What’s more fun in the fall than to pack up the car with your tailgate setup, put on your team colors, and head to the big stadium for game day? Not much!
Nothing goes with tailgating better than grilling, so here are some ideas to up your tailgating fare using your pellet-fueled grill at home to prepare stuff for the game!
So, here’s an assumption. We know that there are some pellet-fueled portable grills out there, and good for you if that’s your setup. You can shift all of these ideas to make at the game versus make at home. But we’re assuming you have a nice big pellet-fueled grill for home and a portable gas or charcoal grill to pack for the game. Each of these recipe ideas are designed to be made at home on your Griller’s Gold Hardwood pellet-fueled grill and then reheated on your small grill at the game.
The gang at Griller’s Gold are PRO tailgaters. We’ve been going to college and NFL games for years and we have our game down. Our first rule is “No hot dogs!” Nothing wrong with a little dog, burger, or brat tailgate, but we always go for the “oh, I want what they’re making” factor when we bring our tailgate game.
Here we go…
Make a Tailgate Plan
Our tailgate crew makes a plan for each game. It lays out the main items we’re making, perhaps some special drink items, and then we fill in around the edges. We typically will have 2 or 3 appetizer items, then a big main or two. But we plan this all well in advance and make most everything at home. That way, at the game, it’s just a fast reheat on a hot portable grill and we’re eating.
For reheating all of these, it’s best to set your grill up (if you can) for indirect heating. If you are using charcoal, push the charcoal to one side to make a hot zone and a cooler zone. On a portable gas grill, if you have two burners, shut one side off. If you’re on a small charcoal grill or a single burner gas, keep the heat moderate by building a smaller fire, or turning the burner down a bit. Then make sure to keep turning/stirring the food to avoid burning it.
Appetizer/Starter Ideas
Bacon Explosion:
You want to come out of the gate strong, with something bold, tasty, and well … filled with bacon and cheese! Fortunately, there’s this amazing thing called a “Bacon Explosion!”
It goes by a few other names out there, but the gist of it is simple – it’s bacon, cheese, and if you want spice, chopped pickled jalapenos, stuffed into a log of sausage that’s rolled in a bacon lattice. For a recipe on how to construct one of these, this is a good link: http://www.bbqaddicts.com/recipes/pork/bacon-explosion/.
Our recipe diverges from theirs in that we add a generous amount of shredded cheddar and don’t put the barbecue sauce in. But, the construction techniques are solid here. To cook a bacon explosion, fire your pellet grill up (we like to use Griller’s Gold Smoke Shack Blend for this one!) to a temperature of 350F degrees. Cook it until it is 165F with a thermometer in the middle. On game day, all you’re going to do is reheat it on your grill until it’s hot all the way through. Keep it moving and turning though as you don’t want to burn off all the bacon.
Tailgate Wings
Another great game day recipe that is easy to make ahead is good ‘ol wings. Make these ahead by seasoning them with your favorite barbecue rub, then grilling them on your pellet grill at 425F until crisp and done.
What we do for game day is hold off saucing them until we’ve reheated them on our tailgate grill, then sauce them with our favorite commercial sauces. We have great homemade sauces too, but the commercial stuff is handy for game day.
Smoked Queso
Want to raise the ‘ol “chip and dip” game? How about SMOKED QUESO? This recipe has been all the rage around the grilling and pellet grill barbecue social media forums for the last several years and for good reason – it’s amazing!
Creamy cheese base with peppers, onions, chorizo sausage, and more mixed in. So good – and way easy. Use our recipe from the Smoky Snacks blog post from a few months ago. Again, make this ahead at home and on game day, put it on the grill to reheat, stirring every couple of minutes to make sure you’re not burning it on the bottom, then serve with a generous supply of tortilla chips.
Tailgating Poppers
Finally, how about some homemade, pellet grill-smoked, bacon-wrapped Jalapeno poppers? Jalapeno, stuffed with cheese, wrapped with bacon … OMG so amazing and so easy. Just like the other apps here, make ahead on your pellet grill at home to get that wood-grilled flavor, then reheat on game day – keep them moving so you’re not burning the bacon if you don’t have an indirect heat setup.
As we said, with our tailgating crew we go for the “I want what they’re having” effect! Nothing wrong with a burger or a bratwurst at a tailgate, but … we always feel that anything worth doing is worth overdoing!
Therefore, here are three great ideas that are both “hand food” and also fantastically tasty, and deliver those all-important envious glances from nearby tailgaters. Do what we do – make a ton and share with all the tailgaters who couldn’t get outside the hot dog box.
Rack of Pork
Yeah, we go there! A rack of pork is a big bone-in pork loin roast with the ribs on it. It’s used most frequently in a crown roast of pork, but we like cooking it straight (not curled up) and then slicing apart the individual rib chops so you wind up with a pork chop on a stick!
Have your butcher take the chine off it (that’s where the ribs connect to the spine), which makes a nicer presentation, and makes it easier to cut the individual chops. We like to season ours with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika, then we slow-grill it on our pellet grill (we like Griller’s Gold Fruitwood Blend, or Cherry for this recipe) at 250 degrees until 135 degrees internal. Yup, that’s a touch under done for pork, as you’ll then finish it on the grill at the game. The slow grill gives it lots of wonderful wood-grilled flavor, and if you want you can finish it with some barbecue sauce at the game. Then slice into individual chops and serve, using the bone as the stick!
Rack of Lamb
Since we’re on the subject of meat on bones, there’s nothing better than lamb racks, cooked medium, and sliced up like little three-bite lamb lollipops!
We buy ours at Costco or Sam’s Club, and season them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a bit of oregano. Then we slow grill them at 250F on our pellet grill (Griller’s Gold Competition Blend is our favorite here) at home until just 125 degrees internal.
Then at the game, back on the grill, and we drizzle them with lemon juice. Keep an eye on them as lamb fat likes to ignite! Grill them until just nicely browned and about 130 degrees internal. Slice up and enjoy!
Beef Tenderloin Kebabs
Beef tenderloin, while pricy, is just so wonderful, and is easy to grill. We buy a whole beef tenderloin at either Costco or Sam’s Club.
We slice it into 1 ½” thick slices and quarter those slices to make 1-2 ounce chunks. Then thread about 3 of those on each skewer with a thick slice of sweet onion in between. Season them with just salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and slow grill them on the pellet grill (Competition Blend again here!) at 225F until just barely rare – about 115 degrees internal. That leaves room for you to then sear and heat them at the game.
At the game, these actually love a bit of direct heat to put a nice crust on them. Just be mindful that they are already nearly perfectly medium rare so you don’t want to overcook them. Nothing better than handing a hungry tailgater a stick of perfectly-cooked beef tenderloin!
The Drinks and Other Fill In items
With such great fare, you’ll want to consider having a few additional tasty items plus some great drinks. On the drinks front, obviously, consider what your audience likes, but we like to do a theme drink, such as a bourbon old fashioned, or martinis that fit the occasion, as well as having good craft beers and of course lots of water and soft drinks available.
For additional fill-in food, consider some salads like a good cole slaw, a tasty potato salad, or even a green salad. We also like to have lots of small crunchy snacks like the ones featured in the Smokey Snacks blog post from a few months back!
Brisket. The holy grail of Barbecue. Loved by every BBQ fan to eat, feared by barbecuers everywhere.
Eat barbecue long enough and you’ll discover some absolutely sublime brisket from famous barbecue places. Rodney Scott’s in Charleston, SC, Franklin’s in Austin, TX, Smoque in Chicago IL, and Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, MO to name a few.
But here’s the thing – you CAN make this yourself and you CAN have sublime results. When you get good at it, it will be YOUR barbecue that your friends talk about, not about the barbecue joint down the road.
Making great brisket takes discipline, requires the investment of both time and quality ingredients, and, well, practice. Fortunately, even “that’s not the best you ever made” brisket made at home will still be 10x better than 95% of the “barbecue brisket” they sell in most restaurants.
So let’s cut the preamble here, and get going on the craft:
Buying your Brisket:
Brisket is considered to be a “primal” cut of meat. It is the upper chest muscles of a cow and as a “well used” muscle, it is thick-grained and tough until cooked long, low and slow.
When making brisket, the simple reality is, this meat is pretty expensive. And that’s one of the fear factors – spending $70-$150 on a big chunk of meat and then not having it come out sublime is pretty scary. That said, please don’t be tempted to cheap out. Buy the best you can afford.
It is easy to spend huge amounts of money on quality brisket. A great example of super-high-end brisket is from Snake River Farms and their American Wagyu brisket. Want to treat yourself and your crew sometime, here’s the LINK.
That said, we’ve had our best luck buying whole briskets (more on this below) at Costco in the USDA Prime grade. They will be more expensive than a USDA Choice grade brisket, but the extra cost is well delivered in your results.
The brisket on a cow is actually a pair of muscles stacked. One muscle is called the flat, or “first cut”, and the other is called the “point” or “second cut” or “deckle”. The flat is very lean, the point is very fatty.
Brisket Types:
Therefore, when buying briskets, they come in three ways:
Whole or “Packer” brisket – THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. This is the brisket as it comes off the cow. A good-sized whole brisket will run between 12 and 20 lbs and while that sounds huge, trust us, you’ll get the best results with this. AND you’ll feed a crowd or have lots of enjoyable leftovers.
Flat or First Cut: While you CAN smoke these and make pretty good brisket because the overall thickness of this cut is only an inch and a half, your chances of making a dry brisket are pretty high.
Point, Deckle, or Second Cut: These actually do smoke up very nicely because of the fat content but they tend to be pretty small – only 2-4 lbs.
The construction of a brisket is that the flat is the “bottom” muscle (assuming that the fat cap on top is “up”) and the point is on top of it with a ridge of hard white tallow fat between them. What is funny is that the “flat” is actually point-shaped, and the “point” is actually more rectangular. Go figure.
Anyway, the summary of all of the above:
Buy a whole-packer brisket, and if prime is in the budget, go for it!
Okay? That’s what you want. Got it? The photo below is what you’re looking for (although we admit, that’s a ridiculously large brisket. We usually shoot for 15-16 pound briskets.)
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
Whew!
So, assuming you’ve taken our advice and procured a proper whole-packer brisket, you’re going to need to do some butchery to get it ready to cook well. Read on.
Whole Brisket Butchery:
Trimming and preparing a brisket for good cooking is pretty straightforward. That said, it is a skill best taught visually. Fortunately, there are a ton of resources online that show you how to do it. We’ve watched a bunch and have selected this video as one that’s easy to follow and well, we agree with the techniques. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONifvZMlrQk
Now that you’ve watched the video, here’s just a quick checklist of what we do when we trim our brisket:
Trim the thin edges of the flat back to where the meat is at least an inch thick. Save the trimmings to make burgers!
Cut out the large white wedge of fat between the flat and point on that one side.
Trim back the fat cap, leaving about ¼”. Score it in 1” squares to allow it to render better and help your rub penetrate.
Flip it over and trim off any/all silverskin – that stuff is tough!
Clean it up by taking off any extra bits left over from the meat packer process.
After you’re done trimming, spend a moment understanding the grain of the meat, and a great hint we learned recently (yes after 100+ briskets made, we’re still learning!) – locate the corner of the flat that the grain runs down to and cut that corner off perpendicular to the grain, (saving the piece for hamburgers). Then you have a visual cue to follow when your brisket is ready to carve at the end of smoking. It is very hard to see the grain after the smoking is done. In the photo below of an untrimmed 16 lb packer brisket, you’d clip off the corner on the upper left of this photo.
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
Slather and Season your brisket:
Slather
We’ve become a recent convert to the “slather” which is a moist coating that helps the rub stick and helps build great bark. For a slather, we like to use standard-issue yellow mustard mixed with some Worcestershire sauce. Usually, about a half cup of mustard and 2-3 tablespoons of Worcestershire will cover the brisket. As the name says, just slather it on all sides of your trimmed brisket.
Season
There are tons of great rubs out there, but the one that we see the most for brisket is known as SPG. That stands for salt, pepper, and granulated garlic powder. You can either mix this up in a ratio of 3 parts salt to 1 part pepper and 1 part granulated garlic, OR you can just freehand season your meat with all three. When we do SPG, we just freehand it.
Our other favorite brisket rub is a simple recipe of equal parts kosher salt, sugar, restaurant-grind black pepper, paprika, granulated garlic, and granulated onion, plus ¼ part dry mustard and ⅛ part ground cumin. Mix that up and liberally cover your brisket. The sugar helps build the bark and the rest of it just gives great flavor.
Here’s that same brisket slathered and rubbed and ready to smoke!
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
Cooking your brisket:
The method we recommend is low and slow utilizing the Texas Crutch. This gives you the most flavorful meat in a reasonable period of time – 6 to 8 hours versus 8 to 12 hours.
The idea is that when the meat goes into the “barbecue stall” (the point at which the temperature stops rising for a significant amount of time due to an interesting bit of physics where the rate of cooling occurring from water evaporating from the meat equals the input heat coming from the grill) you wrap the meat in either butcher paper or aluminum foil to slow down the evaporation and let the heat build. We’ll give more detailed instructions below.
Fire Up:
Preheat your pellet grill to 180 degrees heat with your favorite Griller’s Gold pellet. For brisket, we like SmokeShack Blend the best. If your pellet grill has a “max smoke” or “smoke” setting, use that. Let the grill preheat for 20 minutes then place brisket on the grill.
We have found better results by putting the thicker end away from the chimney on our pellet grill. If you have one, insert the probe for a remote thermometer, or if your grill has such a thing, that works too. Put it into the thickest part of the meat but make sure it’s not in a fat seam.
Fat Cap:
At this point, the biggest question we hear from folks is “fat cap up or fat cap down?” Some folks think that if you go fat cap up, it will melt and “baste” the meat. That’s actually a myth – the fat molecules are way too big to be “absorbed” by the meat. We go “fat to the heat” – so on most pellet grills, the heat is underneath the meat. The fat will help insulate the meat and as a bigger benefit, the side on top without the fat cap will develop an outstanding bark.
Ok, meat is on, let’s go.
Cook for 1 hour at this lower setting, then, without opening the grill, boost the temperature of the grill to deliver 250 degrees F in the grill. Some grills require compensation up or down which is why we wrote this in this way – know your grill!.
Spritz or Mop:
Many barbecuers like to use a mop sauce or spritz (a spray of some kind of liquid) every hour or so while the meat is smoking. Again, this is a personal choice – we’ve tested both ways and have found that it doesn’t seem to do anything other than extending the cooking time. As always, feel free to experiment.
The “Crutch”:
You’ll be cooking at this temp until it hits the “stall” – this is when the temperature doesn’t rise much over at least an hour’s time. The temperature this typically happens at is between about 160 to 170 degrees.
Let the brisket cook “in stall” for at least 1 hour (this helps verify the stall and this cooking time is also needed). The stall will come at about the 4th or 5th hour of cooking. After you’ve hit an hour of stall time, it’s time to wrap the meat.
On a side table, lay out your paper or foil. Use two strips at least 3 feet long and overlap them so your wrapping is at least 2 feet wide. If using butcher paper, spritz the paper with a bit of water just to help it easily fold. Fold the sides up over the meat and then roll it forward to wrap it up. Reinsert your temp probe. Put the package of meat back and boost the temp to 275 degrees. You can also move it to the oven – at this point, you’re just baking, not smoking.
Here’s our packer brisket at the stall when we’re about to wrap it.
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
When your brisket is done:
Your brisket is done when the temperature hits 203 degrees internal on your probe. At that point, take it off the heat.
If using butcher paper, put one layer of foil around it (just to contain leakage). Then without disturbing the package, lay it in a large picnic cooler lined with a heavy folded towel on the bottom. Finish it off by laying another heavy folded towel over the top and close it up.
Let rest 1 hour (at least – with a good cooler you can rest up to 7 hours and still be at good serving temp). Then remove from the package, and slice and serve – be sure to not discard that marvelous juice that will be in the package!
Slicing your brisket:
On a brisket, always slice perpendicular to the grain and ideally on a slant from top to bottom. This yields the most tender slices because the fibers are the shortest.
After the first few smaller slices (remember lopping off the corner so you knew where to start?), we like to make one big cut length-wise down the brisket, then go across the grain on each half – that makes for smaller, more sandwich-friendly slices.
Some advocate separating the point and flat for serving – we say, don’t. There’s something about those slices of brisket with both parts of the meat and an unctuous layer of fat between that’s completely sublime. If you do separate them at this point, be sure to carve across the grain when you slice it.
The perfect slice! This is the same brisket as the above pictures.
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
Sauce and Serving your brisket:
As you see fit.
That said, there are amazing sauces from famous restaurants available online and in-store. Perhaps try buying bottles from the famous places listed at the beginning of this article. Or roll Texas-style with no sauce.
Most true barbecue restaurants serve brisket with plain white bread, like good old Wonder Bread. There is something about it – it soaks up the juice so nicely. For sides, try smoked baked beans, cole slaw, and of course, fresh french fries are always a win.
And that’s it – follow these instructions and you’ll make amazing brisket too!
Let’s face it – things are expensive right now. Everything from the cost of toothpaste to gas has gone up. Unfortunately, groceries and especially less-sold grocery items like the BBQ meat cuts we know and love, have gone right up with them.
If tight budgets have you down, then you’re in the right place! We’re going to show you some simple ideas to make amazing grilled treats on a budget. All fueled of course, by Griller’s Gold Premium Hardwood BBQ pellets!
Enjoying the grill on a budget just involves making the same things you love with some twists. In this edition, we’ll do three things that “mimic” three faves, only on a budget.
We are replacing a big thick Ribeye, Wings, and Baby Back Ribs with substitutes that are just as tasty and more importantly, much less expensive than the originals.
Let’s hit it!
Ribeye on a Budget: Reverse-Seared Chuck Roast
Of all the foods to have gone sky-high, beef is probably the worst one. It’s a combo of poor demand during the pandemic that caused producers to scale back operations and then when demand returned, not being able to scale back up fast enough. Fortunately, there are signs that this is improving, but beef prices are still at a record high.
So, you’ve got a hankering for a big thick ribeye, but that cost is a way off? For about 40% of the price of a bone-in rib roast, you can get … a chuck roast! The ribeye’s tastier cousin.
I know, you’re saying “hey wait a minute … chucks can be tough as nails, they are for braising not grilling.” But we say “nay nay! Don’t knock it until you try it.” The trick to tenderness comes in three ways:
Salt – we use the “dry brine” technique to get some deeper salt penetration and deliver tenderness
Gentle cooking – we use the tried and true fave method of “reverse searing”
Careful carving – We will carefully slice and carve the meat for the optimum tenderness
Now, this all said, a chuck’s “chew” will be more like a New York strip than a filet, so just be ready for that.
Buy and Trim on a budget:
Buy the thickest chuck roast you can find – ideal thickness is 1 ½” to more than 2” thick. Look for chucks that have even marbling and ideally a minimum of hard ridges of gristle. When you get it home, trim off any hard exterior gristle lines, any silverskin, and hard bits of fat on the outside. Leave what is between the muscle sections alone until after cooking.
Dry Brining:
As you’ve probably learned, great juiciness and tenderness can come from brining. (This is typically done to turkeys and chickens.) As the salt is absorbed into the meat, it “denatures” or untangles the tangled-up protein strands in the meat.
The dry brine technique is simple.
Take the meat out of the package, put it on a plate or a pan, ideally with a rack under the meat to give it some air space, and sprinkle it generously with kosher salt. Then you leave it unwrapped in the fridge overnight. That’s it.
You’ll find that about an hour after the salt goes on, it will have all dissolved. As you check on it, you’ll see that some moisture has come to the surface of the meat, then disappears again. That’s the brining process at work.
So the day before cooking, get the salt on it and put it in the fridge. About 2 hours before cooking, take it out, give a rinse in the sink to wash off any residual brine and you’re ready for the next step!
Now, what if you didn’t plan ahead? No worries – even a 4-hour dry brine at room temp has a good effect.
Key thing at this step – examine the meat and get to know where the muscle divisions are before you cook it. This will help you with the carving later. In this photo, you can see natural divisions between muscles marked with red lines. We’ll split it along those lines after cooking and then slice off any gristle or sinew, leaving just delicious tender meat.
Reverse Searing:
For the cooking technique, we’re going to use reverse searing. That’s the technique where you cook low and slow until just before your meat is the desired doneness, then, you rest it, and then sear it just before serving.
Here’s the steps:
(PSST…if you want a more detailed description of the Reverse Searing process then check out our other blog: Expert Technique – Reverse Searing)
Fire Up: Fire up your pellet grill to 225 degrees. If you like it extra smokey, start at 180F or use the “Smoke” or “Super Smoke” settings, depending on how your grill is equipped. For beef, we like Griller’s Gold Competition Blend or Smokeshack Blend the best. If using a charcoal or gas grill, you want low heat – make a small fire and put it to the side, or only light off one burner on your gas grill. Get it preheated well – at least 15 minutes at grilling temp.
Season, Meat on and Turning: Seasoning: We like to add just a touch more surface salt at this point, plus garlic powder and fresh ground pepper. But you do you on that one. Just remember that the meat already has a salty thing going. Thermometer: if you have a probe thermometer or other style of “insert and leave it” meat thermometer, this is a good time to use it. Depending on the thickness of your chuck, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes to reach your doneness temp. We like to turn the meat every 20 minutes or so just to evenly cook it.
Targeted Doneness: While we like our meat on the rare side of medium-rare, because Chuck isn’t inherently tender like a filet or ribeye, you’ll want to go a bit more done. We like to do the reverse sear to about 130 degrees (this is where we set our probe thermo’s alarm) which is on the low side of Medium Rare (135) but the meat will carryover a bit.
Rest: When the meat hits the target temp, take it off to a platter, cover it with foil (1 layer of heavy duty, 2 layers of regular), then cover that platter with a couple of folded bath towels (we keep several old clean towels for this purpose). This creates a little rest nest for the meat. Rest at least 30 minutes, ideally an hour. This rest helps even out the heat in the meat and helps tenderize it.
Sear: 20 minutes before serving time, fire the grill back up to at least 450, or, one of our favorite methods, heat a heavy skillet, ideally cast iron over medium-high heat on the stove. Sear the meat to a beautiful brown crust – we like to turn it every 2 minutes until each side has had two “rides” on the heat. Time to carve!
Carving: So you’ve already rested the meat before, so you can carve it right when it comes off. First divide the meat along the muscle lines that you so carefully noted when you were dry brining it, then trim off any hard gristle lines or undesired fat. Each piece will likely have a gristle line along the side that connected it to the other piece. Note the red lines in the picture below, those are the gristle areas that you need to trim off. Then just carve those pieces in relatively thin slices, stacking them on a serving platter. Pour any accumulated juice over it, and if you want a “rock star” touch – melt a couple of tablespoons of salted butter and pour over the meat. Bonus points if it’s a compound butter!
This “budget” style of steak will be so good it will make you think you’re royalty! Hint: Don’t share your secret with your guests!
Chicken Thigh “Wings”
Due to the popularity of chicken wings in restaurants, and the labor-intensive process to cut them, wings are inherently much more expensive than good ‘ol chicken thighs.
Chicken thighs are thicker, meatier, and well, most would say, even tastier than the ‘ol chicken wing. Here’s a quick and easy technique to make tasty, crisp-skinned chicken thighs ready to toss with your favorite wing sauce:
Buy budget Friendly:
Simple: bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Ideally don’t get the ones with the back bone and meat attached (and if you do, look up on YouTube on how to remove that, then save them to make chicken soup).
Prep:
We like to rinse off the chicken after it’s out of the package then spread it on a baking rack to air dry a bit. This next step will be the kicker step: take all the thighs and dump them into a big mixing bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of baking powder (yes we said that!) sprinkled evenly over them.
Season them generously with salt and pepper, or if you like, a barbecue rub. Then toss them to distribute the baking powder and seasonings. The baking powder aids in crisping up the skin.
Fire Up:
No low and slow here, friends, heat is what you want. We like to preheat to 425 degrees for at least 20 minutes, ideally 30 minutes. For Griller’s Gold BBQ pellets, really anything works great for this – we like either Charcoal Blend or Competition Blend for chicken parts on the grill. If you’re grilling over charcoal or gas, well, get the grill good and hot, but ready to cook indirect, which means charcoal on one side, and for gas, one burner shut down.
Cook:
Put the thighs on the grill, skin side up to start, then turn them every 10 minutes until done – which should take about 30-40 minutes at 425.
Done is 185F with an instant-read thermometer pushed down to the bone in the center of the thickest piece you have on the grill.
Sauce:
We love to sauce them three different ways:
Barbecue: For this, you’ll be brushing them with sauce on the grill. When the chicken is done, brush them with your favorite BBQ sauce, flip sauce side down and brush again. Close up the grill for 2 mins, then repeat. Remove and serve.
Buffalo: For medium-hot buffalo sauce, melt ¼ cup butter then add ¼ cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce, 1 tsp brown sugar, and 1 tsp fresh minced garlic. Whisking well. Simmer for 2-3 minutes to blend flavors, whisk up well again and toss with your thighs.
Spicy/Sticky Asian: We love this one! Whisk together ⅓ cup soy sauce, ¼ cup honey, 2T canola or other vegetable oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp ground ginger, ½ tsp dry mustard and 1 tablespoon either Sriracha sauce or Thai Red Curry paste. Can reduce the hot stuff if desired. Toss with the thighs.
Pork Shoulder “Boneless Ribs”
Pork Shoulders and cuts like Pork Shoulder Steaks are a great way to have that satisfying pork rib flavor on a budget. “Boston Butt” roasts or Pork Shoulders (they are the same … yeah don’t ask why a shoulder is also a “butt”) come from the shoulder of the pig and because they are a worked muscle they are super flavorful. Treat them like you’re cooking ribs and you may never go back to baby backs!
budget Buy:
We like to buy whole pork shoulder roasts, either bone-in or boneless for this. If you buy bone-in, remove the bone which is a blade-like thing that is usually exposed on one edge.
Just follow it down with a boning knife to cut it free. You can also buy pork shoulder steaks which are steaks crosscut from the shoulder cut. The problem is they are usually cut too thinly. If you’re working with a butcher or have a good grocery store meat counter they can cut them for you. The ideal thickness is at least 1” thick.
Cut and Trim:
Your goal is strips of meat, not unlike “chicken fingers”. They should be about 1” thick and 2” wide and as long as you can cut them from the roast. We like to cut 1” thick slabs and then cut those into 2” wide strips. Cut off any surface fat on any of them.
Season:
A good “rib rub” is what you want here – use your favorite!
For extra flavor and moisture, first toss the “ribs” with about ½ cup of yellow prepared mustard until evenly coated. Then throw on a generous amount of rub and toss to coat evenly.
Fire Up!
Preheat your pellet grill with Griller’s Gold BBQ pellets to 250 degrees for at least 20 minutes. For this recipe, we prefer Griller’s Gold Hickory, Applewood, or Competition Blend pellets.
Cook:
Lay the strips crosswise across the grill grate. Turn them every 30 minutes. They are done when they are cooked through and very tender. The internal temp should be about 185F degrees or more – up to 205F. Cooking can take up to 3 hours.
Sauce and Sear:
Remove the “ribs” from the grill then fire the grill up to 400F. Lay the “ribs” back across the grill grate and sauce them on one side, then turn and sauce again. Let run 2 minutes, then turn and sauce again, 2 more minutes, turn and sauce again. Remove and serve!
So … they aren’t the satisfying “meat on a bone” like baby backs. But gotta say these are super tasty and if you have anyone in your family who is “bone squeamish”. This is also an excellent way to get the great taste of ribs without bones. They are also great party “finger food” as well, with no bone mess to deal with.
Brazilians are known for their love of meat grilled over wood and fire – which makes Brazilian-style Barbecue. It’s a great way to enjoy outdoor cooking fueled by Griller’s Gold natural hardwood pellets. So, what is Brazilian-style barbecue?
What is Brazilian Style barbeCue?
When defining Brazilian-style Barbecue there are actually two things to it – the food and the event.
The food is typically a range of meats and sausages grilled over charcoal or wood, accompanied by a number of fresh, cold sides such as green salads, mixed salads, etc. But it’s the event that makes it!
For Brazilians, it’s not typical to cook all of the food prior to dinner time, and then eat at one sitting—that’s more North American style. Instead, a Brazilian Barbecue is a leisurely, grazing affair.
The meats are typically cooked one at a time, sliced hot off the grill, and passed, and everyone takes a few bites for their plates. Then the next one comes out. And the next one. And the next one. AND the NEXT one … and so forth – until you’ve eaten enough protein for two weeks! And each thing is better than the next.
We were recently invited to join some Brazilians for a Barbecue afternoon/evening and it was a 4-hour affair where the food kept coming off the grill, each item more delicious than the next, the grill was right there next to the table on the patio so that the host didn’t leave the party to cook, the copious wines, beers, caipirinhas, and cachaça was flowing, the music was pumping, the dogs and kids were playing and it was an incredible night!
Planning your Own Brazilian Barbecue:
A Brazilian Barbecue is about simple food, simply prepared, enjoyed in an atmosphere of celebration of friends and family. It is definitely an event best enjoyed in the summertime where you can sit outside, the grill is part of the action, and everyone can relax.
In terms of the food – typical grilled Brazilian Barbecue foods are sausages, beef, lamb, chicken, and pork. They are also not shy of game meats, so if you’re a hunter, this is a fun way to prepare your bounty.
When planning one, think about the variety of what you want to serve, and know you don’t need a lot of each thing, but having a nice variety makes the party more fun.
If you drink alcohol, the traditional drink of Brazil is the Caipirinha (cap-ra-hin-ha) – it is a concoction of fresh lime juice, cane sugar and a Brazilian spirit called Cachaça (ca-cha-sa) that is made from sugar cane like rum is but tastes somewhat like a cross between tequila and white rum. And Brazilians also love their South American wines and of course, beer. Keep it flowing! Here’s a great Caipirinha recipe: https://www.laylita.com/recipes/classic-caipirinha-recipe/
The Brazilian barbecue Meats:
There are a few special cuts of meat that Brazilians favor, but you can also just cook the typical meats you can find at your grocery store. That said, the most common “specialty” cut of meat that Brazilians use in a Barbecue is called the beef picanha. (pi-can-ya).
Beef
It is a beef top sirloin cap steak with the fat cap left on. The fat cap melts as the steak cooks and delivers an out-of-this-world flavor. Raw, it looks like the photo below, and the traditional Brazilian way to cook it is to spear it on a sword-like skewer in thick slices shaped like a letter “C” – see the pictures below.
Any good butcher should be able to cut you a picanha and there are online purveyors that sell them as well, such as Wild Fork Foods. Our host cut the picanha into 1” thick steaks and grilled them like a typical strip steak.
As you would get from the butcher – it is typically about 2 lbs like this:
You can substitute New York Strip or Top Sirloin steak for Picanha if you cannot get it in your area. Look for steaks with a good fatty edge on them, and leave the fat on for grilling.
Additional beef cuts that are favorites in Brazil are Maminha and of course, filet mignon. Maminha is a bottom-round roast, lean like beef filet, but more “worked” so a more beefy flavor. Delicious cooked to medium-rare over open heat churrasco style, and they do cook beef filet as well. A good stand-in for maminha is a beef tri-tip roast.
Sausages
Brazilians love their sausages and two typical sausages you’ll find in Brazilian Barbecue are Linguica and Calabresa. Both are simple beef/pork blend sausages with a thin natural casing. The sausages are simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and plenty of garlic, and are often smoked prior to cooking on the grill. Easy substitutions for this would be polish-style Kielbasa or a beef and pork blend, mild Italian sausage.
Pork, Lamb & seafood
Pork and lamb chops also star in Brazilian Barbecue. Again, a nice blend of meat and fat is always desirable. For lamb, get a rack of lamb and it is typically lightly marinated. Here’s a great recipe for it from the famous Brazilian Steakhouse Fogo de Chao. For pork, they use a variety of cuts, but typically either pork loin (again, look for a generous fat cap) or pork loin bone-in chops seasoned with just salt.
The most common seafood you’ll find in a Brazilian Barbecue is shrimp – and size matters here – go for nice big ones – 6-10 per pound size. For chicken, you’re most likely to see boneless chicken thighs, skin on, at a Brazilian Barbecue.
The Sides:
You only need to go to a Rodizo/Brazilian Steakhouse once to understand how Brazilians love their fresh cold sides with their meat dishes. You don’t usually find mounds of hot potatoes with Brazilian Barbecue.
Instead, nice fresh slaw, potato salads, pasta salads, and of course green salads are the stars here. You want things that are light and bright tasting to contrast with the salt, fat, and umami flavors of the grilled meats.
Again, Brazilians love their grills. Most common at Brazilian Barbecues are open grills fired with lump or briquette charcoal, but pellet grills work great for this, as do gas grills.
If you’re using a pellet grill, fire it up with Griller’s Gold pellets – while most any flavor will work, the Griller’s Gold Charcoal pellets will give you the most authentic taste, as well as the Smokehouse Blend.
Charcoal Grill
If cooking over charcoal, as each cut goes on the grill, scatter a handful of Griller’s Gold pellets of any flavor over your hot coals. They will give a burst of smoke that will really kiss the meats on the grill with a pop of wood smoke flavor.
Gas Grill
If using a gas grill, consider the “cigar” method – take two pieces of foil stacked, and roll a “cigar” full of Griller’s Gold pellets. Twist the ends and crimp the seam to seal, then poke it in several spots with a knife to let the smoke out.
Pellet Grill
Cooking Brazilian Barbecue will typically use medium-high heat, so for a pellet grill, preheat it to the highest temperature your grill will go (450~500F is typical) for at least 20 minutes to make sure your grids are good and hot.
Seasoning
Well, this couldn’t be more simple! Salt! And plenty of it.
Brazilians typically only use coarse salt like large grain kosher salt on their barbecue meats – they salt the meats about 10 minutes before putting them on the grill. Some Brazilians will also say a good grind of freshly-ground pepper too, but our friend insisted that authentic Brazilian Barbecue is only seasoned with salt.
The kicker ingredient at Brazilian Barbecues (and in a lot of Brazilian food) is farofa. Farofa is a granular powdered condiment, the consistency of coarse corn meal, and it is made from toasted yucca (also known as cassava) root with additional seasonings like salt, pepper, cayenne, and other flavors in it. It is served as a table condiment and the Brazilians like to dip their meats in it or sprinkle it over their meats on the plate.
The Event:
Again, as noted, a Brazilian Barbecue is an event – it is a gathering of friends and family around a table, where you sit, eat, drink, tell stories and laugh for hours.
The meats are cooked one at a time in a quantity where each person gets a few bites. The “parade” of barbecue meats often starts with sausages – a few are cooked on the grill until cooked through and nicely browned, then sliced into coins and passed among the guests. The guests often eat this first course with some cheeses and other appetizers, and of course, the sausage pieces are dipped in the Farofa.
