Archives for the 'bbq' tag
Mr. Spriggs BBQ So Smooth It Will Impregnate You
Official Crispy Endorsement
I’m with Bill Maher on who you should vote for today.
Smoke Alarm
The town of Milford, Connecticut, is having difficulty outlawing certain kinds of outdoor cooking:
An attempt to ban backyard fireplaces and outdoor ovens here is going up in smoke.
Although a proposed ordinance on open burning is being revised, the final version will not cover the popular “chimeneas” or even backyard pizza ovens, officials said Thursday.
“State law specifically allows cooking in the yard, and we would need the help of our legislators to change that,” Mayor James L. Richetelli Jr. said.
Curse those explicitly enumerated rights. Because if it’s one principle this country was founded on, it’s that everything is illegal unless the law books say otherwise.
Several residents complained to the Board of Aldermen earlier this week that the smoky fires are aggravating asthma and other breathing problems and that the odor is keeping neighbors indoors.
A brick, wood-fired pizza oven with a 6-foot-tall stack in a Hawley Avenue backyard is a nuisance for residents of a four-unit apartment house next door. “He has to burn wood in it for three hours just to get it hot enough,” one of the residents said. “The smell when he’s making pizza is great, but not all of the smoke and the burning wood that goes with it.”
Damn this anonymous chef who was not interviewed for the story! Damn him and his individualistic ways, what with his pizza making and his laws of physics.
Robert Gavlik, of Andrus Drive, said that even the clay or metal chimeneas emit a lot of annoying smoke and odor. “We have to close our windows to keep the smell out of the house,” he said. “We’ve gone to great lengths to curtail cigarette smoking, but smoke coming into your house is more offensive.”
But fear not. This Heat Miser sees a potential strategy around state law and its contemptible concern for liberty:
Aldermanic Chairman Ben Blake, D-5, said the city’s ability to help may be limited. “I haven’t taken the temperature of the board on this, but some will warm to the idea of controlling them for public safety reasons.
Citizen! The Government commands you to stay indoors and eat your gruel. Emit no odors!
Crispy video: Pig in a box
This weekend in Miami my folks threw us a little engagement party and we roasted a pig in the backyard using a Caja China. What is a Caja China? Allow me to explain.
“Caja China” means Chinese box. Cubans engage in a bit of complimentary stereotyping and tend to call anything that’s inventive or ingenuous “Chinese”. Basically, it’s a way to cook a pig under a spit. It’s a stainless steel, aluminum, and wood box into which you put your pig. Coals go on top of the box’s lid and they radiate heat down onto the meat. I’m not sure why this is a good thing, but the result is a delicious pork roast.
My dad’s buddy, Cuco, was the chef in charge and he used his own home-made Caja china. A beautiful thing about Miami is that there are plenty of farms you can go to pick out your still-walking pig and take it home with you in a less-than-animated state. My dad brought home a lean 85-pounder which he marinated in mojo overnight. Cuco put the pig bottom-side down on the stainless steel interior of the box so that the skin receives direct heat only at the end of the cooking.
Cuco was an absolute trooper, braving a couple torrential downpours in his quest for porcine perfection. In the video you’ll see that halfway through Cuco opens the box and removes liquid that has been pooling in the pig’s main cavity. He does this so that the meat won’t stew. Another important step is making sure to remove the ash whenever you add more coal to ensure that it doesn’t block the heat. The box is opened one final time to flip the pig, exposing the not-yet-crispy skin. To get it deliciously crackling, Cuco’s secret is to brush it with saltwater. He says the salt draws moisture out of the skin so that the it crisps. Listen to the crackling when the pork is carved so you can hear just how damn crunchy it got. The meat, however, was succulent—truly crispy on the outside.
