Smoked Salmon redux, 7/29/25

 

Oops we did it again.  Another 8.4 lbs of salmon went into our little bullet smoker and came out like this.  Scrumptious stuff.  The Hatch chili peppers arrived home a bit late, so they get their own little smoke session after we pulled the fish.  The fish came off much easier with my big brisket shovel.  That contented sigh you hear every evening about dinner time will be coming from our kitchen.

BBQ Grill Mitts

 

My wife's nephew brought me a pair of these to use with our smoker.  I think they will work fine with brisket, ribs, sausage, steaks, veggies, burgers, and most of the stuff we smoke or grill.  What they do not work well with is fish.  My first attempt to use these was on some big salmon filets and they were just too tender to pick up.  I got them all up, but we lost some of that great salmon because it was just falling apart tender.  Still, it is an interesting idea and I will use these on other stuff in the future.

Basically, they are like two big rubber tortillas with handles on the back.  

smoked salmon, 7/26/25

 

So my Mrs. found salmon for what passes as a sale these days, $5.97/lb, and snapped up a couple of fresh filets.  About 8 1/2 pounds worth.  That's all that will fit on our little smoker.  She may go back and grab a couple more before it goes off sale on Tuesday and we'll do a repeat.  Fresh Hatch peppers were also in, so she grabbed a few of those to go in with the salmon.  Yeah, I know, THAT'S NOT BBQ!, but it sure is good.  2 hours on the smoker and we'll be smiling.

Brisket nachos, 7/24/25

 

sampled 7/24/25

Well, you knew I would have to eat some BBQ on the 20th anniversary of this BBQ blog, and you were right.  We just happened to have the last part of the flat from a brisket we smoked a couple of weeks ago, so I sliced it up to make BBQ nachos.  This has become one of our favorite things to do with the last of a brisket.

We start with tortilla chips, add refried beans, chopped onions, brisket, and top with extra sharp cheddar cheese.  Pop them in the oven at 300 for 6 or 7 minutes until the cheese gets melty.  It's a party in your mouth!

20 years of BBQ, today!

It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band....  Wait, no.  It was 20 years ago today that Scott and I started driving around Texas to eat BBQ.  Scott is out of the country this week so we celebrated the last couple of weeks with 10 straight days of BBQ.  

Here's a few numbers from the first 20 years.  I have made 714 posts to this BBQ blog, most with photos. Lots of photos.  We have visited at least 164 different BBQ joints, some many times.  We attended 52 different BBQ Festivals or cookoffs which had more than 743 restaurants or teams represented.  It is probably way more than that, because I didn't count the places at 16 different events.  Probably well over 1000 samples in total.  Now of course, at festivals and cookoffs, there is a lot of duplication because many joints appeared at many different festivals.  Still, that's a lot of BBQ.

The most blogged about restaurant in those 20 years has been Green's Texas Bar-B-Que in Euless, Texas.  They have never made Texas Monthly's top 50, or even top 100 list.  I sort of have mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I wish Don Green would get the recognition he deserves.  His food is every bit as good as the top joints in Texas.  On the other hand, I don't want to have to start waiting in line at 6 am to get some of his great food.  I suspect he really doesn't want any more business than he has now, anyway.  He sells out every Saturday.

After Green's, the most blogged about joints include Black's and Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Pecan Lodge in Dallas, City Market in Luling, Dayne's 3 different locations in Fort Worth and Aledo, and The Original Roy Hutchin's in Trophy Club.  Roy's is a fairly recent addition, but they have a big advantage being just 15 minutes from my house and open 7 days a week until 9 pm.  Oh, and Roy's BBQ is also excellent.

Over the years, we have seen many other BBQ blogs come and go.  We don't do nearly as much BBQ travelling as we used to. The VIP prices for festivals has also caused us to drop off the festival trail.  For $165, I can get a whole brisket from some really great joints.   That beats the heck out of 30 small sample boats of food.  We have done all of the major fests, some many times.  They were all fun, but I have come to the conclusion sampling individual restaurants in their native habitat is the better way to go. 

It has been a fun ride and we have no plans to stop anytime soon.  We are not done travelling or sampling.  There are just too many great places here in north Texas to keep us full and happy.  There's so much good BBQ out there and we want try it all.  Let's eat!

10 Days of BBQ, summary

 

I had several folks ask about a comparison of the 10 joints we hit in the last week or so.  Well they are all great joints.  8 of the 10 are current or former Texas Monthly Top 50.  Overall they are very close.  If I had to pick my favorite meal of the 10 we had, Zavala's would top the list.  My favorite brisket of the 10 was at our first stop at Meat U Anywhere.  I like lots of smoke flavor in my brisket and they delivered.   My favorite sausage was at Zavala's.  The spicy kick in their sausage was just what I like.  We had a lot of great ribs, but if I was forced to choose I'd probably say Dayne's.  There were another 4 or 5 places that had ribs just as good.

There was one current Top 50 joint that was having an off day, but we've had lots of great meals there so I won't complain too much.  We'll be back there again.

20 years ago, we needed to head to central Texas to find great BBQ.  No more.  There's still lots of great Q down there, but there is now a lot of truly great BBQ up here around DFW, too.  It has been interesting to watch the change over the last 20 years.  Lots of formerly top places no longer make the list and new ones have come along.  The fun is in finding them.  I look forward to lots more fun in the future!

Last Stop, 10 days of BBQ, Cattleack Barbecue, Farmers Branch

 

https://cattleackbbq.com/

sampled 7/17/25 about 10:30 am

The final stop on this mini-tour and one I had not been to in many years.  Since my last visit, they have added a nice dining room and some covered picnic tables out on the curb.  This is Scott's go-to place as it is as close to him as Green's, Hurtado, and Roy Hutchins are to me.  They open early, 10 am, but I told Scott I'd "meat" with him at 10:30.  There were about 20 folks in line in front of us, but the line moved pretty quickly and there was not much of a wait.  Scott had visited with a few folks from New York who were down on a BBQ tour.  The sported t-shirts from Snow's, Interstellar, Franklin, and a few other joints, so they were serious about their BBQ.  I think they said they had started out with 7 folks, but 2 had already dropped out.  Too much meat coma!

I grabbed the Texas Trinity, which is just $24.99, and added a slice of Crack Cake.  Everything was good  I asked for the Spicy Texan sausage.  It wasn't spicy to my taste, but it was very good beef sausage.  Maybe it's spicy for New Yorkers.