Food, Wine & Just Good Living With SaucyJoe

It started with a love of food, wine & fun and blossomed into a maddening pursuit of the best recipes, techniques, grills, smokers, wines, crafted beers, rubs, marinades and sauces... We do more than play with our meat though -- we review and discuss all things cooking, drinking, reading, laughing and living at SaucyJoe's.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Frog NOT! Stew

Dr. Dave is not too proud of himself this morning. The shrimp boil was not successful. These platitudes come to mind:

1. Patience is a virtue.
2. A watched pot never boils.
3. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Do you know how long it takes 25 quarts of water to boil? I don't. The watched pot never did boil. Something else; they call it a shrimp boil for a reason. The key word is: BOIL! Boiling water has so much cooking energy. Hot water does not. I was running out of time.

While I was watching the pot not boil, my helpers were cutting up potatoes and corn. I had just brought a full bag of potatoes, intending to cut up twelve of them. Instead, the whole bag was dissected. Way too many potatoes! It's my fault for giving inadequate instructions.

So...I added too many potatoes to non-boiling water...which continued to not boil. After too short a time, I added the corn, mushrooms, onions and peppers. All of those can steep pretty well in hot, but not boiling!, water. Finally I added the shrimp.

When the shrimp turned pink (natural thermometers), I pulled the basket of food out of the pot ready (not!) to serve. The corn, peppers, onions and shrimp had cooked. The potatoes had not. I out them back in the non-boiling water, and they still came out hard.

So the shrimp non-boil was a non-success.


Lessons learned:

1. Get there early-If I had shown up two hours early, maybe the water would had boiled.
2. Do your own food preparation. I would have kept the amount of potatoes to a minimum.
3. Follow the recipe! Don't start cooking until the water boils!

Also, do you know how many beers it takes to make a pot of water boil. I do, but I can't remember. My nephew Drew Ayling had to chauffer me home. Thanks Drew!

I think I'll stick to smoking for the rest of the weekend.

Dr. Dave

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Wandering of a BBQ Mind

Well, The Dr. survived Relays, just barely. The BBQ was received with acclaim. As a last minute addition, I smoked some hot legs (see the Saucy Joes blogspot archives) which I warmed in a crock pot, then transported on the floor of my '93 Lincoln Mark VIII the whole way to DesMoines (torture!). The long marination in a combination of BBQ sauces and Dr. Dave's BM Tonic made these legs dangerous. The fun activities, the Relays and the fabulous company made this a terrific 3 days.

On to other opportunities to smoke some big meat...

Today, I am smoking two briskets. One is going with our fabulous daughter-in-law back to Dayton, OH as a welcoming dinner for son Gregory who is finishing up his tour in Iraq. The second will be consumed tonight.

Next weekend is a shrimp boil, setting up for graduation of nephew Addison Ardolino later in the month where the quantities increase without a decrease in taste. Other graduations promise opportunities to smoke big meat.

Chronicles to follow. Enjoy your late spring!

Dr. Dave