Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today we're going to talk about barbecue.
So what's the deal with barbecue?
Not your uncle's barbecue that he does in his backyard. The real barbecue.
The real barbecue. What about it?
Yeah, I think first of all we should narrow down what barbecue is, you know, because I think it's
something that in some form or another is present in pretty much every culture around the world.
Yeah, it's probably the oldest form of cooking. For sure it is.
For sure. I mean, for me, when I think of barbecue, obviously I think everybody connected
to their own culture, but for me it's just things cooked over a live heat source. And with that,
I mean either open fire or charcoal or wood embers, something like that. It's a very particular type
of heat, I think, and a little bit of smoke is involved. Although, you know, I think that smoke
often comes in a very subtle form. But yeah, I think that barbecue can be really anything.
And there's also the cultural ritual around it, gathering around with family or friends, cooking
outside. Usually there is always a grill master who allows no one to touch his grill. I think it's
pretty similar in different cultures.
Are you that kind of guy? Are you like that when you're grilling or fence? No?
No, I'm the one who steals food from the grill.
That's true. I remember the last time when we grilled together, you kind of stayed back and
let everybody else cook. I remember. Exactly. I'm not the grill alpha guy at all.
You pull the strings from behind the curtain. The puppet master.
Exactly. Someone needs to make the salad, you know, I'll do it.
Yeah, I mean, I think, like you say, you know, it's something super primal. And I mean, like
cooking with fire. When I say cooking with fire, you could imagine like a roaring big fire, you
know, but it's not really the case like most of the time. But, you know, cooking with fire is
really awesome. As in like the true sense of the word, like it's really awe inspiring. I feel like
it's just kind of moves something deep inside of us when we see open flame. And yeah, it's
definitely one of my favorite ways of cooking, you know, not just meat or protein, just like in
general. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Do you also include like if you're cooking with a pot
on fire? Is that also grilling? If you're making like a sauce or a stew or something like that?
In a Dutch oven, for instance? Yeah, see, I would say no, I wouldn't include that. I mean, there are
circumstances where you, for example, bury pots in embers. And there's an argument to be made that
some sort of flavor is imparted. But I wouldn't necessarily call it that because you're cooking
in a pot like the cooking is happening in the pot. And whether that's on an induction stove or on a
grill, I don't think makes a huge difference. But yeah, I think it's important to say that there's
a like a direct contact with that heat source. Yeah, I guess it only gives the whole romanticity
to the situation like cooking on fire, while you're also grilling, you know, with a pot or anything
like that. I mean, it makes sense from a sustainability point of view, you know, if you
have a heat source, like it's a lot of energy being expended that you're going to use that same heat
to cook other things if you want to cook them in a pot. What's your favorite type of barbecue?
Yeah, I mean, I have mixed feelings because I would say my favorite meat is the chuleta. I have like a
weakness for it. But if there were no chuletas in the world, I would say... Okay, let's not paint
the devil on the wall. But yeah, sorry, continue. I would say Brazilian, picanha, that style of grill.
Oh, interesting. What you bring to the grill, I think that that's also completely different
than Latin America and Europe, North America or Asia, you know, all the sauces, the dips, the salads,
the carbs you put around your grill. I mentioned picanha, but in Venezuela, usually you will have
yuca, you know, the Spanish root, usually boiled and then with like a vinaigrette,
which would be like a dressing with lots of chopped vegetables, kind of like a pico de gallo,
something like that. On top of the boiled yuca, that's something super common. Our own avocado
sauce, which is different from guacamole, it's called huazacaca. That's a must. Hot sauce, of course.
And those are the basic things and everybody, you know, there are all types of variations,
but that's something you will find quite often. And also the type of meats, you will find chicken,
different types of beef and different types of sausages and black pudding and this kind of stuff.
And usually everything is done and then on that grill session, you know, you get a little bit of
everything. That sounds really nice. I mean, and there we've got the communal aspect again,
you know, sort of like often grilling is this thing where everybody gets together, you know,
I feel like it has this like natural draw for people to gather. Everybody loves like a grill
day. It's usually for me, I associate it with also with drinking the whole day and I don't know,
listening, putting some music, being in the countryside, you know, like it is chilling.
Yeah, absolutely. I, for me, like I've, you know, over many years now, I've grown to be super
interested in American barbecue culture. You know, it's got such a mysticism around it, you know,
and it's like, obviously there's like different styles that are widespread, you know, in the south
of the states from, you know, whole hog barbecue to the like more sort of beef centric kind of like
briskets focused cooking in Texas. But you know, especially things like whole hog barbecue,
it's really fascinated me because it's such a cool way of cooking and like this indirect fire sauce,
having like this off chamber where you have the indirect heat of the fire channeling through this
cooker, you know, and then out at the other end. And that paired with the way that they build a
fire where it's not like super, super smoky. It's like a clean burn. Like you don't want it to be
any sort of like harsh smoke. I found that super interesting. And I tried it a couple of times
because it's like such a stripped back way of cooking that I really wanted to try it out.
And I totally fucked it up. You know, I remember like I built this like makeshift offset barbecue
cooker and I just couldn't get it right. I don't know whether my wood wasn't right or whether
I was just not building the fire right. I found it super interesting, you know, listening to people
like Elliot Moss, who's got a restaurant called Buxton Hall in Asheville, I think it's called in
the South. And he only does the whole hog. And if people like, I mean, I'm sure you know, Aaron
Franklin. Yeah. When they talk about how to build a fire, they talk about the smoke coming out of
the smokestack on the chimney on your barbecue. It should be sort of like, it shouldn't be white and
it shouldn't be smoky. It should be like bluish hue so that you know that it's not too smoky.
That really, really fascinated me because it's such an intuitive and such an involved way of cooking
because you're also kind of like there throughout the night kind of like checking the fire, making
small adjustments. And I think it's super fascinating, super nice way of cooking.
I went to one of these places in Houston. I think that the name was Corkscrew, if I'm not wrong.
And it's the same style of barbecue as Aaron Franklin, but with its own signature dishes
and everything. And we've got this big platter. You usually get chicken, brisket, ribs, different
sausages. And then side dishes. You usually also have like pickles. And I remember there was the
super heavy kidney beans too. Everything was really, really nice. The only thing I didn't like was the
bread. It was just like, you know, like beanboat bread. And I was like, man, why can't you make like
a proper nice bread for this nice barbecue? And apparently that's super common in America,
to have that kind of bread with your barbecue. Yeah, the Texas toast, man. Texas toast is a thing.
Yeah, for sure. I first had Texas toast when I went to eat at Cane's, when I was, I think,
also in Houston or in Dallas or something like that, when I was renewing my illegal work permit
for Mexico. And yeah, Texas toast is basically just like, sometimes it's toasted, sometimes it's
not even toasted, right? It's just like a slap of like the most basic white bread. Exactly. It's
super basic because I mean, I've seen really good breads in that sign up, but this is just plain
generic sandwich bread. Yeah, but it's kind of like a super stripped back, Southern American.
It's like a lifestyle also. And I always just really, really dug that. But yeah, you know,
kind of like what you're saying with the sides, that kind of brings me to another style of barbecue
that I really love, which is Korean barbecue, which for me is almost like as much about the sides
as it is about the actual barbecue itself. I mean, you have that a lot in Korean culture,
this like Anchan thing where like loads of sort of like small side dishes come out, you know,
from kimchi to salads to different pickles and ferments. Super, super nice also. As I said,
for me, it's almost as important as the meat, the side dishes and sauces and salads and stuff
that are commonly associated to a salad of barbecue. By the way, why don't you share what
you did in the last barbecue we had together? I remember you had like a whole chicken, you did
yakitoris with the wings and legs, right? And with the breast, you did like some sort of lemon marinade.
That was really, really nice. Oh, yeah. I remember I did the whole chicken. I mean, I just kind of
deboned it completely. So you have the chicken flat, you have it all attached and all the skin
still intact. And then I mean, I usually I marinate the chicken, like I usually have this chicken
marinate where I always use lots of garlic, lots of cracked black pepper, a little bit of salt,
I always season the chicken even if I'm marinating it. So it kind of works like a brine a little bit.
And then I usually always mix a dairy component and like an acid component. So either, you know,
sour cream and a dash of vinegar, or, you know, like creme fraiche and some lemon, you know, and then
I'll just like squeeze the lemon in, chop the lemon up and put it into the marinade. And I feel like
this mix of salts, dairy and acid really tenderizes the chicken and makes it super, super juicy. I do
that for fried chicken also, but also for this grilled chicken works really well. You're keeping
the skin clean. That's very important because you don't want bits and pieces to burn on the skin.
Because what I do is I take this chicken and marinate it and then I just flip it in half so
that on each side you just have the skin, right? So the idea is that you kind of slowly render the
skin out so that's really crispy on the outside and the flesh is kind of protected and just kind
of cooks through kind of steaming itself and not really drying out. And then you flip it and you
grill the other side and outside you only have crispy chicken skin and inside you hopefully have
very tender chicken. It's a little bit difficult if you do a whole chicken because you have to
breast and defy in the same piece, which are obviously going to cook at a different tempo.
But you know, you can just kind of play around with that. Then you use the wings for making
yakitoris, right? Yeah, I mean, that's such a basic yakitori, you know, you give the wings
two small cuts so that they kind of flatten out a little bit and the bone is a little bit more
exposed. And then you just skewer them flat so that once it's cooked, you have a very comfortable
bite from either side and you don't really have to bite around the bone so much. It's like a very
traditional kind of yakitori technique from Japan. And I just made like a tare sauce. Tare is also
super, super traditional yakitori sauce, which is basically like soy based with sake, mirin, kombu,
spring onions, ginger, and often like the version I make, it's got roasted chicken bones in it. So
you kind of simmer that down until it's a flavorsome kind of sauce. And as you're grilling your chicken,
you dip it in the sauce and put it back on the grill. And the sauce flavors the chicken and
caramelizes it and the crispy chicken flavors the sauce. This is sort of sauce, which is kind of like
a master stock, you know, in China, they have these master stocks where they use a stock or
sauce that they keep adding things into and it gets more like developed and developed flavor wise.
As you do with tare, you dip the chicken in it and it takes on the flavor of the chicken. What that
means though, is that the sauce is going to get contaminated with chicken. So it's more fragile in
its shelf life. So every now and again, you just have to bring it to the boil, kind of adjust the
sauce and then chill it down rapidly again so that it's completely sterilized and safe. But like that,
you can keep the sauce basically forever without it ever going off. And it will just become more and
more complex as you go on. And there's yakitori shops in Japan that have had their tare sauce for
dozens, if not hundreds of years. Have you ever done char siu sauce, which is kind of the same
principle, right? But it's usually for pork, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, char siu. Yeah, exactly. I mean,
this is like very famously red marinated glaze for pork, which like, I mean, char siu gets made
in these sort of like special ovens that are kind of like the ovens that use for Peking ducks,
you know. I have made char siu before. It's got like rock sugar and you know, like red vinegar
and spices and stuff like that. And I would say it's more like a barbecue sauce. I mean, when I
was living in Hong Kong, I ate a lot of char siu. A lot of it was quite sweet because it's a very
interesting cultural difference actually is that this type of pork, they like to have it sweet,
you know, which for us is very weird because we don't really associate pork with sweet flavors.
But in the Chinese cooking culture and this particular Chinese cooking culture anyway,
that's the flavor that they like, you know, and it's very nice. But yeah, yakitori, again,
like for me, yakitori is one of the like, one of the main and like the biggest, most interesting
types of barbecue in the world. It's such a almost religious approach to grilling. When you think of
barbecue as like a simple way of cooking something, or like a stripped down way of cooking something,
the way that they treat the product, which is the chicken, it's also just like such a focus and
stripped down way of preparing chicken. It's like take the thing, divide it into its parts, and
prepare each part in a way that suits that particular part the best. And I think that's
kind of perfect in terms of cooking. It's like a perfect approach. Have you ever grilled as
part of another process? For instance, I don't know grilling onions that you will add to a stock or
this kind of things? Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm a big fan of grilling. I'm a big fan of using open
fire as your heat source, because I feel like it just imparts so much soul and so much character
into food. And yeah, I've done a lot of stuff, you know, like take the classic on your brûlée
that you make for stocks, you know. Yeah. For people that don't know, you know, it's a very
classic French technique where you just take a white or yellow onion, you cut it in half,
and you put it on a hot surface, cut side down until it's very, very black, and that you add to
stocks. It gives a very, it doesn't give a burnt flavor, it just gives a very deep caramelized
flavor. And yeah, I mean, like I've done lots of stuff like that. You have to sometimes be a little
bit careful. But for example, you know, if you take the example of tarte, you could easily grill
your chicken bones carefully over a slow fire and then add them into your sauce. And it'll just give
a little bit more depth, you know. I worked in an Asian restaurant where we made like a unagi sauce.
