TurkeyFest Part 2: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

Before we start, I suggest you read Part 1 where I explain the origins of TurkeyFest.  It's going to be a minute before I talk about food and I don't want you to get lost without the back story. 

I met Russell in college when I was a sophomore (that's him on the left and me on the right, being oddly charming in the presence of girls circa 1999).  He lived down the hall from me and we piqued each other's interest with our off-beat tastes in music (I was getting into indie rock and weird breakbeat techno, he was all about power pop and being "down with the clown.")  One night early on in our friendship, we were talking about where we grew up.  It went something like this:

Me: I moved to Toledo when I was in the 6th grade.
Russ: I grew up there.  What part?
Me: Well, I guess it wasn't really Toledo that we moved to.  It was Sylvania, really.
Russ: Yeah, uh, me too.  Where in Sylvania?
Me: Well, I guess it wasn't really Sylvania proper so much as it was Sylvania Township.
Russ: Um, whoa.  Me too.  Where did you live?
Me: Off of Whiteford Road.
Russ: No.  Fuck you.  What street?
Me: Janet Avenue.
Russ: <runs away screaming like a dude in a David Blaine special>

We lived across the street from each other.  Not at the same time, mind you, but we both played baseball with the neighborhood kids in the vacant lot next to his house, we both knew about the dirt-bike track back in the woods off State Line Road and we both knew that the guy who lived on the corner was a pederast.  After that revelation, Russell and I developed a special bond and a friendship that has endured through tragedy and triumph.

In 2005, Russell asked me if I'd come to work for his family's business, a little apparel and merchandise shop out in Versailles, Ohio where his family had moved to just before he started high school.  They were looking to expand their sales in the political market to follow up on the mild success they'd had catering to labor unions.  I was delivering for a pizza shop at the time and thought it seemed like the adult decision to make, even if I was actually taking a pay cut to do it.  A few years later, we were the primary manufacturers and fulfillment house for the Barack Obama campaign.  Things were going well, to say the least.

Russell met Elissa and got married in 2009 (that's me presiding over their ceremony, reading the script from a Blackberry).  They're perfect for each other in that they're not afraid to dream and they're not afraid to take a risk in support of those dreams so long as they have each other.  Elissa moved to Chicago last year to pursue a career in comedy: studying, writing and performing at Second City among other hilarious things.  Russell stayed in Ohio, balancing his obligations between his wife and his business by logging entirely too many miles on Interstates 70 and 65.  The business, which had been booming in 2008 was hit hard by the recession and limped along for years.  As part of a company restructuring, Russell made his exit and started packing for Chicago to be with Elissa again.

Those final developments happened just as I was making plans for this year's TurkeyFest.  I called Russ to ask him when he was leaving.  He said it would be around December 1st.  I asked if we should have TurkeyFest this year; given all of the drama this fall, I wouldn't have held it against him if he just wanted to bolt out of town as soon as he could.  "I'll stay for TurkeyFest," he said.  It seemed a fitting last hurrah for Russell in Columbus, an appropriate celebration of the changing face of OxFam, but this joyous yearly tradition was taking on a somber tone.

I knew this was going to be a pretty big event - TurkeyFest usually reels in about 20 people over the course of the day - so I talked to my buddy Ryan who owns the Tree Bar here in Columbus about renting the bar out to accommodate the larger-than-normal crowd.  I'll take this opportunity to plug the Tree Bar: one of my favorite places to drink and watch rock shows also happens to be an excellent place to throw a private party on a Sunday night.  Thanks Ryan...

ASIDE: Yeah, this happened a while ago and you may not find these descriptions of turkey preparation helpful for quite some time, but if you're looking for some interesting ways to prepare a Christmas bird, maybe these will give you some ideas.  SPOILER ALERT: all three of my turkeys turned out great, and I honestly don't know if I could pick a favorite.

