Smoked Meat: Part 2

Talk about a cliff-hanger! Here, some five months later, is the result of the great smoked meat experiment.

As you may recall, this summer I was fiddling with brisket trying to find the right recipe to properly cure a hunk of humble cow meat into a glistening, salty smoked meat. And, it worked! Here are the glorious pics to prove it.

Here's the brisket, just before going in the Smoky Mountain Cooker (and two weeks after sitting in a cure in my basement fridge). 

Here it is, ready to undergo its glorious transformation. I smoked it for seven hours at about 200 degrees Celsius. Sounds time-consuming, I know, but I actually prefer longer smokes. The longer cook time means that small fluctuations in heat have less impact on the final product (unlike a shorter cook, like smoked salmon, where 15 minutes of a really hot flare-up could dry out the fish). 

 

I opted for maple this time around. Mostly because it's local, but also because I'm a patriot at heart. I usually toss two chunks in at the beginning (when the uncooked meat will soak up the smoke best), but in this case I added just one -- cause it was big.  (I also added some berbere that I picked up in Ethiopia last year to the spices included in the cure, because I'm sentimental that way.) 

This pic and the one below were taken at about the half-way mark I think. I know this because there's been some tell-tale evidence of sampling on the business end of the brisket, which usually happens when curious neighbours saunter by lured in by the wafts of spicy smoke. 

And here we are at Hour 7. It's dark and smoky -- with that characteristic red colour. Yum. 

After letting it sit for an hour or so, I steamed it for another hour (yes -- there's another step). I recommend not skipping the steaming if you try this out. It's the traditional way to do it and infuses some much-needed moisture back into the meat. Below are some blurry photos of the finished product. Sorry, but my hands were trembling in anticipation.

Voila. This was definitely the best attempt yet at traditional Montreal style smoked meat. Well-marbled, fatty, and succulent. It was so good, I'm preparing another as we speak to serve as Christmas presents this year. Give the gift of smoke!  
 

What are you smoking? Bacon and smoked meat

My original plan a couple of weekends ago was to get some bacon and smoked meat ready for July 1 (or Canada Day as we Canadians call it in Canada, where I live). But then my wife went and had our baby early (Charles aka Charlie, was 7 lbs 6 ounces. And thank you for asking) which scuppered my meat plans. But a handsome healthy baby boy, right? Yay!

Now that he's a week or so old it's time for me to get back to business, which means whipping up some bacon and smoked meat. Each take a while to cure (5-7 days for bacon, two weeks for smoked meat) so I figured I'd offer up a step-by-step process here on the blog.

I know I already featured my bacon recipe here, but I feel like I missed some elements in the process so I'm going to do it again. Plus, I've started selling it by the pound so if you can't stop drooling when you read these posts you know where to go to get your fix. (i.e., Me.)

Here's the curing ingredients (which can be found here) all ready to go...



Here's the raw pork belly (each piece is about 1 kilogram, or two pounds)...

And here's the belly rubbed with the cure ingredients....

And yes, those are juniper berries. One day I'm going to roll up one of these and dry it into pancetta.....if my wife would let me that is. 

Now on to the Mickey Mantle of my smoking repertoire, smoked meat. It took me a few tries to get the hang of this, but man is it worth the effort. Last fall I took some of this on a camping trip in Eastern Ontario and the guys I was with were nutty for it. Even one Montrealer, who declared it better than Schwartz's (take that Celine!).

Anyways, it all starts with the cure/spices. In this case I deployed a mix of pepper, coriander, mustard seed, chili flakes, dill weed, celery seed, sugar, and some berbere (a traditional spice that I picked up when I was in Ethiopia last Fall which I seem to add to everything these days).

I then took the spice rub and mashed it into the brisket, in this case a 12-13 pound whopper.

 
I then slipped in the fridge in my basement, where it with sit for no less than 14 days, after which it will re-emerge Phoenix-like, into a glorious, luxurious, succulent hunk of meat.

Here's something that's worth saying about the lure of smoking your own meats: it's cheap. That brisket cost me $50, about $9/kg, which is a deal compared to the store-bought slush they try and pass off as smoked meat these days. Even factoring in the shrinkage that occurs in the smoking process, there'll be enough meat on this to make a couple of dozen sandwiches (or a camp full of hung-over men). 

I'll check in one these in the coming week or so and update you on how they're doing.