What's the name of this Japanese grill that is like a box, you know, like for the jacquitori,
the ones you use. It's called rôbata. Right there we would grill all the bones from the
eel and skin rest and everything, and that would be cooked into an unagi sauce. Yeah, I mean,
it's that sounds amazing. It's exactly what you should do. I've done that with fish bones, you
know, just the spine of the fish. You can put them on the grill and slowly roast them and then
make a stock out of that, which then you can use to make like a sauce. Like even if it's a classic
French sauce, you know, like a butter wine sauce or something. Yeah. But it'll just give you this
little, this little, this little je ne sais quoi, you know. But even like vegetables, you know,
like, I mean, fire is such a versatile way to cook vegetables. Yeah, I love roasting
aubergines directly on the charcoals. That's a classic one. Last time I remember I also did
like pak chois and then I would throw them like in a kimchi marinade. Amazing. Just after grilling.
That was also really nice. That sounds delicious, you know, that's almost like a cooked fresh kimchi,
you know? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, that's really nice. There's a famous dish from Chef
Daniel Berlin, who's a Michelin star chef in Sweden, which I really like. And for me, that's
also like perfect sort of example of vegetable barbecue cooking. It was one of his signature
dishes. I mean, was, is, I don't know, he's opening a new restaurant soon, I think. So he took a
celeriac and he put it on the fire, slow fire for many, many hours, I think like three, four hours,
until the outside was completely black, but the inside was fully steamed through and tender.
And then he would take this black celeriac into the dining room, cut it open, steaming hot, yeah.
And then just scoop pieces of it out without using the black part, of course, and then serve that
together with the sauce that he made from the charred outer bits of the celeriac from the day
before. So we make like a charred celeriac stock and then kind of cook that down and make like a
creamy, foamy, smoky sauce. I've made that dish actually, and I was like myself really, really
surprised how delicious it is because by roasting the celeriac slowly, you, like it removes a lot
of the moisture inside of the vegetable and the flavor just gets so extremely concentrated. It's
like so umami rich and like just very lightly smoky and concentrated. And then making the sauce out of
those charred bits gives you just real sort of like rustic burn sort of thing. It's super,
so simple, but so delicious. I think celeriac is one of my favorite vegetables. Yeah. And yeah,
I can almost smell that roasted celeriac. Well, it's got an open end in the dining room. Yeah.
Desserts? Have you ever done like pineapples or these sort of things? Yeah, I mean, for sure.
Roasting a pineapple on the rotisserie kind of spit, that's very classic, you know, kind of like
glazed with brown sugar or something like that. Yeah, some kind of molasses, yeah, something like
that. And like lemon zest, lime zest, and orange zest, like a mixture of that, you know, it's like
very classic, I think. Yeah, exactly. Or a whipped cream with lime zest. Definitely one of the best
desserts that I've had grill related was at Echibari, of course, the classic smoked milk
ice cream. It's just very nice with the beetroot. I think it's like always beetroot, right? It's like
beetroot reduction or something? Yeah, I don't know what I had like cherries. I might be wrong. I
remember the beetroot, but I don't know why I have like the cherries in mind. Yeah, I mean,
that's very nice, you know, also like a super cool example of smoke used in a really nice,
beautiful way. Like when people think of smoked, you know, it's always like it's really harsh,
like smoked bacon or smoked fish or whatever. But smoke can be really gentle and subtle and
just kind of perfuming things. I watched an interview with the Yakitori chef the other day
where he says that his job or, you know, his focus is mainly on giving the skewers the right perfume.
You know, and I thought that was really interesting because if you're cooking with
open fire a lot and with charcoal, then you know that there's like very small differences
and nuances in how you can cook it. It can be very, very smoky and very harsh, but it can be
very, very gentle. And yeah, I thought it was very interesting.
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