I had 3 birds: a 13 pounder, a 14.5 pounder and a mammoth 19.5 pounder.  I don't usually like to cook big birds like that because they take forever and have a tendency to dry out.  More on my plan to combat that in a second.  This year's theme was "Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em."  Since I had such good luck with smoke in the summer, I decided to introduce a smoke element to every bird. The 19.5 pounder would get slow cooked in the smoker, the 14.5 pounder would be soaked in a smoked beer brine and grilled, and the 13 pounder would be the old tried-and-true "spicy turkey" but with chipotle peppers instead of sport peppers.

On Friday night (two days before the party), I pulled out the big bird and made a simple brine (standard  gallon of water, 1 cup kosher salt and 1/2 cup brown sugar, plus some garlic and Worcestershire sauce for flavor).  I ended up disassembling the turkey before brining: first I detached the drum sticks and wings, then I cracked the backbone to separate the breast from the thighs.  If I had kept the bird whole, it would've taken forever to cook in the smoker.  This way, I cut the cooking time considerably and fended off any drying out by brining and making all the pieces smaller.

On Saturday morning, I spatchcocked the 14.5 pound bird, cutting out the backbone, breaking the breast plate and removing the keel bone before laying it flat.  I made a brine with two smoked beers - 2 pints of Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen (a heavily smoked lager beer from Germany) and 3 pints of Dark Horse Fore smoked stout (part of the Dark Horse brewery's winter stout series) - plus a little apple cider and vegetable stock.  That bird sat in the brine for about 24 hours.

 
I had never spatchcocked any bird before.  It seems involved, but it really does cut the cooking time down and isn't nearly as hard as it sounds.  This method would also come in really handy later on, as I was scrambling to get everything done.  More on that in a bit.

Later that morning, I made a chipotle brine for the 13 pound turkey with a whole can of chipotle peppers, cumin, oregano and paprika.  That bird also sat in the brine for about 24 hours.

Saturday night, I took out a few handfuls of oak wood chunks and put them in a pan, then emptied a bottle of Old Crow whiskey so they could soak it up.  My hope was that I would get the same effect as using oak from old bourbon barrels.  I have two old bourbon barrels in my basement, but Erin won't let me chop them up into homemade smoker chunks.

Sunday morning, I started the smoker up around 9 o'clock and put my bird pieces on over the bourbon-soaked wood chunks about an hour later.  It took me a while (and the addition of a lot more hot coals) before I finally got the smoker temperature up to where I wanted it, but the oak smoke kept hitting the meat, so I was OK with it even though I knew I was going to have a timing problem at the end of the day.

I decided to do the spicy turkey ASAP so I could clear up room in the oven for the smoker bird, if it came to that.  Here's how it works: first you season two sticks of butter with salt and cayenne pepper.  If I had been thinking clearly, I would've used the ground chipotle pepper I have in the pantry.  Hindsight 20/20 on that one, I suppose.

The butter slabs go in the freezer while the rest of the turkey is prepped.  Having them cold makes them a lot easier to work with later.  Next we whip up a stuffing mixture of onion, bell pepper, chipotle peppers, garlic, salt, cayenne pepper and white vinegar.  Gotta mince this all really fine, because you'll want it that way when you realize how you're going to cram it in the turkey.

Here comes the fun part: grab a small, sharp paring knife and start cutting slits in the breast meat from inside the cavity.  You're gonna be like, "whoa, whoa, whoa, isn't all the juice just going to run out of my turkey that way?"  No way, dude.  Remember all that butter in your freezer?  When you stuff those (and your pepper stuffing) into those slits, the butter is going to baste the meat as it melts.  Plus it doesn't hurt that you brined it, because you're really smart. (BTW, I promise the next picture is not weird porn.)

After you're done stuffing all those slits in the breast meat (and hell, why not flavor up the thighs, legs and wings too, if you're feeling so bold), throw any leftover stuffing into the cavity and truss your bird closed.  If you've never trussed a turkey, chicken or other poultry, I highly recommend it.  Not only does it cut down on cooking time since you're making a nice uniform roast out of a gangly bird, but the finished product is Norman Rockwell-quality and perfect for "oohs" and "ahhs" before carving at the table.  It's also relatively easy to do, plus you get to learn a new knot.