From there, it is, however you’d like to pace your meal. Our host started with picanha, in a small quantity so we each got only a couple of small slices, then after a bit of time (and more beer, wine, and Caprahina), out came a fat pork chop that was sliced up.
After that was a Maminha roast that had been slow-cooked over the coals (with Griller’s Gold hickory pellets tossed on the fire) and sliced thin, then more sausage, more picanha, more pork, and … more and more.
Again, each cut came out after an enjoyable pause and wasn’t served in huge quantities. You do eat a lot though! But over a long time.
Our hosts served a delicious Brazilian Flan for dessert, along with a plate of fresh fruit, a delicious cognac, and espresso.
Wrapping it up:
While a Brazilian Barbecue is a long evening of eating and drinking featuring copious quantities of meats, it is really about taking the time to truly share an enjoyable time with family and friends. The concept can be of course extended beyond Brazilian-style food – it is truly a “grazing” meal. Give it a try! Until next time … Grill On!
Doesn’t that phrase just float off the tongue? Make your mouth water? It’s so good a restaurant even made a jingle out of it … “mmm hmmm’s Baby Back Ribs, mmm hmmm’s Baby Back Ribs (barbecue sauce).”
Yet rarely does anything strike fear into the hearts of barbecue enthusiasts like making ribs! (Ok, except maybe brisket …). AND, everyone likes something a bit different – spare ribs, St. Louis cuts, “fall off the bone”, no, with “a good tug”, dry ribs, sauced ribs, auuugh! What’s a barbecuer to do?
What’s to do? Make this recipe of pork baby back ribs. We are positive that a) you’ll love them and b) they will be “better than any restaurant” good. And it’s easy to do.
Easy Pork Baby Back Ribs
First, a caveat – this recipe is for pellet grills. Not exclusively, but … we’ve written it for doing on a pellet grill. If you’re rolling smoke on a charcoal kettle, a bullet or offset smoker, or something else .. well 90% of what we’re going to say applies here, and just know you’ll need to use your knowledge of your gear to do what we’re recommending here. There’s some special notes for you gas and charcoal grillers at the end of the article.
And another thing about this method – you will be shocked by the simplicity of this. You may have heard of “3-2-1” ribs, Texas Crutch ribs, people boiling ribs in advance of smoking (WHAT????) etc., all in the search of perfect ribs. We have found that the best ribs come from a minimalist approach. Set the right temp, season, and rub, onto the smoker, leave them alone until done. That’s it! Aren’t there a few in-between things? Not really!
And a final note: This method delivers ribs that pull cleanly from the bone but do have a bit of “al dente” toothsomeness to them. They are NOT fall-apart, fall-off-the-bone ribs. IF you want that result, follow this method below to doneness, then simply coat them with sauce, put them in a roasting pan with a cup or so of beer or apple juice in the bottom, then tightly seal up with foil and bake in a 300-degree oven for 45 minutes. That final oven run will make them fall apart and will still be the best ribs you’ve ever eaten.
So let’s roll smoke:
Buying Baby Back Ribs
As noted above, there are St. Louis Cut ribs, there are baby back ribs, spare ribs, rib tips, beef ribs, etc. We have found that the easiest, meatiest ribs are pork Baby Back Ribs. As implied, they come from the back of the pig, where the ribs join the spine and they include loin meat along with them – the pork loin is actually cut away from these ribs at the butcher.
Ideally, buy baby back ribs that are minimally processed – you can get these from your butcher, but also Costco sells them that way. Minimally processed means just cut and packaged, not soaked/brined or injected with anything. You can tell if they’ve been more processed if there is some fine print on the package about them containing “up to x% solution” – “solution” is a fancy name for saltwater. Now don’t get us wrong, those are fine – you just need to account for that in your seasoning.
Ribs (baby backs and other cuts) when butchered have a tough membrane adhered to the inside of the ribs. If buying from a butcher, ask them to remove it. Generally, Costco ribs have already had the membrane stripped off but grocery store ribs usually do not. Not to worry, we will show you how to remove it if it’s there.
Also, a great time to stock your freezer with ribs is the week after either Memorial Day, July 4th, or Labor Day – those are all traditional rib-cooking weekends and the stores usually have overstock specials after the holiday. In fact, the ribs pictured in this article were purchased the week after July 4th at only $2.99/lb.
Set up the Smoker!
Again, this recipe is optimized for a pellet grill or smoker, and of course, for best results, use Griller’s Gold Premium BBQ Pellets. In terms of which variety of Griller’s Gold pellets to use – we suggest using your favorite. That said OUR favorite for baby back ribs is good ‘ol Hickory. Griller’s Gold Hickory will deliver that hearty and smoky flavor that we all associate with great barbecue.
Fire up your pellet grill or pellet smoker with an initial temperature of 180 degrees – or, if so equipped, set it on the “SMOKE” setting or “Super Smoke” setting (these are particular features of certain brands/models of pellet grills – don’t sweat if you don’t have that – just set it for 180 or whatever you have close to that).
This initial temperature setting will deliver the most smoke for a great initial flavor shot on your ribs. The meat absorbs the most smoke flavor right at the beginning of a cook.
That pesky membrane …
This is where you learn how to remove that membrane – and it is way easier than you think. It does require a special bit of gear – a standard table butter knife!
Working in the middle of a rack on the inside and holding the knife flat, slip the rounded end of the butter knife under the edge of the membrane by about an inch or so, then lever it up gently (so as to not tear the membrane) to pry up the membrane.
Push it under another inch or two and repeat the levering action, then put your fingers under the membrane, pull out the knife and pull upwards working from one end and then the other – that membrane will pull cleanly away in one piece. The first time we learned that technique, our barbecue minds were blown!
Rub those baby back Ribs!
Now we get into some fun – here, use what you like. If there’s a commercial BBQ rub that you’ve used on pork or ribs and enjoy, well, use what you know. If you’re not sure what you’d like, we suggest using “Memphis Dust” from Meathead Goldwyn.
This peppery rub is fantastic on ribs and other pork. Note, it does NOT have salt in it – so if using it, be sure to season your ribs well with kosher or large grain sea salt as well.
Why kosher salt? It is more minerally-tasting, it doesn’t have the metallic taste of iodized table salt, and the larger nuggets or flakes are easier to control when applying. To apply the rub, first, give your ribs a quick rinse in the sink with cool water and then leave wet – this helps the rub stick and dissolves the sugar in the rub, helping make the bark.
Then, generously sprinkle or shake your rub evenly over the ribs. Note, the game is NOT to hose the ribs down with rub – just use enough to flavor them. Refer to the pictures below to get a sense of how much. If you’re a measuring type, about 2 tablespoons of rub per rack is good.
ONTO THE SMOKER!
Ok, your ribs are rubbed, and your smoker is 180 degrees. Put them on the grate meat side up, close it up, and walk away!
If are doing more than will fit on your grill laying flat, a commercial rib rack works great to hold them edgewise, OR, another good trick is to coil them meat side out – just make sure there is airspace between the racks or coils using either method.
Again, close it and walk away for an hour. After 1 hour, without opening the smoker, increase the temperature of your pellet smoker to 225 degrees – this will increase the rate of cooking without a big penalty in smoke flavor.
