Preparation:
MALCOLM DESHIELDS' BARBECUED BRISKET
From: The Only Texas Cookbook, Texas Monthly Press, 1981 By: Linda West Eckhardt
Malcolm DeShields is a wiry little chap from Corpus Christi who calls himself the Barbecue Man. He is the sort of fellow who calls women under fifty "girl" and those over fifty "lady." He makes his points by giving you a jab to the shoulder for emphasis. Malcolm belongs to the school that says wet sauces are bad for barbecue. He says, and I agree, that any sauce with tomato or sugar will burn. Barbecue cooked dry - over a very low heat and in a covered barbecue pit - will produce a marvelous real Texas barbecue.
This is what Malcolm says about cooking a brisket:
Choose about a 9-pound brisket. One with some fat on it. You don't want it too lean. Make you up a dry rub of equal parts of salt, fine pepper, and paprika - say about 1/8 cup of each - and rub this all over the meat real good. Don't ever pierce it with a fork. Turn it with them tongs.
Build you up a good fire in your barbecue pit-at one end using mesquite, hickory, or oak. If you have to you can use hickory chips soaked in water with charcoal. Now let your fire burn down real good. If you have a pan of water to put in - all the better. You'll have to figure out how to get it in dependin' on your own pit, but the water should be somewhere kinder in the middle. Your fire cain't be too hot. But you cain't let it go out either. You may have to kinder nurse it along, addin' little logs from time to time, 'bout as big around as yore wrist. Remember to keep the fire off from the meat.
Well, anyway, when you got your fire just so, put the brisket on and cover it up. You'll need some sort of draw so the smoke just sucks right over the meat. I'd say a 9-pound brisket 'ud cook about 18 hours. Now, girl, don't think you can just go off and forget it, you got to turn it once in awhile with them tongs, add wood or add water, but um-um, that barbecue will be just right.
You can do the same thing with pork ribs, steak, or chicken.
Use the same seasoning. Cook ribs about 3 hours, chicken about 2. Steak jus |
