I watch a lot of cooking shows on television.  Whenever you watch a cooking show the on air personality will always taste their creations and exclaim to the tv audience how wonderful it is.  Do you ever wonder if they cook anything that just doesn’t taste good?  I’m not talking about something that isn’t perfect.  I’m talking about spit it out, unable to swallow bad.  It’s hard to imagine Giada, Rachel, Paula or Bobby Flay taking a bite, looking into the camera and saying.  “Dang, this really stinks.”  Just doesn’t happen.

One of my favorite shows is “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.”  I’ve gotten a lot of great cooking inspirations from this show.  Today I write about the opposite of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.”  Tonight I write about “The Worst Thing I Ever Cooked.”  Scan the internet, not to many “foodies” will admit that they screwed up when cooking.  I know my buddies at “No Excuses BBQ” and “Brew and Que” have written about cooking disasters.  And my hat is off to them.  But for the most part only successes make into print.  This is not one of those cases.  This is a blog post about some pretty bad food.

This weeks throwdown on the BBQ Brethren is about Scovilles, that crazy heat measurement for telling how hot a pepper is.  I like heat, but I’m not a chili head.  I don’t like heat for heat sake.  I want flavor first and foremost.  I got the brilliant idea to to combine habaneros and a smoked pork mousse with sharp Irish cheddar cheese. 

On the surface it’s not all that crazy of an idea.  There are lots and lots of Pork Mousse recipes on the internet.  It’s actually something that appears to be popular in some circles of cooking.   Most often when I think of mousse I think of chocolate and it’s a desert.  But it can be an entree if done correctly.  So I set out to come up with what I figured would be a nice tasty pork mouse.

I bought a couple of thin pork loin chops and seasoned them with a little bit of “Simply Marvelous” Cherry rub.  I figured this would give me a little sweet with a nice mild cherry flavor.  I used maybe a tablespoon between all four chops.

The chops then went on the smoker at 225 degrees with cherry wood.  The goal here was to have a common flavor from start to finish.  I’ve been thinking about how I was going to do this for several days.  So I was fairly confident I was going to have some good flavor combinations here.   I learned a long time ago that just pulling stuff out of the pantry and tossing them together was a recipe for disaster.  So I did some thinking…

After smoking the chops I cooled them and put them in the refrigerator overnight.  The next day I chopped up the chops and put them into the food processor with a teaspoon of rub and some heavy cream.  Because the pork loins were so thin they were done before they had a chance to absorb much smoke flavor so I used a tablespoon of “Show Me” BBQ sauce.  This sauce has a good dose of liquid smoke in it and I knew it would give me the smoke flavor I was looking for.

Once I had the consistency I needed I put the mousse into a zip lock bag, cut the corner off.  This allowed me to pipe the mousse into the habanero halves that I had removed the seeds and veins from.  The color of the mousse wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it wasn’t too bad.  I wasn’t all that thrilled with the flavor of the mousse.  Normally thought I have found that some rubs and sauces don’t taste all that great when you just taste them without cooking so I figured I’d just wait and see.

I’ve fallen in love with Irish Cheddar cheese.  It’s got a great sharp, nutty flavor that I just knew would go with the cherry in the rub and the wood smoke.   It also looks nice when it’s melted.

After topping the mousse with the cheese I popped them into the oven and baked them at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes.  This cooked the mousse and melted the cheese to give me a nice looking appetizer. 

After allowing them to cool a couple of minutes I grabbed one and tossed it into my mouth.  I got about three chews before I realized that this was just horrible.  It may have actually been The Worst Thing I Ever cooked.    The flavor was just so bad.  Individually the flavors seemed to be a good match, but when you put them together with the habanero it just made for a concoction that was just so bad I had to spit it out.

This made the whole Shankopotomus fiasco seem like a walk in the park.  So Giada, Rachel, Alton and Bobby, what’s The Worst Thing You Ever Cooked?”

I got a tweet from @nephewsbbq (Dylan Moody) asking if I’d like to have some samples of his BBQ sauces to try.  I told him I’d be happy to give them a taste.  A few days later a box arrived with jars of all six flavors.   I don’t normally review six BBQ sauces all at once, but I figured in this case it would be the best thing to do.  So I had a few friends over, cooked up some chicken drumettes and we taste tested all the sauces.

Nephews BBQ sauce is a gourmet line of bbq sauces where we pair the sweetness of fruit with the spiciness of chili peppers. The result is an award winning line of unique bbq sauces that will make you the king of your next backyard bbq or tailgate. Nephews started out as a wedding favor for friends and family at his wedding in 2009. The response was overwhelming and after winning an award in December Nephews BBQ Sauce was born. Once you try our sauce we are confident you will invite Nephews to all your bar-b-ques!

So here’s a compilation of the comments from five wing users over the course of an evening.  It’s interesting to note the degree of “heat” each of the taste testers could handle.  My comments about each sauce is marked in italics.

“SWEET THUNDER”:

It’s not a surprise that all of four of the taste testers thought this sauce was sweet.  Everyone considered the sauce to be mild.  Other comments included: “very smooth,” “good flavor,” “to sweet,” “no heat and good for everyone.”  A couple of the taster testers noticed a lot of vinegar.   For my tastes this sauce would be more of the traditional type of sauce I would use for pulled pork or chicken.  There is a taste of vinegar, and that’s not a bad thing, but it does have a tendency to stand out on lightly seasoned meats like chicken.  For someone not used to a vinegar type sauce they might have a problem with this.   This is a great everyday sauce.

“PEACHY ‘POTLE”:

For everyone the peach flavor popped right out on this sauce.  Comments: “Moderate heat,” very good flavor,” “nice peach,” “everyone would like this sauce.”  I tasted the peach right off.  This sauce would go with just about anything.  If you like fruit based sauces this is one you’ve got to try.  There’s not a lot of chipotle flavor and for most people that will be good.  For my tastes this is a moderate sauce.  But don’t think it’s “hot” because it’s not.  I’m just not sure what level is between mild and moderate.

“HABAN’ORANGE”:

Everyone got the orange in this sauce.  It’s not hidden at all.  Comments: “good tangy flavor,”  “very good flavor,” nice citrus,” “mild to sever heat,” “mild heat.”  WOW!  This sauce has some pucker power.  The citrus/orange just whacks you right up front and doesn’t go away.  I love this sauce.  Don’t let the habanero in the title, this sauce isn’t nearly as hot as other sauces on the market that use habanero.  I’d use this sauce on just about anything, but it’s going to be a staple for pulled pork and fish.

“ANGRY NEPHEW’S”:

Okay, this sauce just about killed one of my taste testers.  It’s the hottest of the bunch.  Comments: “burn baby burn…lips, tongue and throat,” “good flavor, nice afterburn,” “for people who want a hot flavor,” “a very nice kick to it.  Not outrageously strong but still a strong burn,” “not for wimps.”  This sauce is more of the traditional type “hot” BBQ sauce.  It’s nice but for me, when compared, to the others there’s not anything I would call special about it.

“CHERRY ‘POTLE”:

Just like the other fruit sauces the flavor of the fruit just jumped right out front and took charge for all the tasters.  Comments: “very strong cherry flavor,” “not much heat, small kick at the end,” “love the sweetness,” “mild.”  I found this sauce to be much like the peach sauce.  And that’s a good thing.  My two favorite woods to smoke with are peach and cherry and this sauce will compliment many of the dishes I like to cook.  Again, not a lot of the traditional chipotle flavor.

“GHOSTLY PUMPKIN”:

Pumpkin and Ghost Peppers!  This was the sauce we were all a little hesitant to try.  One of the hottest peppers on Earth combined with pumpkin, not your traditional BBQ sauce combination.  Comments: “slight pumpkin flavor,” “mild to warm,” “did not taste pumpkin,” “moderate heat,” “good pumpkin flavor,” “good spice flavors,” “nice mix of the pumpkin and pepper flavors.”  I expect the heat of this sauce to just kill every opportunity for the pumpkin flavor to be found.  Not true at all.  This is a mild to moderate hot BBQ sauce.  The pumpkin, for me, just popped.  When I tasted this sauce I immediately thought of Thanksgiving.  Weird, I know.  I really love this sauce.  It’s different, yet not so odd that it won’t go with your meats or side dishes.  I’ve had lots of non-traditional sauces (gimmick) and most of them aren’t meant to be taken seriously.  This sauce is seriously good.

Let me be honest here.  When Dylan first contacted me and I went to their website and read about these sauces I was not sure what I was getting myself into.  I had the misfortune of trying strawberry BBQ Sauce once and I wasn’t ready for another “spit out my meat” episode.  But I’d committed to trying them so I did.

These sauces are different.  Different in a good way.  What I especially appreciated was that the fruit seemed to take the front of the stage.  I love the flavors of these sauces.  The “peppers” take second fiddle.  They are there but they are in the sauce in a manner that doesn’t mask the fantastic flavors of the fruit.  For the most part the heat doesn’t overpower anything.  I review a lot of sauces and there are few that I dislike.  But there are even fewer that I’ve come right out and said, “Buy this sauce.”

You can find out more about Nephew’s sauces here.

I love to smoke ribs with peach wood.  So when Baxter’s Original offered to send me out some chunks of of Georgia peach wood to try out I jumped at the chance.

But how does a person review wood?  Well, let’s see…

The first thing I noticed about the wood chunks I received from Baxter’s is that the wood looked “fresh.”  I don’t mean it was “green” or unseasoned.  It looked fresh.  When purchasing chunks of wood through the normal resellers like Home Depot, hardware stores or other resellers the wood often looks old and dirty.  The Baxter’s wood has the appearance of of having not been left out in the elements.

Now I don’t know with any certainty that new wood burns any differently that older wood,  but I suspect that just like anything with a flavor that, if it’s left out, it looses it’s flavor.  If you are properly smoking your ribs, or any other meat for that matter, you want just a whiff of sweet blue smoke.  By having fresh wood, I believe, you will get a cleaner smoke flavor in your final product.

One thing I did notice is when I lit my Weber Smoky Mountain the smoke became the desired sweet blue smoke much quicker than it has done with store bought wood.  I normally give the WSM 45 minutes for the smoke to calm down and I was able to put the ribs on 30 minutes after lighting the coals.

The pricing for the wood from Baxter’s is pretty much the same as you would pay in your local BBQ store.  With the shipping it’s going to be a little higher, but quality products are the key to successful low and slow BBQ.  So, I’ve got to think it’s worth the little extra cost.

I also received a few bags of wood dust.  I use wood dust in my ProQ Cold Smoke Generator and it was a fantastic treat to find cherry, apple and peach wood dust.  I decided to give some cherry wood dust a try out on some Chicago style sausages from Morant’s Sausage House.

I used the ProQ in my Little Chief to cold smoke the sausages.  Unlike the wood chunks I was able to see an immediate and obvious difference in how the cold smoke generator worked with the Baxter’s wood dust.  The wood dust was finer and lit much easier than the previous brand of wood dust I have been using.  The finer wood dust seemed to burn a little faster than I had been experiencing with other dusts.

Some pictures of the rest of the sausage cook:

After the sausages had smoked for 6 hours in some wispy cherry smoke I grilled them up on the weber.

A couple smoked and grilled sausages with onion rings and tater tots.  It was a great meal.

I used this meal as a chance to give the Big Sid’s Famous BBQ Mustard that I received in my Olympic Hockey bet winnings.  The mustard had a mild mustard flavor with a little sweetness that complimented the cherry wood smoke and seasonings in the sausages.

The planks from Maine Grilling Woods are different from others I’ve seen.  According to the their website “competitors’ grilling planks are just like boards from a lumber yard cut to fit the grill. The grill surface is the long grain of the wood. Our Organic Natural Ovals are much different. The trunk of a tree is made up of long tubular cells that go from the roots to the branches carrying water and nutrients to all parts of the tree. The distinctive flavors of each wood species are contained in these cells. Our oval planks slice across these cells and the result is a slow releasing of the wood flavors into your steak, etc. as it cooks on the grill or broils in the oven. It is incredible…You will love our planks and our prices, too!.”

I was excited to try these out for a family dinner on the shore of Lake Goodwin.  The planks come in a variety of usual and unusal types of woods.  I selected Black Cherry and Sugar Maple for the salmon.

You can see just how different these planks are from the normal “cedar” type planks you’re used to.  The first step is the soak the planks in water for about an hour.  This is a critical step and don’t short cut it.  After the soaking and rub down with olive oil the planks are ready for the salmon.

I seasoned the salmon with some of the best salmon seasoning on earth, “Todd’s Dirt.” 

The salmon came out fantastic.  You could taste the added flavor from the wood planks.  The only option available for cooking was an older gas grill with very little control over the flame.  I’m looking forward to giving the planks another try using an indirect cooking method over coals. 

All and all Maine Grilling Woods are a great product.  They provide you with a unique way to add additional flavor to your grilling and being able to service the grilled meats and fish directly on the grilling planks provides an interesting presentation opportunity. 

Maine Grilling woods are available online at www.rockytrail.com.