BARBECUE MEAT AND THREE RIBS WINGS AND DRUMS

 Barbecue Cooking Big Green Egg Recipes

Slow hickory smoked and basted ribs, wings and drums with three sides of creamed corn, potato salad and burnt ends smokey barbecue beans.

Now I understand meat and two or meat and three!  Being a brit my first experience of authentic barbecue was at a pit called Nancy’s in Sarasota, unfortunately I’ve not made it to the south yet!  Nancy’s award winning pit barbecue is cooked over wood and served from a disused fuel station with a lanni covering the forecourt and basic wooden picnic bench’s 

There I was standing in a long line not knowing how to order, confused by the options, holding up the long que (I mean it really is not rocket science, but it might as well have been), the servers took pity on this fumbling holiday maker and guided me for a meat and three, this still made no sense, but I ended up with awesome brisket, ribs, sausage, Mac n cheese, the best barbecue beans ever and corn, ta-da meat and three.

RIBS

Set up your smoker to a constant 110-120 C / 230-250 F

What is the 3-2-1 Cooking Method?

Indirect Cooking

Quite simply 3 hours smoking at 110-120 C / 233-250 F, then dry rubbed again and wrapped in a double Texas crutch for 2 hours and finally out of the Texas crutch and back on the grill baste and sop regularly for 1 hour and now you have glorious tender smokey basted ribs that are just clinging to the bone, but not over cooked and falling off the bone.

Cooking time 5-6 hours

Ingredients

Whole rack of baby back ribs per person

1 bottle french’s hot dog mustard

200ml apple juice per rib

Barbecue Dry Rub

7 tbsp dark brown molasses sugar

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp dried chipotle flakes

1 tbsp dried ancho flakes

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

Mix all the ingredients together well, store in a ball mason jar.

Texas Style Barbecue Sauce

1 cup tomato ketchup 

2/3 cup molasses brown sugar

3 glugs Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp chipotle powder

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

200ml Coke

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and simmer until desired consistency.

The Jack Daniels Maple Sopping Sauce

200ml Jack Daniels 

300ml maple syrup

25 ml molasses 

1 tbsp tamarind or lime juice

3 tbsp honey

Whisk all the ingredients until combined, pour in to a squirt sopping bottle or bowl for dipping your sopping brush in.

Fire Up Your Big Green Egg Set For Indirect Cooking

How ever you start your smoker /grill fire up (I fill my fire box to the top as my fire starts in the middle and slowly burns outward giving me up to 12hrs hours of slow heat controlled cooking) once your fire is established bring the temperature down to 110-120 C / 230-250 F, using your air vents to control the heat.  

Air flow = temperature control, more air flow = more heat, less air less heat.

Ribs 3 - 2 - 1

Remove your ribs from the fridge 1 hour before smoking.

Do Not Skip This Step

Remove the silver skin membrane from the back of the ribs, to do this slip a small knife tip under the the thick skin membrane on the first bone, lever up gently, take some paper roll and hold the lifted skin and peel off the rib, this silver skin normally comes away in one strip.  If you leave the skin on it constricts while cooking pulling the rib tight and it is like eating a rubbery skin on your tender rib, not nice.

Cooking Ribs No: 3

Rub your ribs generously with mustard then the barbecue rub.

Next add one hickory wood chunk or chips to your smoker.

Place the ribs  in you smoker for 3 hours, I like to rotate my ribs by 90 degrees half way through, if cooking on a rack rotate 180 degrees.

Cooking Ribs No: 2

The Texas Crutch

Take two sheets of foil and one sheet of butchers paper or baking paper, lay the butchers paper on top of the two sheets of foil, place the rib in the center, generously baste the rib all over with your barbecue sauce, bring the edges of the foil up to start to make a bowl, pour in the apple juice and gently fold the top of the foil over to create a tent around the ribs.

Place back in your smoker for 1-2 hours.  After 1 hour check the ribs for tenderness, keep cooking for up to 2 hours, you don’t want the meat to actually fall off the bone, your looking for a presentable rib that the bone easily pulls cleanly away from the meat.

