While We're on the Subject of Squash . . .

. . . let's look at another way to fry it. 

I imagine that there are more squash recipes to be found in the Southeast than there are cooks in the region, and at least as many recipes for fried squash as there are cooks.  Squash just seems to be a popular food down here, except maybe among school-age kids.  Squash-hating may not be so prevalent among today's school children, but squash was almost universally disliked, and in some cases hated outright, by pupils in the Dougherty County, Georgia, public school system, of which I am a product.

Now personally, I do not remember a time when I didn't like squash.  When we had squash for lunch at school I was, as they say, in hog heaven.

Early on in my academic career, when the school cafeteria served squash, I'd have one or more schoolmates approach me with the intention of trading their squash for something on my tray that I didn't care for.  The problem with that was that there wasn't much I didn't like in the way of food, so there was usually nothing I was willing to swap for another helping of squash. I suppose I had inadvertently developed a reputation for liking squash, but since I liked everything else and usually declined to swap, this sort of propositioning became rather rare.  More often than not, though, I'd end up with an extra helping or two on days when squash was served.

There were always certain kids, you see, who couldn't stand the sight of the stuff, much less the idea of putting it in their mouths.  Such children called it names like squish in elementary school (and they waxed more and more descriptive, I'm here to tell you, as they advanced in grade level and their skills in the use of obscene and/or profane language improved).  Anyhow, I came to know who these people were, and on squash days, I'd stalk them.

My modus operandi was this:  I'd choose one particular squash-hater and schmooze them. Then, when it was time for lunch, I'd follow my intended victim to a table, sit down close to them, and start eating my lunch.  Then, just when lunch started to kick into high gear, I'd nonchalantly ask my victim, "Hey, you gonna eat your squish?"

I think it was probably the word squish, spoken with a tone and inflection intended to evoke unpleasant feelings in the listener, and timed for when the listener's mouth was full of food, that did the trick, but the why isn't important.  Regardless of the reason, it was the result that counted:  the squash-hater gladly parted with his or her portion of the abominable vegetable.  Yuk! take it and good riddance!  I believe they might have paid me to take their squash, if the thought had crossed their minds and they'd had the money.

Okay! okay!  Pardon my ruminations, but I couldn't help myself.  Remembering those days, so long ago now, always gives me a chuckle, and I do enjoy telling a story.  Now, to today's recipe.

Deep-Fried Squash

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4 C fresh yellow squash at room temperature, quartered lengthwise, individual quarters then cut crosswise into 1-inch slices.
1 C all-purpose flour.
1 large egg.
Table salt.
Black pepper.
Vegetable oil (for deep-frying).
Onion powder (optional).

Beat the egg lightly with a fork to mix the white and yolk.

For each piece of the squash, do the following:

• Dip into the egg. Coat thoroughly, then allow the excess egg to drain back into the egg container.
• Season to taste with salt, black pepper, and onion powder (if you're using it).
• Dredge lightly in the flour.

After confirming that there's suffficient oil in your deep fryer, and topping it up if there isn't, set the temperature to 350 degrees.

When the oil in the fryer reaches 350 degrees, carefully drop no more than a handful of the squash piece in the oil.  If it's more than a handful, the additional mass could reduce the temperature of the oil significantly.  This is not a good thing to have happen, because in order to cook in the lower-temperature oil, the food must remain in it for a longer time than normal.  The food can thus absorb more oil than usual, and it may become greasy.

Cook the squash until the flour breading is a light golden brown.  Cooking squash in a deep fryer doesn't take long, so be careful that you don't overcook it.

Remove food from deep fryer and drain.

Allow drained squash to cool, then serve immediately.

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Breaded squash can also be cooked in a skillet, but you'll need to use 1/4-inch slices rather than 1-inch, and you'll need to cook the squash slices in batches of no more slices than cover the bottom of the pan. You'll need only enough vegetable to cover the bottom of the pan. Keep an eye on your squash by turning frequently.  Your food is done when it takes on the light golden-brown color, as described above.

Either way you fry it - deep or pan - you may want to substitute a seasoned for the table salt.  That little extra flavor might be all it takes to convert a young squash-hater, should it be your misfortune to have one running around your house, into an enthusiastic squash fanatic.

Happy cooking!

South Georgia Country-Fried Squash

It’s just about the end of the summer squash season in Georgia, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share this recipe.  I know I could have put it off until next Spring, but when I asked myself “why?,” I couldn’t come up with a good excuse.

If you’re from the South and you're partial to yellow squash, be it straight-neck, crook-neck, or ‘humungous’ - the sort I get free from a friend who’s an admitted “gardenin’ fool,” and can’t help growing too much for him to eat by himself - you’ll probably recognize this countrified concoction, if not by recipe, then by the flavor when you eat it.  Here’s how my Nannie made it.

Country-Fried Squash

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6 C fresh yellow squash, quartered lengthwise, quarters then cut crosswise into ¼-inch slices.
1 C (more or less, to taste) rough-chopped (½-inch or so pieces) yellow or Spanish onion.
1 T bacon grease.
Salt.
Black pepper.

In a large, heavy skillet (cast iron, preferably) over a LOW fire, sweat the onions in the bacon grease until the onions are translucent.  Then add the squash.

Stir the mixture thoroughly.  What you want is to coat the squash evenly with the onions and bacon grease.

Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  What we’re doing here is softening the squash and getting the water in the squash to come out into the skillet.

Break the squash slices up.  A potato-masher comes in handy here.

Turn the fire up to MEDIUM and cook uncovered until the most of water boils off.  This concentrates the flavor of the squash and onion.  You’re done when water no longer pools in the skillet  You’ve reached this point when no water pools in the bottom of the skillet when you expose it by moving the contents aside.

Reduce heat to LOW and continue to cook, uncovered, until the squash begins to brown.  Be careful here, because things can get out of hand quickly if you’re not paying attention.  You can easily end up with burned squash.

Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve immediately.

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Happy cooking!

Pork Barbecue: Kettle Cooking Method, Epilogue

A few notes and cautions with regard to the topic of barbecuing are probably in order, especially for the novice barbecuer.

Firstly, there's the question of how the barbecue is supposed to look when it's done.  The answer is black.  That's right, black.  If your shoulder's not black, something's wrong.  It should look like you've burned it.

You haven't really burned it, though.  The black color is the result of 10 to 14 hours of constant exposure to hardwood smoke.  The fat-cap is now a shriveled, black and nameless thing.  The surface of the meat on the side opposite the fat-cap has a nice, attractive bark to it.  The meat has a deep, red or pink smoke ring around the outside that you could see if you cut into it.  And, most importantly, the meat is moist, succulent, fall-off-the-bone tender, and delicious.

Secondly, it's possible, on account of the imprecise nature of our heat-control method, that your meat will look like it's done, but won't quite be, after the prescribed amount of time because your fire was not quite hot enough.  On the other hand, the fire may have been too hot, and your meat looks like it's done, and is done, before the prescribed time has elapsed.  Never fear.  We have ways of dealing with these situations.

For cases where we suspect we have one of the abovegoing anomalous conditions in play, there is what is known in barbecuing circles as the shake 'n' bake test.  To perform the shake 'n' bake test, you just grab hold of the exposed shank bone, which should be clearly visible and identifiable as bone by now, of the shoulder and give it a good shake.  If the meat loosens from the bone and looks like it's ready to fall off, the 'cue's done.  Contrariwise, if it don't, it ain't.  It's that simple.

I think it's always a good idea to shake 'n' bake when the meat looks done, just in case.  Remember, though, that the bone will be hot.  Protect your hand - by using tongs or pliers, or by wearing an oven mitt - so you don't burn yourself.

Thirdly, in case you're inclined to try to eat what's left of the fat-cap, don't.  It's as hard and tough and unappetizing as it looks, and it tastes about as bad as it looks.  Toss it, along with the bones, and pull and/or chop what's left.

Pulling pork, incidentally, is merely the act of pulling the meat apart into sections along the grain.  If the meat's too hot to pull with your bare hands, try using a pair of dinner forks in place of your fingers.  Just pull the meat apart into not-so-thick portions.

After you've pulled the pork, you may want to chop the pieces into more convenient lengths if they're too long to be easily managed.  Or, if you don't want to pull the pork at all, you can skip the pulling and just chop your meat up.  In either case, use a chef's knife or cleaver, and chop down, rather than cut back and forth.

Then, again, if none of the above tickles your fancy, there's always the sliced-barbecue route.  Just slice the meat across the grain, like you would a ham (you can do this either with the bone in, or with the bone removed).  A knife with a serrated blade, such as a special-purpose ham-carving knife, works best.

Finally, I realize that, for the uninitiated, kettle-barbecuing a pork shoulder that weighs 10 to 14 pounds may seem a little daunting.  Well, don't let it be.  Barbecuing is actually much less intense than roasting hot dogs on sticks over a campfire, where conditions can change rapidly.  You have to be alert and you have to pay close attention when you're roasting a hot dog.  Otherwise, you just might burn your weenie.

Barbecuing, by way of contrast, happens at a slower pace.  You do have to pay attention, certainly, but barbecuing is still a very leisurely undertaking.  In fact, the only problem you're likely to run into in barbecuing has to do with the time it takes.  You're liable to get so bored during the long hours of cooking time that you fall asleep and let your fire go out.  That minor hazard notwithstanding, barbecuing is an ideal pastime for any lazy person.  This fact no doubt explains why I'm so fond of it.

Happy cooking, ...er..., barbecuing!

Pork Barbecue: Kettle Cooking Method, Part VII – Y’all Want Some Sauce With That ‘Cue?

Now that the ‘cue’s in the kettle, we’ve got some time - from 10 to 14 hours, depending - that we can use to make some sauce.  I like my sauce for barbecued pork shoulder to be a bit thinner than the sauce I make for ribs, and I like it to be less sweet and a bit more tangy, too.  The idea with pulled and/or chopped barbecued pork shoulder is to put the sauce in, rather than on, the meat, and I find that a thinner sauce penetrates the finished meat more readily than a thicker sauce.  You may (and you’re welcome to) differ, but to me, it just tastes better that way.  At any rate, here’s my recipe:

Sauce for Barbecued Pork Shoulder:

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2 recipes dry rub.
1 C distilled vinegar.
1 C water.
1 C tomato catsup.
1 T. prepared mustard.
1 lemon, sliced thin.
1/4 C fresh or cold-pack orange juice (optional)

Add prepared mustard to the vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Dissolve dry rub in vinegar/mustard mixture.

Add the water and the catsup.

Add the orange juice if you’re using it.

Pour mixture into sauce pan and float the lemon slices on top of the liquid.

Simmer for at least 1 hour, preferably longer.  Makes about 3 cups of sauce.

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Pour over meat after the meat has cooled and has been taken off the bone, and pulled and/or chopped.  Do not apply sauce to the meat while the meat’s cooking.  The sauce can,t penetrate the fat-cap anyway, and will probably just carbonize, adding nothing at all to the final result.

Happy cooking (and eating)!

Pork Barbecue: Kettle Cooking Method, Part VI – Cookin’ ‘Cue

Okay!  The meat’s on the fire and we get to relax a little.  All we have to do is check on the fire every hour or so, and re-fuel the fire if it needs it.

Re-fueling, or stoking, the fire is a fairly straightforward undertaking.  If your kettle’s like mine and the cooking surface, or grill, is hinged so that access to the grate can be had without removing the grill, then you can stoke with a minimum of bother.  Just make sure (before you put the meat on) that you've oriented the cooking surface so that the hinged pieces are above your two little fires on the grate.  Otherwise, your only option when stoking is to remove the cooking surface (and the meat) entirely each time you stoke.

The only real trick (and there always seems to be a trick, doesn’t there?) in stoking your fire is in knowing when it needs more fuel.  We determine this visually.

I stoke when, in my estimation, the amount of fuel remaining is between 1/3 and 1/4 of the amount that was there when I lit my fire.  If you let the fuel burn down to where there’s less than 1/4 of the original amount, then you could be pushing your luck; there may not be enough heat energy left to ignite the new fuel.  With this in mind, I’m inclined to stoke when the fuel remaining is closer to 1/3 than it is to 1/4 of the original amount.

Also, bear in mind that while I say fire, as if there was just one, there are actually two small fires to deal with, one on either side of the drip pan. and we need to treat them equally.  If one needs stoking and the other one doesn’t, stoke both anyway, even if you put just a single wood chunk on the fire that doesn’t need stoking.  A little extra fuel never hurts.

Now on occasion, you may find that one of your little fires doesn’t want to cooperate.  If one of your fires (which we’ll call the ‘ailing’ fire, in contrast to the other ‘healthy’ fire) won’t stay lit, the probable reason is that it’s not getting enough air.  This is usually because ash and/or other debris have accumulated in the bottom of the kettle on the side beneath the ailing fire, and is restricting ventilation on that side of the kettle.  Since hot air rises, and since hotter air rises faster, the air flow, or draft, created by the healthy fire is greater than the draft created by the ailing fire.

However, as the draft produced by the ailing fire slows down, the ailing fire burns cooler and draws even less air.  Things kind of snowball over time, the ailing fire drawing less and less air as it burns cooler and cooler, until the ailing fire goes out completely, due to oxygen starvation.  Meanwhile, the healthy fire burns along merrily, still receiving adequate because it now has all of the available air.  The healthy fire, in fact,  may get too much oxygen and may even burst into flame, because there’s now more oxygen available than the healthy fire needs in order to smolder.

The best remedy for fires that go out is prevention.  While you can (and should) clear the intake (bottom) ventilators,  by adjusting the intake damper from lock-to-lock and then putting the damper back in the position it was originally, from time to time while cooking, a little preventive maintenance helps, too.  You don’t have to clean your kettle thoroughly between uses, but you should at least get as much ash/debris as you can out of the bottom of the kettle.  If your kettle came with an enclosed ash catcher attached, just sweep the debris through the ventilator holes (bottom damper fully open for this) into the ash container. You should, incidentally, empty the catcher periodically, because if it’s filled to near the top, it can affect air flow.  If your kettle is not equipped with such a device, I’ve found it expedient to haul the kettle to an area of the property that’s not easily visible, close the bottom damper completely, loosen any debris in the kettle with a stiff brush, and then pick the kettle up bodily and dump the contents on the ground.

No, I do not jest.  Unless you barbecue every day, you won’t create enough ash to have a noticeable pile.  Moreover, kettle ash is not harmful to plants, including grass, nor to animals.  On the other hand, I know that some folks just aren’t comfortable with the idea of dumping ashes in their backyards.  For ash disposal, such individuals should keep a dedicated ash receptacle, i.e., can, plastic bag, etc., for the purpose.

Just one more thing before we close up shop for the day, and this is important.  As surely as I blog about cooking, you’ll have heard this admonition before (often, no doubt; possibly ad nauseum).  It may be trite, but I think it’s worth repeating:  NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES introduce hot ashes into the environment!  Either put them in a container that is approved as being suitable for hot embers, or allow them to cool to the point that they’re cool to the touch, or douse them thoroughly with water, before disposing of them.  The reason for this is so obvious that I won’t waste your time explaining.

That’s today’s installment.  Have a great weekend, and . . .

Happy cooking!

Pork Barbecue: Kettle Cooking Method, Part V – Time to Barbecue!

When we left off yesterday, we were ready to light a fire in the kettle.  Before we do that, though, we’ll need to prep the pork shoulder.  Actually, you can light the kettle and then prep the shoulder, because it takes a while for the hardwood chunks to catch fire and really blaze, and there’s really not much to prepping the meat.

