Pork Pork

This weekend we picked up a 190 lb. hog from the fine folks at Bear Creek Farm.

Here is what we did with it.



36 hour sous vide pork belly that was deep fried to crisp the skin



mortadella di bologna



22 hour slow smoked pork shoulder




smoked rack of loin



slaws and watermelon/heirloom tomato salad



pop tarts made with leaf lard from the pig



new tv setup to watch college football

Asado Pig for Mule Day

Stove Monkeys T-Shirt Giveaway: Caption Contest

Our friends at Stove Monkeys have some of the best food related t-shirts around, and you could be the lucky recipient of one. We are giving away this 'I Love Pork' shirt to someone out there on the interwebs. All you have to do is come up with a funny caption for this picture:


Damn you public healthcare!
Then post it in the comments and also tweet @StoveMonkeys or post on the Stove Monkeys facebook page. We will select a winner on Friday July 15th at 10am. Good Luck.

Cochon de Lait

Joe York and the SFA are at it again. To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish is the latest mini-doc by the duo that just debuted last weekend at the Big Apple BBQ in New York. The film documents the tradition of Cochon de Lait in the small parish of Avoyelles. I'm pretty sure no one had ever heard of a cochon de lait in New York, but after watching this mini-doc, I doubt they will ever stop dreaming about it.

To learn more about a cochon de lait and a coon ass microwave, watch
To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish.

To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

Butchering a Hog

I have been interested in hog butchering for a while now. I finally bucked up and bought a half of a hog from Fudge Family Farms, and I did some basement butchering. Here are some of the photos I took.


We picked up the hog in Lexington, TN. I used an old chest freezer and 200# of ice.



First, I deboned the leg into three roast. All the scraps went into sausage.



I cut the shoulder into the butt and picnic. I used the butt for pulled pork and the picnic for sausage.



The loin was split in half length wise. The bottom portion is where I got the spare ribs and the pork belly. I then cut the tenderloin off and made 2-3 inch pork chops from the rest of the loin. The hardest part was getting that backbone off without a band saw, but a clever and a hammer got the job done.



The head, tails, and trotters went into head cheese.



headcheese



Here is a shot of the bbq pork belly. I braised it for 2-2.5 hours and then finished it on the hot grill.

I don't have a picture of it, but I made pimento cheese sausage that was damn good.

National Pig Day

Happy National Pig Day

Winchester 2008 Report

The 21st Annual High On The Hog Tennessee State BBQ Championship
Winchester City Park, Franklin County, Tennessee
April 18-19, 2008

This was the third year for Ulika to head into Winchester, the home of the team's competitive debut in 2006. Always a favorite and nostalgic event for the team, High on the Hog regularly brings out some the country's best competitors. With the loss of Fred Gould (the much loved and highly respected original Winchester contest rep), there was certainly sadness around the event, but there was also great excitement as the field was stacked with 52 teams ready to compete in the traditional four meat categories along with the "Creative Sausage" (sponsored by Wampler's), "Anything But" and Dessert ancillaries.

High on the Hog is a larger scale event as it includes a Kids-Q competition (watch for future Jr. Ulika domination), a live band on Friday night (watch for a full report from BP), a field of local vendors and a full scale carnival complete with midway games, rides and the all important carnival food. This year, the weather was much better than it had been in years past as a few brief hours of rain on Friday night were nothing compared to the biblical downpour that took place for three days straight in 2006. It was mostly sunny and warm with a little wind, and all in all a nice weekend.

Ulika was thrilled to receive its highest number of stage calls this year, taking 5th Place in Chicken, 9th Place in Ribs, 7th Place in Brisket and 7th Place Overall.

Congratulations to Grand Champion Bareknuckles BBQ and Reserve Grand Champion Team Bobby-Q! Visit the KCBS High on the Hog Event Page to view the full results.


Winchester 2008: Ron Harwell visits the Ulika tent to check out the Stumps.


finishing the chicken


sampling pork pieces


pulled pork


the "Sea Ray" pirate ship ride


the spinner


the ferris wheel


Despite the ever-attentive ride operators and that comforting accreditation by the West Virginia board of amusement and thrill rides, team Ulika members chose not to ride any of the attractions.


Congrats to Team Bobby-Q on Reserve Grand!


Congratulations to Wade and the Scenic City Smokers on that first place finish in pork! What a way to debut!


We're pleased to own our first HOTH cutting board - a few particular Ulika team members have coveted these for three years now.

"Let's Smoke Some Butts, C'mon"

Hello Monkeys. This week's jam comes courtesy of those 90's kings of indie rock, Pavement.

Same Way of Saying was a tossed-off demo from the sessions for their masterpiece, Crooked Rain Crooked Rain. However, it did get released to the people on the album's reissue in '05, which is a two disc affair with loads of demos and b-sides.

