You live in San Antonio, so I have no choice but to defer to you in all matters Mexico-related.
The price was right, so I'd believe it came straight from Mexico. We get a lot of compliments on it. I should have bought several, I could have made a fortune selling to my family and friends!
I spent a few years rock climbing in the Potrero Chico a few years back. It's a Mexican national park about a 6 hours drive south of San Antonio. Never saw an igloo there and refrigerators were rare but I did see and consume lots of carta blanca kept on ice in chests just like yours though not nearly in the same condition. As soon as I get my trailer back together I'm heading back down there. BTW, speaking of barbeque cabrito is a regional specialty of the city of Monterrey.
__________________
Todd
“Complications arose, ensued, were overcome...savvy?”
I've been to Monterrey several times and always get cabrito when I do. There are a couple of joints here in Austin where you can get decent cabrito, but not nearly as good as down there.
But the best cabrito I've ever had was on a Boy Scout trip to Saltillo many moons ago. We met up with a Mexican troup and camped for a week on the grounds of a hacienda owned by a wealthy Mexican supporter of the Boy Scouts of Mexico.
But the twist is that the cabrito was NOT cooked by the Mexicans-- it was cooked by my Dad, with all of us Scouts doing the labor under his direction. We dug out two pits, burning wood down to coals in one, and transferring those coals to the other pit where we had constructed a makeshift spit. We cooked the whole goat on it, for MANY hours. It might have been the most amazing food I've ever tasted, and the Mexicans were more than impressed.
There is nobody on this planet who makes better Q than my Dad.
So, I'm getting busy trying to clean up and take care of my daughter, before the Fam shows up. I'll take pictures, but I probably won't be able to post any until much later.
The next steps are:
1) Check the brisket, if it seems done, wrap in foil and move it to an empty cooler to rest until it's time to slice. It'll hold the heat for several hours this way. Oh, the easiest way to tell if your brisket is done is to poke your finger into the large fat cap on top of the brisket (by the way, you always smoke brisket with the fat side up. But you knew that, right? ). Anyway, if your finger slides into the fat easily, the meat is done. If it doesn't, then the meat is not done, no matter how long it has been cooking.
2) Check the ribs. Move them further from the heat if they're getting cooked. Eventually, I'll wrap them in foil and move them to the oven for a couple of hours. They'll get really fall-apart. Then I'll throw them back on the pit for a half-hour to firm them up.
3) Throw on the sausage. It's already smoked (courtesy of the good folks at Southside Market in Elgin), so it just needs to warm up. You could do this step in the oven or even in a pan, but since the smoker is already all wamed up...
4) When everything is ready to go, the biggest step will be slicing the brisket. This is really important, there's a right way and many wrong ways to do this. I've been to many of the top, most well-known BBQ restaurants and still had brisket that wasn't properly sliced. The basics are that you always cut against the grain. The trick is that a whole brisket has two muscles, one overlaps the other, and the grains run in different directions. There's a vein of fat that runs down between these two muscles, and you have to cut the brisket apart along that fat vein, and then slice the two parts separate. Very simple, very easy, and very important.
...so here, once again, we encounter one of those Great Controversial issues in Texas BBQ. And this one makes the "Marathon Tire Failure Debate" look like child's play.
There are many Texans who maintain that good and proper BBQ is so tender, moist, and delicious that you don't need any sauce at all. Now actually, I often fall into this category as well. I love nothing more than to grab a fresh slice of brisket and just throw it into my gaping maw, sans sauce and sans anything else. Nothing but the meat and what the smoke did to it.
By the same token, I somtimes like a little sauce. I like to chop up my brisket trimmings, mix it with some sauce, throw it on a bun, and make what Texicans call "chop" aka "chopped beef sandwich."
And occasionally I'll actually dip a slice of brisket or a piece of sausage or a bite of rib into that sauce as well.
So, I have my own homemade sauce that I make, adapted from my Dad's recipe of course (and his is still better. Did I mention that he owned a BBQ restaurant here in Austin for quite a few years?).
Anyway, here it is. And no, I'm not showing you the ingredients on this one, they really are top secret!
Okay, brisket is done and in the cooler. Ribs are moved over to the oven. The smoker is currently sitting empty, but I'll throw the sausage in there soon enough.
I have a quick moment to post up everything I did yesterday, in order to have the time to sit around and watch a BBQ pit and drink beer all day long today...
First, I finished cleaning and re-staining the deck and some of the funiture (I built everything in these pictures, except the house of course...).
