Smoked Crappie

sampled 9/17/19

Yeah, another non-BBQ post, but this is something I just had to try.  With our recent successful experiments in smoking salmon in our little bullet smoker, in the back of my mind I have been wondering how smoked crappie would taste.  Fried crappie is one of my favorite meals.  Even beating BBQ.  Yes, I know, heresy, but there it is.  Take some freshly caught crappie fillets, dip them in milk, roll them in corn meal, and fry them up in a little butter and even Aaron Franklin would have a tough time measuring up.  Plus you have the fun of catching them!

Yesterday I did a guided crappie trip on Lake Lewisville, specifically so I could try this out.  We got a 25 fish limit in about 2 hours and my guide turned them into a big gallon bag of fresh fillets.  This afternoon I picked out the biggest fillets, rinsed them off well and patted them dry.  Then we fired up the smoker and smoked them on the top rack for just 30 minutes.  We used a smaller than usual pile of charcoal with added pecan, oak, and some macadamia nut shells.

This is what we had after just 30 minutes of smoking.  Internal temperature of 145 plus was confirmed with a meat thermometer.

Pretty darned good eating and about as quick and easy a meal as you can make with a smoker.  The fish had great smoke flavor and was flaky and moist.  Some of the thinner parts, the thumb on the mitten, for example, were just a little crispy but still tasted great.  I suspect we will be doing this from now on whenever I can catch a good mess of crappie.  It doesn't quite beat pan fried, but it is still mighty good.  Unfortunately, crappie costs way more than salmon!

Smoked burgers

We smoked 6 pounds of burgers today just for fun.  Mighty good eating.  We'd never smoked burgers before, but we will definitely be doing it again.  Even though they look about the same as grilled burgers, grilled burgers don't have great smoke flavor in every bite. 

smoked burgers > grilled burgers

more smoked salmon

Salmon filets have been on sale for $5.99 with coupon so we decided it's salmon chowder time again.  We decided to experiment and see if the brining, pellicle, and all that fancy stuff made a difference.  We brined one filet overnight and cut it in half. The second filet we just cut in half.  Then we put one half of each on the top and bottom rack of our little bullet smoker.  The bottom rack is above, the top rack below.  The half with the toothpick is plain without brine.  Two hours of smoking seemed to do the trick and a meat thermometer confirmed it.

We found little difference between the two methods.  The brined fish had a little more moisture and a little more salt flavor.  Not surprising.  Smoke flavor was equally good on both.  Both were yummy.  Tomorrow they all go in a big batch of salmon chowder!

After we finished our salmon we smoked one up for my wife's niece.  We didn't sample it, but it looks as good as the first two.

Now I've got to go catch me some crappie!!

4 days, 3 good joints!

We've enjoyed some good BBQ in the days leading up to Labor Day.  On August 29th we met some friends at Hutchin's McKinney location.  My Mrs had a sandwich and I had the all you can eat for $25.  I wouldn't say I hurt 'em, but I did get my money's worth.  I had a small side of mac and cheese along with brisket, spare ribs, and jalapeno sausage.  All was Texas Monthly top 50 worthy.  The brisket was moist, tender, and had good smoke flavor.  The ribs were perfectly cooked and the best I have had in awhile.  Excellent ribs.  The sausage suffered a bit from a chewy casing and I would have liked a bit more spice, but they were still tasty,  The server brought my meat refills right to our table and it was all consistently excellent.

Saturday the 31st of August we spent the whole day at the 11th annual Blues and BBQ Festival in Bedford, Texas.  They had over 100 teams competing in KCBS, IBCA,and People's Choice competitions.  I judged that event several times for KCBS but I've decided I'd rather know where my BBQ is from rather than go through double blind judging.  That way I know where to go get more!  They have several BBQ food trucks at the fest and I knew Green's would be there.  That was my go-to. We had several orders of pork belly bites and brisket biscuits.  I sent several folks over to their truck and they all came back with rave reviews.  On Sunday Green's competed in the Battle of the BBQ event, where fest goers sample all the BBQ food trucks and pick their favorite.  Green's won for the 4th year straight.  If he will just get his brisket down a little better,  I think that little one day a week food truck has a shot at the Texas Monthly top 50 next time around.

On Sunday, September 1st my Mrs had some friends coming through town and we had lunch at Heim BBQ in Fort Worth.  I was especially eager to compare Heim's bacon burnt ends with Green's pork belly bites which I had on Saturday.  My opinion remains unchanged.  Both are excellent but Green's is more tender and downright melt in your mouth.  I added some of their excellent jalapeno cheese sausage and it had a much better kick than Hutchin's.  Again, the casing was a bit tough, but the flavor more than made up for it.  My Mrs had their excellent Big Cat sandwich and folks ooh-ed and ah-ed as we brought it to the table.  She may get 3 meals out of that one sandwich.

Green's Texas Bar B Que, Euless

sampled 8/17/19

https://www.facebook.com/greenstexasbbq/

Scott came over to give Green's food truck a try and we had another fine meal from there.  We arrived about 20 minutes before opening and found ourselves first in line.  A lady joined us just before they opened, a bit early, at about 10:55 am.  By the time we left there were several folks in line and they had taken a call-in order, too.

The pork belly bites and brisket biscuits were outstanding.  The jalapeno cheese sausage was good, but I don't think it was quite as spicy as the last time I visited.  The brisket was a bit overcooked, but there was good smoke flavor in the perfectly rendered fat.  I skipped the baby backs this time as we still have spare ribs from our smoker in the fridge.  He does bottle his honey chipotle BBQ sauce so I grabbed some to try.  If it is the same as the sauce they serve with the meat it's more of a sweet sauce without much of a kick.  We shall investigate further!

Rib time

Smoked 8/8/19

St Louis style spare ribs are on sale this week for $1.99/lb and that means it is time to fire up our little bullet smoker again.  As usual, we had to chop the racks up a bit to fit in our little bullet.  Seasoned only with North Main BBQ All "N" 1 seasoning.

The 3 racks went on to the smoker for 4 hours, fueled with charcoal, oak and pecan from our yard, plus some macadamia shells!  A friend in Hawaii has been sending us some delicious macadamia nuts, still in the shell, and we saved the shells up for smoking.  They did great!

The meat trimmings came off first and made some dandy meat candy.  So dandy we ate half of it before I got around to taking a photo.

The ribs came off  40 minutes later and were delicious, but a bit tough in places.  We skipped the usual final step of wrapping in foil with another hour of low heat.  That probably would have softened them up a bit more, but we were ready to eat!  The smoke flavor was awesome.  The leftovers will warm up very nicely over the next few days.

Oh woe is Moe!

So it seems 2 of my favorite BBQ sauces are no longer available.  The original Dr Pepper BBQ sauce has gone away and North Main BBQ no longer bottles their 406 brand sauce.  I can still get all the North Main sauce I want, Friday-Sunday, but it is no longer available in bottles.  A sad day.  Fortunately, I have a few bottles of each squirreled away and a couple more in the fridge.

The only Dr Pepper sauce I can still find is Stubb's brand.  Sorry, it's not near as good as the original.

Oh woe is Moe.