The reason for including this tune is the phrase in the first chorus, "Let's smoke some butts, Steve/Let's smoke some butts, c'mon..." Now given the band's slacker image and Northern California/NYC roots, I honestly doubt Stephen Malkmus is singing of the joys of dropping a big ole' pork shoulder onto the Stumps cooker, but does it really matter? For me it always reminds me of that inaugural Ulika season of BBQ competition. Good times, indeed. Here's to the '08 season!

Oh and for the easily offended, please note that there's an F-bomb dropped here or there in the tune.

Pavement - Same Way of Saying

ps I used to own that Pavement shirt pictured above in 9th grade. However, my bitchy English teacher, Ms. Jones, made me wear it inside out, given the fact that it kinda looks like boobs. I guess it does, but that's besides the point. She also made my friend Adam Fargason ditch a Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bullocks" t-shirt stating, "I've been to England several times; I know what that means." What can you say? Just good ole' Alabama public schools.

Ulika Weekend Action

This past weekend was a trial run for a contest that we have in two weeks. It has been six months since our last competition and we needed to knock the rust off. I also needed to get the timing down with the Stumps and the Egg.

Surprisingly, I had no problems with my timing, but I was really off on my chicken and I will probably need to practice some more chicken before Clarksville rolls around. Focusing on the other meats this off-season has caused my chicken to slip a little. However, I should be able to hone in my chicken technique with two weeks left. I was pleased with how the pork turned out and the ribs and brisket were on par. I will need to kick it up a notch or two in Clarksville to get a call in any of the categories. We are really looking forward to getting back on the competition trail and seeing some familiar faces.









Kind of as an "anything butt" on Friday night, friends Patrick, Sarah and baby Jack stopped by to stir up some stir fry on the Egg. Patrick is an Iron Chef of sorts, and stir fry is one of his specialties. He brought over the wok and we fired up the Egg for a molten hot cooking surface. Our stir fry dish consisted of bok choy, mung bean sprouts, cabbage, shallots, broccoli, carrots, ginger, garlic and scallion for garnish. For our protein, we went with chicken and pork medallions that were tossed in some secret Asian sauces (which he left in my refrigerator...not so secret anymore!). Our starch choices were white rice, fried rice, and lo mein noodles. Check out the Gilliam blog for their side of the story.

Iron Chef Patrick Gilliam cooks up some stir fry as Deezy eagerly awaits

My wife also took the opportunity to practice some dessert entries. On Friday night we were treated to a Bananas Foster. This dish was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and while it was more than excellent, we decided that it wouldn't work with the time delays in a contest setting as the dish would be a puddle of cream by the time it reached the judges. On Saturday, the traditional dessert turn-in time was met with some Banana Pudding. In the south, you will often find this pudding as a primary dessert at bbq restaurants. Its smooth texture with the crunch of the Nilla Wafers makes for a perfect complement to the bbq meats. Sarah snapped a few pictures of the Bananas Foster prep, but by the time we reached for the camera on Saturday, the only pudding image that would have been left was that of Deezy licking the bowl.

When Sunday rolled around, I combined the best of both worlds and made brisket fried rice. It was absolutely fabulous. I have determined that brisket is the most versatile of the four competition meats (considering chicken is limited to the thighs). Brisket works great with eggs, in a taco, with fried rice, on pizza, in beans, with cheese and peppers on a hoagie, and in many more applications.

First Cook on the Stumps

Ulika Outdoor Kitchen

This weekend was the inaugural cook on the new Stumps cooker. I started out easy and cooked four pork butts.

I started the smoker on Friday evening at about 6:30 and had the butts on around 8:30. When I filled the charcoal chute, I mixed in some wood chunks and I added some to the fire box as well every hour for the first two hours. Then - here's the best part - I went to bed at 10:30 and slept until 5:30. In the past, with my stick burner smoker, the terms sleeping and cooking were never used in the same sentence.

I prepared the butts the same way that I would for a competition, doing some testing with the difference between foiling and not foiling. I foiled three of the butts and let one stay on the smoker unfoiled. The butt that was not foiled had a great bark and was very flavorful, but I was surprisingly pleased with the bark on the foiled butts as well. Sometimes in foiling, the moist environment can cause the bark to not set properly, but the bark on the foiled butts was really good. I was pretty happy with the butts overall. The flavor profile that I was going for worked out and I believe that the more cooking and seasoning that the Stumps gets is only going to give me more flavor.

Next week, I will be working on cooking briskets. Thanks to Pat Martin (visit his blog and his bbq joint), I have a new brisket supplier. Pat put me in touch with Dalton Garner of PFG and he is going to be getting me Certified Black Angus briskets from CreekStone Farms. Hopefully I will have a sample brisket for next weekend and I will deliver a full report.

Here are a few pictures: