Crispy Sliced Pork Shoulder In Garlic Oregano Marinade

Over the past couple of weeks I've done a few product reviews and not a lot of barbecue. Truth is that I haven't fired up the grill enough recently. That all changed last Saturday after I picked up some sliced pork shoulder from Sam and Sam's Meats down in Chester. That place rocks for cheap meats.

To create the marinade place the following ingredients into a mortal and pestle away.

1. Several cloves of garlic
2. Lots of dried oregano
3. Lots of kosher salt
4. Plenty of pepper
5. Splash of olive oil

Smear the mashed conconction all over your pork and let fester for at least an hour or two. More garlic the better.

To cue the pork, cook it using indirect heat for about an hour or so. 15 minutes before the pork is done position the skin side of your should towards the hot side of the grill to crisp it up.

Though the meat I bought was a little fatty, it was incredible. Served with some collards and beans and some homemade mofongo the meal was sealed. Don't forget the red wine.

Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce

I've been meaning to blog about this next product for a couple of weeks now. Al from Country Bob's Inc. sent myself and some lucky friends of mine, a couple of bottles of his Country Bob's All Purpose sauce. Bob Edison first perfected the recipe for this sauce in 1968. And as the label on the bottle states, its good on everything including Steak, Hamburgers, Chicken, Fries and Barbecue.

Though the thought of pouring Country Bob's All Purpose sauce all over french fries really intrigued me, for my review I decided to put it on some pork tenderloin and some ribs. To describe the general flavor I would say that this sauce is along the sames lines as A1 Steak Sauce. It is slightly sweeter than A1 and leaves a delicious tanginess on the back of the tongue. I can taste why they call it an all purpose sauce as this would make just about anything taste better. I will definitely try this on the next burgers I grill and hopefully track down some fries as well.

Country Bob's also make several other products including a Spicy All Purpose Sauce, Barbecue Sauce and a Seasoning Salt.

Thanks Country Bob's, please feel free to keep the samples coming!

Texas Red - From the makers of Ow!

As promised, here is the recipe for the winning chili of the West Chester South Borough Chili Competition. Thanks again to Ow! for competing and sharing the winning recipe.

Texas Red

¼ lb. suet, finely chopped
6 lbs. lean beef, coarsely cubed
1 cup chili powder (about 4 ½ oz)
2 T. crushed cumin seeds (or ground cumin)
2 T. ground oregano
2 T. salt
1 to 2 T. Ow! Chile Powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Q. beef stock (or canned broth)
½ cup masa harina (or cornmeal)
½ cup cold water

Fry suit in kettle until crisp. Add beef, about 1 lb. at a time, and brown, stirring as it cooks.
Remove each lb. after browning. When it’s all browned, return it to the kettle and add seasonings and stock or broth.
Cover and simmer 1 ½ - 2 hours. Skim off the fat.
Combine masa harina or cornmeal with cold water and stir thoroughly into chili. Simmer 30 more minutes.

Makes about 3 ¾ quarts.

Victory Brewing Co. 6th Annual Chili Competition

Yesterday, the BBQB had the honor of being one of the judges at the Victory Brewing Co. 6th Annual Chili Competition. The competitors were all employees of the brewery. In total there were at least 12 different entries. Each entry was scored on aroma, texture, appearance, originality and overall taste. While several of the competitors chose the more traditional route, a few took chili into an entirely different direction. One in particular that stood out was a tomatillo based chili by name of Tim's Tomatillo Chili (I hope I got the name right). In the end all of competitors did a really excellent job and of course there was plenty of fantastic Victory Beer to go around. Someone please correct me on the names but the judges favorite was Long Tall Chili and people's choice was Pocket's Chili. The judges all felt that the Long Tall Chili had a beautiful deep red chile color and the chunks of beef really put it over the top.

Pineapple Jerky From Jerky.com

As you know, I get contacted periodically by food vendors notifying me about their products. Doug from Jerky.com contacted me a few weeks ago about their line of gourmet jerkies. I asked to try some and Doug was gracious enough to send me a sample. Jerky.com has a wide selection of U.S. made Beef Jerky and meat snacks. They've even been featured on The Today Show.
At the time he was sold out of several of his products but said that he could send some of his Pineapple Jerky. The funny thing is that I thought I was going to receive some beef jerky cured in pineapple juice or something like that. When I received the package I was pleasantly surprised to find actual pineapple jerky slices. While I've tried a million jerkies I've never had this before. In my opinion, pineapple is one of the lions of the fruit kingdom so this was right up my alley. As you can imagine the "jerkyfication" of the pineapple concentrates the pineapple flavor and packs a delicious punch. While I ate the Jerky straight, I could imagine it would go well diced over some vanilla ice cream.
Now I will patiently wait for Jerky.com to send me more samples of the rest of their product line!