Season the outside of the bird with salt and cayenne pepper (again, for this variation I should've used ground chipotle pepper).  Start the bird breast side down: you want to protect the delicate breast meat from the high initial heat.  Roast it at 450 for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350.  90 minutes into the process, flip the turkey over so the breast side is up.  If it looks pale, don't worry: it's got 90 minutes to brown up.  After 3 hours, the turkey should be up to a safe temperature (165 in the breast) and should look and smell amazing.  This is a show-stopping crowd pleaser, ladies and gents.

I fired up my Weber kettle grill with charcoal and had the spatchcocked bird on by 1 o'clock.  The primary advantage to spatchcocking is that it speeds up the cooking process, but I was having trouble with keeping my grill hot too.  I made a "ring of fire" around the outside of the grill to indirect cook the bird and keep the temperature uniform, but I don't think I had enough coals to start, so when I put the lid on the fire just petered out.

When the spicy bird was out (about 3 o'clock), I temp checked the smoker bird and the spatchcocked bird.  They were both around 130-140 in the breast, so despite my fire troubles, I was most of the way there.  I transferred both turkeys to the 350 degree oven (spatchcocking a bird meant it could lie flat on the bottom rack while the smoked bird stood tall on the middle rack; plenty of oven space) and let them cook in there until they got to safe temp.  The oven finish also crisped up the skin in a very nice way.

While those birds were in the oven, I set a 12 oz. package of cranberries in foil on the smoker for about an hour and a half, then attempted to make a BBQ sauce with them but I couldn't get the texture right.  I adjusted the flavor to something that was acceptable and decided not to call it BBQ sauce anymore.  I also made a vegetarian apple cider gravy: starting with a standard roux base, I added apple cider and vegetable stock at about a 5:1 ratio, plus some onion powder and ground ginger.

Everything was done by 4 o'clock except the smoked turkey thigh meat which took another 25 minutes or so.  I had to rest everything before carving, and I was pushing up against my deadline (party was starting at 5), but we got out the door by 5:10 with three turkeys in tow and ended up being only fashionably late to the party instead of tragically late.

Not to brag or anything, but all three of my turkeys were juicy and fork tender in addition to be remarkably flavorful.  I think my only stumble is that the spicy turkey wasn't bursting with that smoky chipotle flavor that I was going for; I should've used more chipotles in the stuffing and replaced the cayenne with ground chipotle pepper.  The spatchcocked bird had an almost decadent richness to it from the deep, complex maltiness of the smoked stout brine.  The smoked turkey appeared to steal the show, though.  Wood smoke is a tough element to get right: too little and it's not worth the effort, too much and it can mask the meat with undesirable bitterness.  I got just the right amount of smoke flavor in the bird and it was gobbled up (bad pun, sorry) in no time.

Actually, we had about 30 people and within an hour of opening the buffet line, all the carved white meat and most of the dark meat on all three turkeys was gone.  All that was left were legs and wings.  I was actually kind of disappointed that there were two renaissance fair-quality smoked turkey legs sitting in the buffet warmer at the end of the night.  I quickly got over that when I accepted the reality that I would get to eat those.

Surprise of the night: the cranberry sauce that I was not particularly fond of ended up being the hit of the party.  Just goes to prove that sometimes you get rewarded just for showing up.  It's a lot like friendship: even when you don't think what you're doing is earth-shattering, you never know what it's going to mean to a friend.  That's what I'm going to miss most with Russell not being in my neighborhood anymore.  Dude always showed up, I just don't know if I ever let him know how much it meant to me.

The Bard of Back

First thing's first: let's clear up a misconception.  Pork loin roast and pork tenderloin are not the same cut.  Pork tenderloin is the psoas major muscle, the same muscle that yields the filet mignon from a cow.  Like that steak, the pork tenderloin trades fatty flavor for lean, tender meat.  That's why you often find pre-marinated tenderloins in your grocery butcher case for $4/lb.  But we're not here to talk about tenderloins, we're talking about loins...

The loin is a collection of muscles in the back which yield several cuts including pork chops, back ribs, top loin roast, sirloin roast and center roast (which can be turned into a crown roast by "Frenching" the bones).  The top loin and sirloin roasts are usually very lean and can be very flavorful, especially for a price nearly half that of the tenderloin.

