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It Started Innocently Enough
Aug. 7th, 2002 02:11 pmChris and Dan sent me several packets of seasonings from Australia which, of course, made me giggle and clap my happy hands together. I live for shit like this, and they know it, and they seem happy to oblige me. Yay.
Some of the ingredients are a little dubious. I had to look up Lemon Myrtle, which turns out to be a rare, endangered plant. Hmm. Definitely gotta try that. So I pan-fried a salmon fillet, using one of the packets as a dry rub.
Okay, that's a big "NO" on the Outback Blend, and the jury is still out on Rainforest Season and Desert Cajun Rub, the latter of which sounds the most promising, possibly because it sounds the least authentic. I will get to them soon.
But I shouldn't be pan-frying with these. I should be mixing them into marinades, and grilling with them. I feel very strongly about this. However, the idea of firing up the big Weber in the backyard just for myself is sort of depressing, and definitely wasteful, so that got me thinking about buying a little hibachi— I used to own one, and I used it just about every damn day when I had it— and this in turn got me thinking about lump charcoal.
Just a little insight there.
I'm very keen to try lump charcoal. Lump charcoal is natural, with no fillers or additives to keep it pressed into cheerful, pillowy briquette-shapes, so no funky flavors are involved. At least, that's the normal selling point. I'm made happiest by the fact that chunks of lump charcoal are misshapen and weird and sooty as all hell. This somehow equals "better" to me. I feel that these years of using briquettes have somehow robbed me of an essential pleasure, and I must undo the damage. Lump charcoal will make it all better.
Assuming, of course, that I can find the damned stuff. A week of search engines and phone calls taught me that every state in the union has easy access to lump charcoal, but California hasn't quite clued in yet. In Texas, bring your own burlap sack, and a guy will shovel it out of the back of his pickup truck for you. That's how it should be.
A couple of quick asides.
1. Have you seen the Kingsford commercial? The one where all these Texan barbecue cook-off contestants all talk about how they use Kingsford briquettes, and nothing else? Well, they're lying. Total horseshit. Kingsford makes a good briquette, but those cook-off guys are using lump charcoal. Bitch, please.
2. If you're reading this, smugly satisfied that you don't bother yourself with charcoal because you own a gas grill, then I strongly encourage you to wheel that grill out of the garage, clean it up, and sell it on Ebay. Because, my friend, if you're using a gas grill, you aren't grilling, and you aren't barbecuing. You're gassing. That's what nazis do. Burger King uses gas grills, for crying out loud.
I was having so much trouble finding lump charcoal, that I started researching how to make it myself. This is sensible behavior to me, and in line with my conviction that if cooking with an ingredient is fun, then making that ingredient is even more fun. This is how Matthew finds his refrigerator full of 400 bottles of catsup, and at least two dozen varieties of mayonnaise, at any time.
Another quick aside: Ever make blackjack? It's also known as "baker's caramel," and it's used to enrich or deepen the color of anything that you don't want to overcook. Think pumpernickel, or rye breads. You make blackjack, interestingly enough, by burning the fuck out of sugar in the bottom of a pan that has obviously fallen out of favor. It's a scary process, because your every cooking instinct tells you that you're doing something very, very wrong.
As far as I'm concerned, lump charcoal is just another ingredient, and I learned that not only is it easy to make, but the process involves other profound loves of mine— namely, banging the shit out of things with hammers and cold chisels, and burning things.
At this point, it is understandable for Chris and Dan to be mildly alarmed.
What you do is cut the top off of a 55-gallon drum, and punch some holes in the bottom. Set it on some bricks, start a fire inside, and when it's going nice and hot, load the drum up with hardwood. Cover the top, leaving a small vent, and let the whole thing smolder until the smoke turns from white (water vapor,) to blue (phenols,) to yellow (your neighborhood.) At this point, seal up all the vents, and wait for the drum to cool down. The result is a year's worth of kick-ass barbecuing. Imagine my excitement.
Sadly, in the process of finding a 55-gallon drum and some hardwood, I found a vendor who specializes in lump charcoal. Phooey.
I'm going to swing by there today, and buy myself a modest sack of it. I've also decided that a Smokey Joe would be better than a hibachi, because I can both barbecue and grill with the Smokey Joe, while the hibachi is just good for grilling.
