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Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders

Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders

Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders

"Do pigs…smell like bacon?'

I’m talking to a Hat Grabber at a party in Vegas. Hat Grabber is shorthand for a very young, very pretty, fairly vacant, girl who does things only she can do without getting punched in the face. This includes things like grabbing the hats of the heads of men she’s just met, putting it on her head, and forcing everyone to answer the question, "OH MY GOD, HOW CUTE DO I LOOK?" Hat grabbers.

I’m talking to a Hat Grabber about growing up on a farm, and she asks me if pigs smell like bacon.

"Live pigs? Do live pigs smell like bacon?" I’m a little confused and wonder if I actually heard her correctly.

"….yeah. I mean, I’ve always wondered that."

I’m mostly thinking about how quickly I can exit the conversation without hurting her feelings. "No," I answer, "They don’t smell that good. Also, cows don’t smell like hamburgers."

She laughs. She thinks I’m hilarious. I point to the waiter circulating the party with a silver tray of mini burgers. "How cute are those?! You should eat one!" She grabs her Hat Grabbing accomplice that has just returned from the bar and heads right for the cute food.

I’m relieved, I feel like I’ve been rescued. I owe the remainder of that evening to cute mini burgers. Burgers that actually do smell much more like bacon than live pigs do.

Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders -4

Stout & Sriracha Beer Barbecue Sauce Recipe 

Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders

Ingredients
  

  • 1 lb ground chuck
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • ½ tsp chili powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup breadcrumbs
  • ¼ cup stout beer
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 1 batch 2 cups Stout & Sriracha BBQ Sauce (link above)
  • 12 slider buns

Instructions
 

  • In a large bowl add the meat, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, salt, egg, bread crums, and beer. stir until just combined (about two of three turns with your hands). Over handling the meat will make it tough and mealy.
  • Place bowl in the fridge for 1 hour and up to 1 day (this will help keep it’s shape during cooking.
  • Using a cookie scoop, make balls just smaller than a golf ball with the chilled meat.
  • Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat until very hot. Add the meat balls, pull the skillet back and forth over the burner to roll the meat balls around in the pan. Cook until meatballs are just starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat and add the barbeque sauce, cover with a lid, cooking at a simmer until meatballs are glazed and sauce is very thick.
  • Place one to two meatballs inside slider buns. Serve warm.

Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders -1

New Orleans Barbecue Beer Shrimp

 New Orleans BBQ Beer Shrimp

 There is a magic to sharing a dish of food with a group of people, it’s unifying. We can all have our separate plates, and play nice, but placing a big pot of food in the middle of a table seems to breaks down walls. For this same reason, I love those big sharable 22 ounce beers that require that beer glassware I love so much.

New Orleans BBQ Beer Shrimp3

At the moment, my grill is broken so I need other options for, fun, get-your-hands-messy, food that can feed the Sunday Supper guests I keep begging to come over and eat my food at the end of the week. This was great, it only took about 15 minutes, really delicious and it has an unholy amount of butter.

If you can handle it, get the head-on prawns for some added flavor. And don’t forget that bread to mop up that fantastic sauce.

New Orleans BBQ Beer Shrimp2

New Orleans Barbecue Beer Shrimp

Prep Time 8 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 18 minutes
Servings 4 servings

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup 2 sticks butter, melted
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoons cayenne pepper
  • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon dry oregano
  • ½ teaspoon hot chili sauce such as sriracha
  • 1 cup pale ale
  • 1 pounds raw shrimp deveined, shell on

Instructions
 

  • Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet over medium high heat.
  • Add the remaining ingredients (besides the shrimp), bring to a simmer.
  • Add the shrimp, cook until shrimp have turned pink. Avoid over cooking or the shrimp will be tough.
  • Serve with crust bread to mop up all that beautiful sauce. And lots of napkins.