The tenderloin, because it is so tender, is a somewhat forgiving cut of pork for the inexperienced cook, but  loin roasts have a tendency to dry out if cooked incorrectly.  There's nothing more embarrassing than serving a dried out, tough crown roast; believe me, I've suffered that misfortune.  Luckily, there are many tactics you can employ to help your loin roast keep its moisture and flavor.

First off, I highly recommend brining a pork loin roast.  Not only does this add flavor to the meat, but the salt breaks down muscle fibers to tenderize them while at the same time encourages the protein cells to retain water.  Brine is simple to make - about 3/4 cup of kosher salt per gallon of water - and you can add whatever flavoring agents you like to the salt solution.  For pork, I love brown sugar and apple cider vinegar.  The salt will carry those flavors into the deepest parts of the meat if given enough time.  Science!

Traditionally, this would be the perfect application for basting.  Now, I didn't go to culinary school so maybe I'm missing out on some trick, but I hate basting and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't actually work.  You pull the juices out and spritz the top of the roast, where they just run back down to the bottom of the pan.  Whatever's left gets put back into the hot oven where it evaporates and dries the meat out further.  Not to mention that opening and closing your oven over and over to baste affects the cooking temperature and time.  Someone give me one reason why basting works.  I dare you.

For fatty roast like shoulder, you can use the old "low and slow" technique in which fat collagen melts into gelatin and moistens the pork.  That's a long process though, and doesn't work well with lean loin cuts.  So what if there were a way to artificially marble the roast with fat?  Oh, that's called larding and it's ridiculously difficult even with the proper equipment.  There is another method of fat addition that basically bastes a roast automatically while it cooks.  It's called barding, but you probably know it better as bacon-wrapping.

Technically, you can bard with any kind of fat.  Fatback is the most traditional barding fat, but bacon is more readily available (unless you are on a first name basis with your butcher, which you probably should be if you're reading cooking blogs) and does an adequate job.  Plus, if you tell somebody that you wrapped it in bacon, they'll probably salivate.  If you tell them it's wrapped in fatback, they'll probably skip dinner and head to the gym.

So we're going to make a barded back roast (bacon-wrapped pork loin).  Start with a 4-5 pound roast and brine it in your fridge for a day or two.  Yeah, you need to plan ahead: you plan to fail when you fail to plan.  On the day you're going to cook, pull the roast out and let it sit at room temperature for a bit while you're warming up the oven to 450 and prepping the accoutrement.  If you've got a roasting rack for your pan, set it up, but if you don't you can make a natural rack by lining the bottom of the pan with carrots and onions.

Pork loin needs some help in the flavor department, so it's usually a good idea to coat the outside of it with herbs.  I used fresh rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil.  Sage is nice with pork too.  If you've got a mortar and pestle, mash it all up into a paste and slather it on there.  If you don't, crush it with a spoon to release the essences from the fresh herbs before applying to the roast.

Now for the bard.  Apply enough bacon to cover the whole roast from end to end.  Overlap the slices a little bit since they'll shrink up in the oven.

You want the oven to be at 450 when the roast goes in because you want to hit the bacon hard so it'll get crispy and release its fat into the roast below.  However, you should only cook at 450 for about 15 minutes - 20 tops - until the bacon just starts to crisp up at the edges.  Any longer than that and you run the risk of drying out the loin: even with brining and barding you still can't abuse it with temperature.  Drop that heat to 350 and let it go until it reaches an internal temperature of 140, which should only take another 50-60 minutes.  It should look beautiful and you will want to tear right into it.

DON'T!!!  Let it rest on a cutting board for about 20 minutes.  The carryover cooking will bring it up to a safe temperature of 145 degrees (thanks USDA) and the resting will allow all the juices - remember how hard we worked to keep those? - to settle throughout the roast instead of spilling out.  While you're waiting, rescue the carrots and onions from the bottom of the roasting pan.  Maybe chop up some red potatoes and roast those in the oven.  Just don't cut the meat until it's done resting.  Your patience will be greatly rewarded.