A sack of charcoal, and a Smokey Joe. How boring. How pedestrian. How bourgeois. I never get to do anything.
I bet neither of them stand any chance of exploding.
Some of the ingredients are a little dubious. I had to look up Lemon Myrtle, which turns out to be a rare, endangered plant. Hmm. Definitely gotta try that. So I pan-fried a salmon fillet, using one of the packets as a dry rub.
Okay, that's a big "NO" on the Outback Blend, and the jury is still out on Rainforest Season and Desert Cajun Rub, the latter of which sounds the most promising, possibly because it sounds the least authentic. I will get to them soon.
But I shouldn't be pan-frying with these. I should be mixing them into marinades, and grilling with them. I feel very strongly about this. However, the idea of firing up the big Weber in the backyard just for myself is sort of depressing, and definitely wasteful, so that got me thinking about buying a little hibachi— I used to own one, and I used it just about every damn day when I had it— and this in turn got me thinking about lump charcoal.
Just a little insight there.
I'm very keen to try lump charcoal. Lump charcoal is natural, with no fillers or additives to keep it pressed into cheerful, pillowy briquette-shapes, so no funky flavors are involved. At least, that's the normal selling point. I'm made happiest by the fact that chunks of lump charcoal are misshapen and weird and sooty as all hell. This somehow equals "better" to me. I feel that these years of using briquettes have somehow robbed me of an essential pleasure, and I must undo the damage. Lump charcoal will make it all better.
Assuming, of course, that I can find the damned stuff. A week of search engines and phone calls taught me that every state in the union has easy access to lump charcoal, but California hasn't quite clued in yet. In Texas, bring your own burlap sack, and a guy will shovel it out of the back of his pickup truck for you. That's how it should be.
A couple of quick asides.
1. Have you seen the Kingsford commercial? The one where all these Texan barbecue cook-off contestants all talk about how they use Kingsford briquettes, and nothing else? Well, they're lying. Total horseshit. Kingsford makes a good briquette, but those cook-off guys are using lump charcoal. Bitch, please.
2. If you're reading this, smugly satisfied that you don't bother yourself with charcoal because you own a gas grill, then I strongly encourage you to wheel that grill out of the garage, clean it up, and sell it on Ebay. Because, my friend, if you're using a gas grill, you aren't grilling, and you aren't barbecuing. You're gassing. That's what nazis do. Burger King uses gas grills, for crying out loud.
I was having so much trouble finding lump charcoal, that I started researching how to make it myself. This is sensible behavior to me, and in line with my conviction that if cooking with an ingredient is fun, then making that ingredient is even more fun. This is how Matthew finds his refrigerator full of 400 bottles of catsup, and at least two dozen varieties of mayonnaise, at any time.
Another quick aside: Ever make blackjack? It's also known as "baker's caramel," and it's used to enrich or deepen the color of anything that you don't want to overcook. Think pumpernickel, or rye breads. You make blackjack, interestingly enough, by burning the fuck out of sugar in the bottom of a pan that has obviously fallen out of favor. It's a scary process, because your every cooking instinct tells you that you're doing something very, very wrong.
As far as I'm concerned, lump charcoal is just another ingredient, and I learned that not only is it easy to make, but the process involves other profound loves of mine— namely, banging the shit out of things with hammers and cold chisels, and burning things.
At this point, it is understandable for Chris and Dan to be mildly alarmed.
What you do is cut the top off of a 55-gallon drum, and punch some holes in the bottom. Set it on some bricks, start a fire inside, and when it's going nice and hot, load the drum up with hardwood. Cover the top, leaving a small vent, and let the whole thing smolder until the smoke turns from white (water vapor,) to blue (phenols,) to yellow (your neighborhood.) At this point, seal up all the vents, and wait for the drum to cool down. The result is a year's worth of kick-ass barbecuing. Imagine my excitement.
Sadly, in the process of finding a 55-gallon drum and some hardwood, I found a vendor who specializes in lump charcoal. Phooey.
I'm going to swing by there today, and buy myself a modest sack of it. I've also decided that a Smokey Joe would be better than a hibachi, because I can both barbecue and grill with the Smokey Joe, while the hibachi is just good for grilling.
A sack of charcoal, and a Smokey Joe. How boring. How pedestrian. How bourgeois. I never get to do anything.
I bet neither of them stand any chance of exploding.