Why shouldn’t you open the smoker? Simple rule our grandma always told us: “If you’re lookin, it’s not cookin’.”
The beauty of a pellet grill or smoker is that they run beautifully unattended for hours as long as the pellet hopper is full of Griller’s Gold Premium BBQ pellets. So go away again for 3 hours at this point.
Walk the dog, watch a movie, go grocery shopping, whatever you want – but don’t open that smoker! (Ok, if you do peek the world doesn’t end, but what happens when you do that is your grill’s thermostat will sense a drop in temp and will seek to compensate.
What we’ve found is that the longer stretches of unfluctuating temperature (other than the normal 10-20 degree swings that any pellet grill will do) gives better results.
When are they done? Learn the “Bend Test”!
Baby Back Ribs typically will take between 3 ½ and 5 hours to get to perfection (more about that in a minute). Baby back ribs and other pork ribs are done when they split when doing the “bend test”.
What’s that? Simple – you’re going to pick up a rack of ribs with tongs, with the end of the tongs at the 4th or 5th bone down, and you’ll bounce them – if they are done, the meat will split right at the tongs.
Pro Secret – The Rest
As much as we love the idea of our guests coming to the smoker with empty plates and slicing off part of a slab for them, hot from the smoker, the reality is the best meats, and ribs are right in this club, benefit from a post-cooking rest.
Therefore, if you’re cooking ribs for a 6:30 PM dinner, you’ll want to get them on the smoker around lunchtime. Because ribs aren’t particularly thick, the rest doesn’t have to be long. But when your ribs are done based on the bend test above, remove them to a platter, take them into the kitchen and wrap them with a layer of heavy-duty foil, then place them in a picnic cooler that is lined with a folded towel and place another towel on top of the package of ribs and close up the cooler.
If you need to cut them to make them fit, go ahead and do it but don’t cut them into individual ribs or other serving sizes just yet. This is called the “Faux-Cambro” trick – a “Cambro” is an insulated food service container that restaurants use to hold hot food at serving temp.
A standard picnic cooler or even a cheap styrofoam one will work just fine for this. Let the ribs rest for a minimum of 30 minutes, and ideally an hour or so. We’ve found they will stay hot (and hot enough to be in the “safe” zone for bacteria growth, so hotter than 165 degrees) for up to 4 hours this way.
To Sauce or Not to Sauce? That is the question.
There are some folks that think sauce is an insult to perfectly cooked barbecue and then there’s us: we have barbecue sauce running in our veins!
IF you’re in the first group, well, your ribs are done. Go enjoy. For the rest of us? Let’s get saucing!
There are a million sauces out there, and a million sauce recipes out there – we say “use your favorite”. Seriously – if you like the sweet smokey taste of Chicago, the vinegary peppery taste of North Carolina and Memphis, the peppery tomato flavors of Kansas City – great, use what you want. But here’s a method that’s great for that final touch.
While your ribs are resting, crank your pellet grill to 450 degrees and let it preheat at that temp for at least 15 minutes past when it hits that temp – you want all that metal in there to be radiating heat.
Take your ribs out of the “Faux-Cambro”, unwrap them, and one thing we like to do here is cut them into serving-size pieces – we like 2 bones per piece. Spread them out on a sheet pan or platter and brush both sides with sauce, then put them on the hot pellet grill, meat side down.
Let them go for about 4 minutes then flip them meat side up and brush the meat side again with sauce and let them go for about 6 minutes. At this point, if you want to serve your guests ribs hot off the grill, this is a great time to do it, otherwise platter them up and serve!
What this step does is caramelize the sugars in the sauce, gives the ribs some grill marks (see the picture below), and cooks off some of the moisture in the sauce so the ribs are glazed with sauce.
And that’s it – you’ve made the best ribs of your life, AND you know how to do it.
Finally … sides and pairings
Sides: We love baked beans with ribs, au gratin potatoes, french fries, coleslaw, you name it.
Pairings: Our favorite wine with ribs is a big fruity red Zinfandel. Ribs also pair beautifully with your favorite beer, our favorite pairing being a session IPA – there’s something about the easy hops and maltiness of a session IPA with the barbecue sauce that sends us to heaven.
And finally, after dinner – a fantastic choice is a smokey, peaty single malt scotch whiskey. The smoky flavors that you’ve had in your mouth and nose through dinner will pop with this final touch.
Quick notes for those not using pellet grills:
If using charcoal, set up for low and slow, and use either a smoke tube or a “cigar” (foil package poked with holes) filled with Griller’s Gold Premium BBQ pellets to get that good smoke flavor. Because temp changes are hard in a charcoal grill, don’t sweat the “180 degrees” step above. When you’re saucing, use indirect heat otherwise the sauce will burn.
If using a gas grill, preheat the grill on high, then shut off all but one burner and run that one on medium to low to get to the desired 225-250 degrees. Don’t worry about starting at 180F – that’s a pellet grill thing. Use a smoke tube or cigar package loaded with Griller’s Gold pellets to get your smoke on.
The days are longer. The sun is higher in the sky, the grass is greening up, and the crocus, daffodils, and tulips are starting to pop out of the ground—time for renewal and rebirth.
Spring also features the twin religious holidays of Easter and Passover. We won’t get into the religious meaning, but it’s a time when families get together to celebrate and EAT! So here are some fun things you can cook outdoors, fueled with Griller’s Gold Premium 100% Hardwood barbecue pellets!
Easter
Easter – every family has its own traditions, but we’re sure they include lots of great eats! Here are some fun ideas for you.
Smoked Deviled Eggs:
What’s traditional with Easter? Coloring Easter Eggs. And doing colored Easter Eggs with the kids means you’re making lots of hard-boiled eggs. Rather than having to eat egg salad for lunch the next two weeks, this is a great appetizer to use up those eggs for your family’s Easter dinner party after the kids finish hunting for them.
Most people we tell about this recipe go “huh?” with a healthy bit of skepticism, but we gotta say, this one is “don’t knock it till ya try it!”
Here we go:
Make in advance:
1 dozen or more hard-boiled eggs (again, use up those colored eggs!)
4 slices of bacon, cooked, crisp, and crumbled
Preheat your pellet grill using your favorite flavor of Griller’s Gold pellets at 180 degrees to make the smoked deviled eggs. While the grill preheats, peel your hard-boiled eggs, and when the grill is at temp, put the peeled eggs on the grill and smoke for 30 minutes.
After 30 mins, take the eggs off and cool them in the fridge for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes in the fridge, cut the eggs in half the long way and pop out the yolks into a mixing bowl. Return the egg white “shells” to the fridge to continue to cool.
For a recipe using 1 dozen hard-boiled eggs, add a half cup of mayonnaise, 2 ½ tsp of dijon mustard, ½ tsp of Worcestershire sauce, ½ tsp of hot pepper sauce, ¼ tsp of cayenne pepper, and ½ tsp of salt to the eggs in the bowl and mix – making sure to mash up the yolks well.
Arrange the egg whites on a serving platter. Scoop the egg yolk mixture into a zipper bag, squeeze the contents into one corner, press out the air and seal the bag. Cut ¼” off the corner of the bag where the eggs are and “pipe” the eggs into the cavities of the shells, distributing evenly. You can also scoop the egg yolks in with a spoon, but the bag method is easier.