Hi Utee...great thread and nice photos. I do a fair amount of smoking up here in Canada but my wife and I both agree that one of these summers we're 'Streamin to the southern US to check out some real BBQ. I do a mean rack of ribs and some pulled pork now and then but haven't tried brisket yet.
I was going to ask you about the sauce issue but you addressed it. To each their own I suppose. What's the chance your sauce is vinegar based?? Huh, huh? Can't you give us just a few hints??
Your thread has provided some good info and motivation! I have a Traeger which makes it pretty idiot proof to get good smoke (although you may think I'm cheating Hard to find brisket with the fat cap but I'll have to look harder. Enjoy your meal!
Mike
I have yet to find a way to take our smoker camping however...
Hi Utee...great thread and nice photos. I do a fair amount of smoking up here in Canada but my wife and I both agree that one of these summers we're 'Streamin to the southern US to check out some real BBQ. I do a mean rack of ribs and some pulled pork now and then but haven't tried brisket yet.
I was going to ask you about the sauce issue but you addressed it. To each their own I suppose. What's the chance your sauce is vinegar based?? Huh, huh? Can't you give us just a few hints??
Your thread has provided some good info and motivation! I have a Traeger which makes it pretty idiot proof to get good smoke (although you may think I'm cheating Hard to find brisket with the fat cap but I'll have to look harder. Enjoy your meal!
Mike
I have yet to find a way to take our smoker camping however...
Sounds like you know your way around a pit. You should definitely tour the Southern US, you'll find different and delicious BBQ styles all throughout the South. Brisket is easier than most other meats IMO.
I won't tell you much about the sauce, but I will say that it is NOT vinegar-based. In general, you'll find more of the vinegar-bases sauces in the Southeastern, Carolina-style BBQ. In Texas and Kansas City, you find sauces that are more tomato-based.
Was up to Kerrville this weekend for my mother's 80th. Coulda, shoulda, woulda made a detour on the road back this afternoon!!
(Seriously, with all the great brisket in this part of the state, from my house to your house, I just buy it nowadays after a leetle road trip. Everything else is what I put the effort into: Dutch oven cooked beans [5-hours], potato salad, cole slaw and sweet tea all from scratch. I leave the cobbler to my wife, an excellent baker. Now, to find the BEST dilled pickles! [Which at this point is these: Oma's Choice.
By the way, have you tried B&B Charcoal? I made the switch and am never going back to Kingsford: B & B Charcoal Company
Was up to Kerrville this weekend for my mother's 80th. Coulda, shoulda, woulda made a detour on the road back this afternoon!!
(Seriously, with all the great brisket in this part of the state, from my house to your house, I just buy it nowadays after a leetle road trip. Everything else is what I put the effort into: Dutch oven cooked beans [5-hours], potato salad, cole slaw and sweet tea all from scratch. I leave the cobbler to my wife, an excellent baker. Now, to find the BEST dilled pickles! [Which at this point is these: Oma's Choice.
By the way, have you tried B&B Charcoal? I made the switch and am never going back to Kingsford: B & B Charcoal Company
Rednax- Yes, I'm definitely a fan of B&B lump charcoal. It's great stuff. I hear ya on the "putting effort into other things." I make my own BBQ because I love to do it, and because I think the end product is superior to what I can buy elsewhere, without any intended disrespect to the high-quality establishments that are quite good at making BBQ.
If I dare, I think it's a little bit akin to restoring a vintage trailer on your own instead of paying a pro to do it. There are at least a few parallels.
Anyway, I've been up cooking since 4 AM this morning, so I think I'm going to crash now. I hope that folks enjoyed this thread. Since I do not yet own an Airstream, I try to find other ways to give back to this excellent community.
Thanks for sharing the meal with the forums, it was great! Too bad they would not let me on the plane with the dutch oven. Sending you some Karma for desert.
Thanks for sharing the meal with the forums, it was great! Too bad they would not let me on the plane with the dutch oven. Sending you some Karma for desert.
I was just sorry to miss out on the cherry cobbler, Richard. I had a separate plate waiting for you with brisket, ribs, sausage, tater salad, and my FIL's fantastic BBQ baked beans-- I had to eat it for fear the coyotes would get to it instead...
Perhaps one of these days at a rally? I'll need to get myself an Airstream first of course.
Which reminds me, yesterday I sent e-mail to the guy in Phoenix about the '65 Overlander that was posted on Craigslist (Uwe sent me a PM with the info that you had posted up), but I haven't heard back. Have you had any interaction with the seller at all? I could be interested and if someone in the area had the time to check it out, that could be helpful-- but if not, I totally understand.
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