Valentine's Day? BBQB Here to Help

I get a lot of emails that usually read something to the effect "BBQB, I've been trying to run tail for months now but keep coming up short. What am I doing wrong?". My response is usually, "I have no idea." Today, however, I will try to provide some advice. Valentine's Day is right around corner and you can use this Hallmark holiday to impress a special someone.

I have done extensive research on women and concluded that you can almost never go wrong with flowers. Sorry Hershey, but only fools buy chocolate for girls. Do you really want her eating all of that chocolate? West Chester has several top notch florists to chose from but recently I went to West Chester Florist/Kati Mac Floral Designs on South High St. Its not a huge store but the people are very friendly and helpful. But even more convienient is the fact that they are located right next door to A Taste Of Olive. A Tast Of Olive is located on 40 S High St in West Chester PA. If you are someone that eats food on a daily basis I highly recommend stopping by there. The store specializes in high quality olive oils and vinegars. Even if you are culinarily challenged, my suggestion to you is that you plan a little romantic dinner with your honey.

All you need to do is pick up 2 bottles of red wine (3 bottles if you think she will want any), a few long stem red roses, a bottle of olive oil, and a baguette from Carlinos. While Carlino's can be a little pricey, their breads are very affordable and excellent. Pour a little bit of olive oil in a shallow dish and add a pinch of sea salt. If she is cool, then also add a pinch of garlic powder. That's it. Dip the bread into the olive and enjoy the wine. As for the dinner part of the dinner, if you know how to cook then I suggest grilling some salmon...otherwise get some takeout from Carlino's. Good luck.

Buck A Shuck

The best kept secret in West Chester, PA is Buck a Shuck night at Doc Magrogan's Oyster House. Every Monday night, every variety of oyster is only a dollar each. With anywhere between 8 and 12 varieties to choose from this is an oyster lover's dream. Though the oysters are served with cocktail and vinegar sauces, I find that just a pinch of lemon juice is all they really need.

As with every other time I have been their, I had an excellent experience there tonight. The wait staff was prompt and friendly and the $1 PBRs sealed the meal.

The 2009 Results Are In...

And the results are in. The winner of the First Annual West Chester South Borough Chili Competition was the entry from Ow! Products. While most competitors chose a more common approach, the guys from Ow! went with a more unique and traditional take on chili that blew the judges away. Even yours truly was able to admit that he had been out done.

I don't yet have the winning recipe but Ow! has promised to provide it to me this week. In general, the chili was made from chunks of beef, lamb, chiles and spices. They did not use any onions or tomatoes.

As for second place...well that would be the BBQB. Actually, I tied for second place. My silver medal performance is above.

For more information about Ow! Products go to http://www.owhot.com/. Presently, they are gearing up for the next Fiery Foods Festival at the end of this month. They'll be entering their Ow! Hot Chili Powder. I wish them the best.

First Annual West Chester South Borough Chili Competition

I'm excited to announce that the first annual West Chester South Borough Chili Competition kicked off today. The BBQB searched high and low and was able to hand pick some of the best cooks in Chester County. At the risk of embarrassing myself I have entered as well.
The offical judging ceremony will be held this evening and I will be sure to post the results along with the winning recipe.
At the moment I have checked in with all of the competitors and their chilis are looking good enough to eat.
Above is a shot of hopefully the winning batch of chili. I'll post the exact recipe later. It is basically a similar concoction to what I posted a couple of weeks ago.

Amateur Hour in 19382

Well I it was cold out the other day and I thought that I would experiment a bit and try to throw some homemade ravioli together. Boy, did I underestimate how difficult it is make your own ravioli. Anyways, here is what I did. I found a standard pasta dough recipe off of the internet and whipped it up. Next, I rolled it out as thin as I could (even that was difficult). The filling mixture that I put together was as follows:

1. Half pound of ground pork
2. 1 egg
3. 1 bulb of roasted garlic
4. Salt + Pepper

I haven't actually tried them yet but I am hoping that they are dynamite since it took so darn long to make so little! Hopefully I'm get to try them tomorrow night (Friday)

Twitter Me Hungry

I started playing around with Twitter and got to thinking, was it enough for me to share my grilling ideas with the public? No way Jose. One of life's great mysteries is what does the BBQB eat on a regular basis. Certainly he can't 'cue every meal. Therefore I have decided to Twitter what I eat. I doubt I'll be able to track every morsel but if you look to the right side of the blog you will get a glimpse of the massive amounts of calories that the BBQB processes throughout the day.

The interesting thing is that now that I know the world is watching I'll try to keep the food quality up and the alcohol consumation down (mom reads this too).

Follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/bbqbachelor .