Adapted from the original New Orleans BBQ Shrimp recipe from Pascale’s Manale

 

 

Oven Roasted BBQ Ribs With Stout Barbecue Sauce

I hate to break it to you but you have probably never barbecued in your life. How dare I say such blasphemous things, you toss burgers and steaks on the grill every weekend?!

That’s not Barbecue, it’s grill. And I would never take away from the fantastic results we can get with a backyard grill, and the amazing flavors that can work their way into your food, but it’s not barbecue.

Barbecue is long, slow and low and the temperature is usually between 240 and 270 degrees. Grill is short, fast and hot, a nice char with a juicy middle.

I wanted to see if I could use my oven to get close the flavors of true barbecue, and while I was missing the smokey flavor, these were some of the best homemade ribs I have ever had. The trick is long, slow and low.

Meat choice is important as well, I used Choice ribs. You know that cute little sticker that sits beside the label on your steak packages, baffling you to some degree with the designation of Prime, Choice or Select, as to why they can’t just be honest and say, "Great," or "Pretty Good," and, "Not that great, but it’s cheap!"

Here are the Cliffs Notes:

Prime: The best and most expensive

Choice: Still great, not as good or as expensive as Prime

Select: Not good, don’t bother

Unlabeled: Bad, didn’t even earn the lowly title of Select.

Inspected By The USDA: Don’t be fooled, all meat is inspected by the USDA. Some stores use this to distract you from the fact that it is an ungraded piece of meat, and therefore not any good. Prime is obviously the best, but also the most expensive. When I experiment with a recipe, I usually go with Choice because it is a good cut of meat, but if the recipe doesn’t turn out well I didn’t waste $50 on the venture.

Oven Roasted BBQ Ribs With Stout Beer Barbecue Sauce

4 lbs Bone In Baby Back Beef Ribs (Choice or Prime)

1 tsp salt

1 batch Stout & Sriracha BBQ Sauce

Preheat oven to 250.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, place ribs on top. Sprinkle ribs with salt on all sides. Brush with BBQ sauce and roast in the oven at 250, turning ribs and brushing with BBQ sauce every 30-45 minutes until fork tender, about 4 hours.

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Stout & Sriracha Beer Barbecue Sauce

Barbecue debates rage on all over the south, even as we virtually speak. The most sweltering of all topics is Sauce versus Rub. Rub people claiming that good meat doesn’t need to be drowned in sauce, and sauce people attesting to the holy balance of flavors between sauce and meat, and then there is the apathetic middle who just shrug and use both.

And even when you eat your way across the Barbecue Belt, sampling the best of both slow cooked worlds, and finally take up residence in a meat preparation camp, the disputes don’t end. If you decide to consort with the rowdy sauce crowd, you have more decisions to make. Are you a vinegar based sauce person or tomato based? Molasses or brown sugar? Mustard sauce or chili sauce?

I’ve decided I’m a sauce girl, but I will never turn away good Slow Cooked BBQ Rubbed Spare Ribs. And although I prefer a deep sweet tomato sauce with a kick of spice, I’ll eat every last bit of a Golden Mustard Pulled Pork Sandwich.

Whether you decide on sauce, or just a great marinade, beer is an ideal addition. Beer is a natural meat tenderizer and a deeply flavored stout is a great way to go.

I used Bear Republic, Big Bear Black Stout. A fantastic stout, and as Beer Store Beer Guy told me last week, "Bear Republic’s Stout is one of the most consistent beers I’ve ever had. It always tastes the same, no matter what batch it came from." Hard thing to accomplish.

Stout & Sriracha BBQ Sauce

Stout & Sriracha Beer Barbecue Sauce

Servings 2 cups

Ingredients
  

  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic minced
  • 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
  • 3/4 cup ketchup
  • 2 tbs worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tsp sriracha
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 cup Stout
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp onion powder

Instructions
 

  • In a pot over medium heat, add the oil and allow to get hot but not smoking. Add the garlic and stir until you can smell it, about 30 seconds. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until combined. Allow to cook until thickened, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.
  • Store in an air tight container in the fridge.

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