want more. This recipe is easily doubled for more glaze/sauce. See note at the end of the recipe about the listed hot sauce. For use as a glaze, double the brown sugar and glaze the meat 1/2 hour before removing from the smoker. For sauce, use as-is.

Ingredients:
6 T pure Pomegranate juice
4 T ketchup
2 T Búfalo jalapeno hot sauce
2 T brown sugar
1/2 T apple cider vinegar


Method:
Add all ingredients to a saucepan over medium low heat. Whisk together well.
As bubbles start to form, reduce to a slow simmer and let reduce by half, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. It will thicken into a delicious sauce.


Note:
The hot sauce listed is one of Mexico's best-kept secrets, and is the best selling sauce there. It is very thick, like ketchup, and doesn't run all over the place like the more popular sauces do, and it isn't overpoweringly vinegar-tasting. It is widely available at H.E.B. stores and Wal*Mart, and get the sauce with the red plastic safety seal around the cap - it has carrots listed as an ingredient.

Pork SmokeLoins

Another BBQ treat for those of you who want a good, fast, tasty meal from your smoker. They can be grilled as well, but won't have the great smoky flavor.

Ingredients:
2 pork tenderloins, each around a pound
8 slices of regular bacon
BBQ rub mixture, your own or store bought.
Pomegranate sauce (click for recipe)


Method:
Open the tenderloin package(s) and rinse off the loins. Trim off any silver skin. Cut each tenderloin in half, so you have two loinettes about 6" long form each.

Next, coat each loinette lightly in your favorite BBQ rub. This doesn't need to be very heavy, pork tenderloin is a very mild-flavored meat and you don't want to overdo it. Next, you'll notice that one end of each loin tapers to a point. You'll want to fold that over so it cooks evenly with the rest of the meat. It is easily done, starting like this:

...and finishing like this:

Next comes the bacon. Using a toothpick, secure one end of a strip of bacon to the meat near one end. Wrap it in a spiral around the meat - it ought to go about halfway:


use another toothpick to secure the end and start another slice of bacon. Continue spiraling around the meat until covered and finish with a third toothpick. Two slices of bacon ought to to cover one loinette. Repeat this wrapping for the for other loinettes.


Here I put them on the smoker alongside a panned brisket point. The smoker is running about 300 degrees, you can choose to do them down around 225 if you like.


Finally done! They were smoked to an internal temp of 140, with carry-over heat taking them to 145. Before you get all riled up, I know the USDA says to cook pork to 165, but that would ruin the tenderloins. That old bugaboo trichinosis is killed by 141 degrees, so not to worry.


Here is a loinette sliced through with a nice pomegranate sauce. You can see the light smoke ring just inside the bacon layer. Very tasty!

Chicken Myronnaise

People gain inspiration for new dishes from many sources, and sometimes they aren't sure where it comes from. I must think about cooking all the time, because this one came to me in the shower! The name comes from two sources - Myron Mixon, a master BBQ pitmaster who uses muffin tins for his competition chicken, and the Bearnaise sauce used in the dish.

I started out with six large chicken thighs. I selected thighs over the more oft-used breasts, because they stay much more moist and have more flavor. I skinned and de-boned them myself, removing as much fat as practical.


Then I went to my inside freezer and pulled some compound butter I had made a while ago. This particular butter is combined with cilantro, lime juice and garlic. Killer stuff! I put about 1/2 tablespoon of the compound butter in each muffin well.


Next, I formed the boneless thighs into a nice smooth ball and wrapped them with bacon. These were placed upside down in the muffin wells on top of the butter. You can run these either in the smoker or the oven, but count on about 45 minutes at 275 degrees. These I had to cook in the oven, as the weather was not conducive to running the smoker, unfortunately. Remember, thighs won't turn white like breasts, so you can't go by color - a good instant thermometer is your friend here.


I then selected some nice slices of home made smoked Canadian Bacon and brought the slices up to room temperature. Okay, there actually were more than six, but I sampled a couple for quality control purposes.


Now comes the most challenging part of the dish, especially if you have never made Bearnaise sauce before. It can be very challenging if you aren't good with a whisk. There are many different recipes for this delight, so I'll leave it up to the reader to find one they are comfortable with. If you absolutely can't do it, Knorr makes a packaged mix that can be substituted, but it won't be quite the same. Either way, this is a very rich sauce and definitely not low-calorie - about a third of it is butter.


Now to plate it up. I used well-toasted English muffin halves as a base, and applied a "light" layer of Bearnaise followed by a slice of Canadian Bacon.


Next I removed a wrapped chicken thigh from the muffin tin, inverted and drained the butter from it, and centered it on the Canadian bacon. Although not shown below, another coating of Bearnaise was spooned over the final product.


I didn't get any finished and sliced pictures, as we were hungry and they disappeared before I thought of it. These were very delicious, and although very rich will by popular demand be on the regular rotating menu here at Casa Gordita!