mguerra

My Mexican grandmother made tortillas every day. It's not difficult, it's really easy, but it's time-consuming that's the problem. But if you make them with pork lard instead of Crisco oh my think you died and went to heaven.

Since the hot fast brisket works so well I have tried a hot fast pork butt but it does not come out exactly the same as if you do it at a lower temperature. The meat gets cooked well enough but it does not have that tender fall apart texture. When I go to pull the muscles apart by hand it is pretty hard to do it as opposed to a longer slower cook. However, it eats just as good because once I separate all the muscles and remove all of the fat I then chop the meat and once it's chopped it it's pretty much the same. Maybe very slightly tougher.

The new pressure cookers, stovetop and electric, are much safer than the old ones. This little gem will take your foodie journey to another level: http://www.amazon.com/Secura-Electric-Pressure-Stainless-Browning/dp/B008A852ZW/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1444616125&sr=1-1&keywords=secura+6-in-1+electric+pressure+cooker

In a previous thread I extolled the virtues of using an electric pressure cooker, it will change your cooking life. I pressure cook a whole split chicken with 2-1/2 cups of water for 20 minutes, and let the cooker naturally depressurize. Remove all the meat from the chicken, reserve it for future use and throw everything left, skin, fat, bones back in to the pot with the cooking water. Pressure cook 20 minutes. You have now cooked the water twice, sealed and under pressure, with the chicken. Strain the stock through a colander and discard all the chicken remnants. You don't heat up the kitchen, don't steam up the house, don't have to ever stir it or check it, just push a button and walk away. This double pressure stock is richer and more flavorful than stove top. Check out my previous threads on pressure cooking, and pressure cooking ribs for a few minutes before smoking them! I just cooked a pot of basmati in three minutes sitting in my recliner, pushed one button and that's it. If you don't use a pressure cooker, you are seriously missing out on a whole new world of speed, convenience and taste. There's a little learning curve, and plenty of tips and recipes on line and youtube.

By the way, the price on this was just about a grand, a lot less than a custom job from Lasertron.

I like to fish:

I don't recall the specifics of how and why Dennis was selling coffee wood a few years ago. It has a very unique and mild, pleasant taste.

That thing that looks like a chimney is a big tamale pot and I store coconut charcoal in it.

I use a Gene roaster and it is my favorite of all I have tried. Using the KK would be fun, especially after you are finished with your meat cook. The KK is fired up anyway, so roast a batch. It would be a minor PIA to use as a primary roaster though.

We have discussed this before and Wilburpan is right. Muscle tissue is not like a sponge or bread. It is very tight and dense. Notice how when you inject most of it comes squirting out all over you as you withdraw the needle? You can get some flavor in there but not much and it's not easy.

I also use that same Bayou Classic injector from the Amazon link. Remember, the injector needle with the side holes is the one for liquids only and the injector with the tip opening is the one for little bits.

Dennis, do you still supply coffee wood? My stash is dwindling.

You can see Cooper the Treeing Walker Coonhound tapping on the right glass and Abby, the Beagle looking through the left glass. And look how they and the four other hounds tore the shit up out of the door frames! https://youtu.be/FCb3H-c7qIU

The fireworks season is every excuse I can think of to light up the sky. Birthdays, parties, reunions, weddings, if it happens to rain...whatever. It is raining today for the first time in 3 months, so tonight I'm popping some shells!

I shot my hometown Fourth of July fireworks show this year here in Kerrville. I was so busy setting it up and working on it that I was not able to videotape it myself. However someone in town got a video of the finale, not the entire show and put it up on Facebook. Here it is:https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1114026595281363&id=100000220996605&refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Famy.ely.58%2Fvideos%2F1114026595281363%2F&_rdr

This may not help everyone but I find it has been extremely effective for me as I suffer from severe cramping my entire adult life. Now I take 400 mg of magnesium every day, including a 100 mg tablet right before bedtime. This has almost completely relieved me from all cramping and as well I have not had any more kidney stones (which I had a lot of before) now that I'm taking magnesium. Some forms are considered more absorbable than others, you might want to research that a little bit before you decide which supplement you wish to take. I take a form called Doctors Best which I get from Amazon.

Well, we have always said that to do a low and slow you only need to start a small amount of charcoal and you can certainly start a small amount of charcoal exceedingly fast in a charcoal chimney! I have been so absorbed in my new pyrotechnician hobby that I have not been hanging around the KK form near enough so I will try to post more often now.

Starting a KK fire and starting a survival fire are two different animals aren't they? For the KK I have used torches, starter cubes, the Loofie, and a charcoal chimney. I have settled on a chimney and a wad of brown paper bag. Fast, simple, cheap and effective. Once it's just going I hit it with an old hair dryer, Dennis' trick. Gets a raging fire in about 6 or 7 minutes.

Here is how all the top barbecue places do it. They take the wood that they want to cook with and burn it down to coals in a fire pit, THEN they take the coals and put them in the smoker. All the heavy thick smoke is long gone by that time. You can do this in a chimney, on the ground, in a Weber kettle, a trash can...use your imagination. I never do it myself. I like the thick white billowing smoke and just use it on my meats.. It thins out soon enough. But not for vegetables, those I wait for the thin smoke. Veggies can get WAY oversmoked in minutes.

Unfamiliar with Penzey's and Zamouri, will check them out. Thanks.

Tony you get the spices from World Spice? I can cook faster at a higher heat when cooking indirect. I cook most steaks, burgers, roasts, briskest, chicken, really everything at 300-400 when cooking indirect. Except pork butts. They do come out better cooked in the 225-275 range. In the past I have made a big deal about not needing precise temperature control in the KK. It's a fact, you do not need tight control. Early on I was a freak for tight control, y'all remember my penchant for Gurus and Stokers. I never use them anymore. I remember guys saying all you need is to learn your vents. I thought they were boneheads for not taking advantage of the techy control units. I HAD to have them. So now I have two Stokers and a Guru that just sit and take up space. Those boneheads were right. I was wrong. If you can cook the best brisket ever in four hours just using vents, you don't need a controller, and there's no need to ever do an overnighter again. Except for maybe a pork butt, or cooker full of them.

I have two things to talk about here, a technique, and a spice. We have previously discussed getting spices from World Spice in Seattle and they have a spice there called Baharat. It is a Middle Eastern thing and it goes great with just about any meat. I put a boatload of it into some ground beef and folded it in very well, made some patties, doused the top of them heavily with granulated garlic and fresh cracked pepper. I cooked them indirect, 350-400 degrees, never flipping them. I used Royal Oak lump with a good bit of Dennis' coffee wood. So the spice and the coffee wood makes them super flavorful, of course. And cooking them indirect gets you a sort of smoky sous vide effect. Finish temp was 160. I talked about this before for cooking steaks. You get a longer, slower, smokier cook indirect. Try it.

Nice that both the snake and the flank steak roll were laid on the same tile for their photo ops! Probably added a nice top note to the flavor of the steak.

The salad looks great but I appreciate your thought on Memorial Day. For those who died in service to the USA, thanks to God for such men and women.

Here. I'll bump this thread from a while back: http://komodokamado.com/forum/topic/4590-bacon-cook-video/