Dust the tops of the eggs with a shake of paprika for color, then top each with a little crumbled bacon and perhaps some snipped chives or green onion tops.
Serve. Take a bow to the thunderous applause.
These can be made up to a couple of days in advance, just keep them sealed from the air in a container.
The Main Dishes
Easter dinners are often known for a couple of traditional dishes – ham and lamb. Here are two great recipes that will make your family say “Ahhh!” as they push back from the table.
Double Smoked Spiral Cut Ham
Hams are the upper part hind leg of a pig and come in a variety of ways – boneless, bone-in, cured, smoked, etc. One of our favorites is the spiral cut ham – these beauties are typically cured, then smoked, then placed on a machine that cuts the meat on a spiral making it easy to serve.
They come fully cooked, so getting them ready to serve is just a matter of heat and eat. They recommend heating over a gentle heat, so what could be more perfect than the thermostatically controlled heat of a pellet grill set up for low and slow cooking.
Buy:
A spiral cut ham – “half” hams are most popular. They run between 6 and 9 lbs and are distinguished by the one end that is flat. A whole ham weighs anywhere from 10 to 20 lbs and is twice the size and somewhat oval-shaped. Either works for this recipe – just vary the cook time!
Remove the packaging from the ham and place the ham in a large disposable roasting pan. The ham will give up quite a bit of liquid as it heats, and you won’t want that in your grill. The cook time will vary by size, but you’re seeking an internal temperature of about 150 degrees near the bone for your ham – that will typically take 2-3 hours at 250 for a half ham. The packaging should have heating instructions that you can interpret.
Glaze:
Most hams come with a glaze mix packet. (We like to make our own!) But feel free to use theirs – just follow the directions on the package. After your ham hits the heating temp, move it inside and fire your oven up to 500 degrees (if yours only goes to 450, that’s fine).
In a medium saucepan, heat up 1 cup of brown sugar, ¼ cup of apple juice, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard, ½ cup of honey, ½ tsp ground cloves, and ½ tsp ground ginger.
Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for a minute or two. Brush this all over the outside of your ham, then slide the ham into the oven. Heat at 500 for 3 or 4 minutes, then brush with more sauce and give it 3 or 4 minutes more. If it starts to burn at all, remove it quickly – you just want to caramelize the sugar on it.
Serve:
Have a long, narrow knife and a meat fork handy for guests to free up the slices of their ham. If you have any glaze leftover, mix it with a few tablespoons of the liquid from your roasting pan and serve it on the side as a sweet gravy.
Super easy grilled Rack of Lamb
Lamb is so traditional for Easter dinner, but legs of lamb can be a bit intimidating and, frankly, tough! But a rack of lamb on a pellet grill is easy to do, usually super tender, and is done quickly.
Here’s our favorite recipe:
Buy:
We buy pre-frenched, ready-to-go lamb racks from the warehouse stores. Costco almost always has these for a pretty good price. We always buy at least one on every trip to have them in the freezer ready to go. One rack will usually feed 2-3 people. For a hungry crew, have one rack for every 2 people.
Marinate:
For two lamb racks, mix up ½ cup extra virgin olive oil (canola works too) with the juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard, ½ tsp dried thyme (or 1 tbs fresh), and 1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed or 2 tbs fresh, finely chopped, plus about 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp freshly ground pepper. Spread the marinade on the lamb on the meaty side and the ends, and marinate for about an hour.
Cook:
Preheat your pellet grill using your favorite Griller’s Gold pellet flavor (we like Competition Blend or Smokehouse Blend for this recipe) to 250 degrees F. If you have one, put a probe thermometer in the lamb racks and set the alarm for 125 degrees.
We like our lamb bright pink, medium, so adjust accordingly. It will take the lamb racks about 30-45 minutes to get to that temperature. When they do, remove and cover with foil and a towel to retain the heat and boost the grill temperature to 400 degrees.
Return the lamb racks to the grill (and stay by the grill for this – lamb fat is notoriously flammable! If a ton of smoke starts coming from the grill, check for fire!) put them fat side down and sear for 2 minutes. Keep turning every 2 minutes until the internal temperature is between 135 and 140 degrees.
Bring them in, cut them into individual “lamb lollipops,” and serve!
Passover
Passover is the holiday that celebrates the Jews escaping the slavery of the Pharoah in Egypt. Jewish people have a standing joke about Jewish holidays that goes “They were persecuting us. We prevailed! Let’s eat!” and Passover is no exception! Here’s one of our favorite recipes:
Smoked Passover Brisket:
A traditional Passover dinner dish is a braised beef brisket. These are usually slowly braised with a savory liquid, often smothered with onions, and cooked until the meat is pull-apart tender. This recipe takes that traditional preparation and kicks it up a notch by starting the cooking out on the pellet smoker to kiss it with some tasty smoke flavor prior to finishing in the oven. This is super easy and fun to make.
A Kosher note: You can decide whether you use kosher ingredients for your family based on your own traditions and observance. This recipe is kosher-style which is to say it follows basic kosher rules but does not specify kosher products.
Buy and Trim:
We like to use a brisket flat for this recipe – which is also known as a “first cut” brisket. It’s the flatter lower muscle. We like to trim the fat cap of these to about ¼” thick and trim back the thin edges to the point where the meat is at least ¾ thick – save that trim. It makes amazing burgers!
Seasoning:
For this style of brisket, rather than our usual BBQ rub, we first like to wet the meat with some Worcestershire sauce, then season it liberally with salt, pepper, and garlic salt – that’s it!
Smoke:
Fire up your pellet smoker for very low and slow – 180 degrees. For this one, our favorite pellet is Griller’s Gold Premium Wood BBQ Pellets SmokeShack Blend, but really, all of them are suitable. Put the brisket on, and set a timer for 2 ½ hours. If your grill has a “max smoke” or “super smoke” setting, use it. This is about the ONLY recipe you’ll see from us where we cook using time versus temp! All you’re doing is infusing the meat with smoke flavor.
Roast:
Take your brisket off the grill and put it in a big roasting pan.
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.
Mix up a braising liquid consisting of 2 1/2 cups of beef broth, 1 cup of red wine, 1 cup of prepared Chili sauce (see Kosher note above), and ½ cup of dark brown sugar. Pour over the beef, then slice up at least two large, sweet onions into thin slices and bury the meat in the onion slices. This is one of those “more the merrier” things!
Cover the meat tightly with foil (or if your roaster has a lid). Put the meat in the oven and cook it for between 2 and 3 hours – the meat is done when it is at least 200F degrees internal and pulls apart easily at the edges. Remove from heat to a large platter, cover with foil and a towel to retain the heat, and rest at least 20 minutes – that will firm the meat up for slicing. Slice crossways to the grain in nice thin slices and serve with the onions and the liquid in the pan as gravy.
By the way … you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this delicious brisket!
So there ya go! Three amazing main dishes and one killer appetizer. From our families at Griller’s Gold to yours, wishing you happy springtime wishes and warm memories of these holidays!
(photo by Stewart Campbell)