Create and recreate

I learned a very simple culinary rule a few years back: If what you're doing isn't adding flavor, it's probably not worth doing. Obviously we can debate that some techniques are more for textural or aesthetic enhancement and don't add much flavor (boiling pasta in water, for example), or that there's a breaking point when flavors are too complex and obscure each other as they vie for your attention. But as a general rule, if you can bolster or complement a food's flavor during the cooking process, do it; maybe you want to boil that pasta in chicken stock instead? This rule especially holds true for foods that lack naturally robust flavors, like a pork shoulder, for example.

For the competition pork, Dan and I took six opportunities to add flavor to the meat:

• Brine (pineapple juice, grenadine and smoked salt)
• Rub (Hawai'ian salt, paprika, black pepper, mustard, secret hobo spices)
• Smoke (cherry wood)
• Braise (pineapple juice)
• Sauce (we played around with a coffee BBQ sauce, but ultimately decided to omit it)
• Garnish (white balsamic & red pepper coleslaw, hickory-smoked cherries)

Good enough for a panel of foodies to give us second place; not bad for bringing in simple pulled pork and coleslaw when other contestants were slinging beef hearts and smoked ice cream.

I wanted to recreate the dish exactly, but - damn you, passage of time - fresh cherries are out of season.  I really wanted to smoke a fruit* so I settled on peaches which are at the tail edge of their ripe season right now.  This would necessitate a few changes to the recipe from the competition version.

First, pineapple juice makes a complete exit.  We had a lot of problems with pineapples during the development - they tend to want to dominate over other flavors - so we relegated them to brine and braise, where they wouldn't be as overpowering.  With peach being the featured complement, pineapple got kicked to the curb.  I started with a brine "tea" of a quart of water, 3/4 of a cup each of kosher salt and sugar, plus a few splashes of apple cider vinegar, grenadine and dried chile de arbol.

Added that to 3 more quarts of water and chilled to 38 degrees.  Pork shoulder went in and sat in the brine in the refrigerator for about 18 hours.  Probably could have used another 18 considering it was a 9 pound roast; file that little nugget away for next time.

Morning of the cook, I pull the roast out and dry it with paper towels.  It sits for an hour at room temperature and gets a slather of yellow mustard (to promote crusty "bark") and a mostly salt-less rub similar to the competition rub (the brine should have imparted enough salt to the shoulder).

Once the smoker is up to temperature - 220-230 degrees is right around magical - the shoulder goes in and stays with the lid on for 5 hours, at which point I add my fresh peaches to the smoker.  BBQ wisdom: "If you're lookin', you ain't cookin'."  While that's going, I make a peach-chipotle BBQ sauce (inspired by but not faithful to this recipe) and some side dishes (mac & cheese and a tomato cucumber salad).  After 6 hours, a few stokes of the fire and cherry log additions, it looks beautiful when I finally take it out.**

If I were in an actual barbecue competition I'd finish this roast on the smoker (adding moisture softens the bark), but since this is an attempt to replicate past glory I opt to pull the shoulder and braise it in diluted apple juice until it comes up to 190 degrees.  Problem is, I've got hungry people infiltrating my house and the shoulder's not done in time.  I slept in too long and didn't get the smoker going at the crack of dawn like I should've.  I have to make a quick fix, so I hack off a couple big chunks, chop 'em up and throw them in the oven with some of the braising liquid until they come up to temp.  Upside is I served everybody at a reasonable hour, downside is I didn't get the stringy muscle fiber consistency I wanted.  Flavor is dead on, though.  Let's eat.  Note Dan getting first dibs on the pork while my lovely wife heads straight to the mac & cheese.

There's still about 6 pounds of pork in the braise and I make sure that I get the consistency I was going for with that.  You can't rush barbecue, ever, which I think is why I'm drawn to it.  It's a throwback to a point before life got all "on-demand" and "just-in-time" and "instant gratification."  Good things still come to those who wait.

*C'mon people, it's 2012.  That's not funny anymore.
**That's still funny.