Cooking Ribs No: 1 

Final bark

I increase the heat in my smoker at this point to 200 C / 395 F.  This is not essential but I like a good bark on my ribs, Unwrap your ribs and place back in your smoker, now I get to sopping with my maple bourbon glaze every 10 minutes along with a additional baste of barbecue sauce, at a higher heat this stage can be as quick as 20 - 30 minutes.

minutes.

That’s it now enjoy this beautiful rack of ribs.

Drums French Trimmed

Oh boy these are glorious, so juicy so flavoursome with a marinated barbecue spice rub and a bourbon sopping glaze these will have your family or guests absolutely delighted.

Ingredients 

(serves 4)

8 chicken drumsticks

4 tbsp barbecue seasoning rub

(homemade rub recipe above)

150ml bourbon barbecue sauce

(homemade recipe above)

To turn the chicken drumsticks in to lolly pops, simply chop off the narrow end top knuckle bone about 1/4 of a inch, this will leave a straight bone handle, next to clean the bone handle make a cut to the bone about 1-2 inches down the drumstick all the way round, pull the skin up and off the drumstick leaving you with a clean trimmed bone.

To level of the bottom of the drumstick so the lolly pop can stand upright simply cut the bone at the bottom straight.  Smooth the skin down the drumstick to the base of the drumstick. 

Toss the drums in your barbecue dry rub.  Heat your grill to 230 C / 446 F.  I cooked these with indirect heat.  Stand the lolly pops upright and cook for 20 minutes, now start to sopping your drums with the gorgeous glaze, you can dip and roll them or sop, do this every few minutes for the next 10 minutes until they are cooked to 75C / 167 F, take off the grill and serve immediately.

Wings

Ingredients 

(serves 2)

1 kg fresh chicken wings, flats and drums

2 150ml bottle  Cholula green pepper hot sauce

1 whole bulb garlic peeled and finely sliced

50ml olive oil

100g salted butter room temperature

1 tbsp chopped coriander optional

Method

Marinate the wings with one bottle of hot sauce for at least 1 hour or overnight in the fridge for more depth of flavour.  Fire up your grill I cooked these beauties on indirect heat so that my smoker would maximise the flavour of the barbecue, maintain your heat at around 180 C / 350 F and cook turning occasionally for around 20 minutes until juices run clear when pricked.  Cook over direct heat if you want more of a charred flavour instead of smoke.

Heat the olive oil medium and sauté the garlic until a nutty and chewy not crispy, remove from the oil and place in a large tossing bowl along with the butter and coriander.  Once the wings are cooked add these to the bowl and toss well to coat, pour over some more green pepper hot sauce to your likin and dig in!

BRISKET COWBOY BURNT ENDS BAKED BEANS

Texas Style Barbecue Sauce

1 cup Heinz tomato ketchup 

2/3 cup molasses brown sugar

3 glugs old Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp chipotle powder

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

(reserved brisket juices optional)

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and gently simmer until thick.

Cowboy Beans

500g diced brisket barbecue burnt ends

2 cans Heinz or bush baked beans

100g diced pancetta

100g dark brown sugar

1 cup of your homemade barbecue sauce (above)

2 cups of your diced brisket and some burnt ends

75 ml Jack daniels

Fresh ground black pepper

Pan sear the pancetta until just crispy, add to a deep saucepan along with the rest of the ingredients and bring to a gentle simmer cook until piping hot, serve with a spoon!

Creamed Corn

Ingredients 

1 large can of sweetcorn reserving the juice

1 glug olive oil

1 small onion finely diced

1/2 cup pickled jalapeño diced

300ml double cream

1/3 cup fresh chopped coriander

1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a pan on a medium heat, add the onions and gently soften for 10 minutes without colouring, add the corn and cook for a further 5 minutes, add the jalapeños, reserved corn juice and simmer the juice until reduced by two thirds, add the cream, coriander and black pepper and bring to a rolling simmer for 1 minute until the cream has thickened, take off the heat, this is great served either hot or cold.

Potato Salad

Ingredients 

500g new potatoes 

1 tbsp sea salt

4 tbsp mayonnaise 

1 pinch fresh ground black pepper

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley 

Sea salt to taste

Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water along with the tbsp of salt, bring to a rolling simmer and cook the potatoes until fork tender, drain and leave to cool partially, chop in half.  In a bowl mix the mayonnaise, black pepper and parsley then toss through the new potatoes, coating well, taste and add salt if needed.