As we’ve passed our five (5!) year anniversary on this here food blog, you’d think the procedure(s) would be refined, maybe better camera/photos.
Nope.
This one was a photography/blogger fail. But we’ll bring it around like I always do. I took so little photos, that I had to see when our first post was and it turns out, nearly 5 years to the day. So let me start by saying thank you! Truthfully, we haven’t really grown all that much, but we do it out of fun. We’re more than a couple bucks into this thing, and still haven’t made a dollar. We haven’t asked for a dollar either, but like I said – for fun.
So over the past few weeks, you saw MrsForensicBBQ put a salad show on for our 4th of July party, and this was going to be my contribution. I’ll show you what pictures I did take, and bring it back home with my ridiculous sandwich at the end for shits and giggles.
I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do for America’s 249th birthday. I had so much travel coming up (by the time this posts, I’m either northwest USA, midwest USA or east USA.. I have no idea) I was pre-occupied. Work keeping me busy and all of a sudden, it was time to plan a cook. I went to Costco and they’re briskets were already picked through, with just this giant 20lb’er left. Let’s see what I can do with it.
My trim was terrible. There was so much hard fat everywhere on this thing – my gallon freezer bag had trouble closing. Definitely saving that for tallow. I don’t think I’ve done one quite this big, so I planned for a 16hr, ended up somewhere around 19hrs. All good, I missed my target time by about 30 minutes. Had to play with the temperature more than I’d like, but between the trim and the temps – I already knew this wasn’t going to be my best. Probably why my pictures were lacking.
So in addition to providing brisket for everyone, I also went with a quick macaroni and cheese. The picture below is the prepared photo I made on 03 July, so I could just throw it in the smoker about 40min before dinner. No, I did not take a picture of it complete.
The mac and cheese was a cavatappi noodle (or Barilla calls it celentani or something), fresh shredded cheddar, jack, and gouda.. and then velveeta. Wasn’t anything crazy, just something to satisfy the BBQ staple.
These beans were killer, however. Smoked bacon, molasses, brown sugar, jalapeno/green pepper to make it even better – and these were good. The one complaint I heard was they were a bit spicy (a common complaint) – but I used my BBQ sauce and yeah, I make that spicy. I thought these were spectacular – especially everything done in that cast iron. Chef’s kiss all day.
After the rest, I unveiled the brisket and it actually turned out pretty alright. I took a lean slice and it had the bend, it had the pull.. was moist, it was better than I thought it’d be. So as I sliced, I yelled up to the party to come on and grab a plate. And no one came. I told the young human to let the party know I’m slicing it – come grab it hot. And she failed me. I sliced the flat, came around to the point and the fatty was very good. I chopped up most of the point, but I left one beautiful slice to see who was the brisket lover in the party. Who knew their brisket more than the others.
By the time the patrons realized the food was done, it had already been sliced and waiting for too long. Unbelievable. And nobody ate the fatty slice! The flat slices were gone, the chopped point was picked through – I couldn’t believe I had that slice left.
Let’s make a ridiculous breakfast sandwich out of it the next day.
Threw the big ass slice on the blackstone and threw some beer on top of it. Cooked it through, cracked an egg, some sliced cheese on an asiago bagel and let’s see what this thing looks like
I whipped up a horseradish sauce/BBQ sauce mix and painted the top bagel with it.. and ate what I could. The brisket was awesome. Ate so much of it. This filled me up for the day – the day I’m typing this and not even hungry. I’ll leave you with one final picture, because I was laughing my ass off.
After the party was over, I did the brisket burn off. Cranked the RecTeq and cleaned her up. My wife came running in the house – “You smoked up the neighborhood”.
The smoke was so heavy the flood light sensor was activated. It was a successful cook, successful day – just a failure for photos. MrsForensicBBQ did an awesome job with the party – her salads were great. It was a fun holiday