Now, typically, when you’re merely grilling relatively small cuts, such as steaks, you’ll want the meat to be at room temperature.  Not so when we barbecue.  You can take a cold (not frozen, mind you) pork shoulder directly from the refrigerator and throw it in the kettle.  The reason you can do this is that you’ll be cooking the meat for hours, literally, at low temperature.  The meat (any food, in fact) never gets hotter than the temperature at which you cook it (in the neighborhood of 225º F to 250º F), and it will take it a while to get to that temperature, regardless of whether you start the meat at room temperature (68º F, officially) or refrigerator temperature (in the neighborhood of 35º F to 40º F).  This is because the difference between room and refrigerator temperature is not that great when compared to the 225/250-degree cooking temperature.

Incidentally, you may be thinking, ”hey, wait a minute here, there’s not that much difference in temperature between 35º and 32º, and 32º is freezing; so why couldn’t I cook a frozen, 32º shoulder and expect it to be done in the same amount of time?”.

That’s a reasonable enough question.  The answer is, because water can be ice or liquid water at 32º, that you probably can get away with it if the temperature of the shoulder really is 32º.  At temperatures even a little colder than 32º F, at which there's no liquid water, only solid ice, however, all bets are off.

The reason, while trying not to get too technical with it, is that meat is mainly water, and it’s the water that freezes when you freeze meat.  When water freezes, it loses energy in the form of heat.  In freezing, liquid water loses heat energy and drops to a temperature just below its freezing point and then spikes back up to its freezing point as ice crystals start to form.  During this time, its temperature does not change, but the water continues to lose heat energy.  This energy, lost during the formation of ice crystals, is called the enthalpy of fusion or heat of fusion of water.  Enthalpy of fusion is expressed in units of unit heat energy (e.g., calories, BTUs, etc.) per unit of mass (e.g., grams, pounds-mass, etc.), and is the amount of energy, in the form of heat, that has to be put back into the frozen water to get it to turn back into liquid water again.  For water, enthalpy/heat of fusion is significant, and has to come from somewhere if you want the ice to melt.  When you’re trying to cook frozen meat, your fire supplies this energy.

But wait.  It gets worse.

Not only must your fire supply the enthalpy-of-fusion energy in order to melt the ice during the shift of water from the solid phase to the liquid phase, but the amount of energy to do the shift depends on the amount of ice you’re trying to melt, and that depends on the weight of the meat you’re cooking - the heavier the meat, the more energy.

On top of that, your fire also must supply energy just to raise the temperature of the meat to the melting point of water before melting can even begin.  And, as you probably guessed, the amount of heat it takes to do this also depends on the weight of your meat.

Now remember, your fire is by design only a puny little smoky, low-temperature one, and it doesn’t have the clout to raise the temperature of 10 to 14 pounds of frozen meat to the melting point of water, and then supply even more heat to melt the ice. The only thing to do under the circumstances would be to increase the cooking time significantly.  But if you did that, you might still end up with barbecue that’s charred to cinders on the outside and uncooked and cold on the inside.  And even if you got lucky and it cooked all the way through, your barbecue would almost certainly wind up being unappetizingly charred on the outside.  Bottom line, if you’re tempted to try to barbecue frozen meat, don’t.  If you do it anyway, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Okay, okay.  I’m off my soapbox.  Back to the task at hand . . .

All right. We’ve taken the unfrozen pork shoulder out of the ‘fridge.  Now what?

We could just throw it in the kettle as is, but that probably wouldn’t be a good thing.  A better idea might be to wash it first.  The meat has been processed, remember, and there may be certain processing residues on the exposed surfaces of the meat.  Not that these may be harmful in any way, shape, or form, but they may flavor the barbecue in ways that are unappetizing when exposed to the heat of cooking.  It’s best not to take chances, so we rinse the shoulder under running cold tap-water, just to make sure.

Rinsing is sufficient to remove possible undesired substances.  The shoulder’s ready for the kettle now, but I like to go a step further.  I’m fairly sure that this doesn’t really do anything materially to affect the flavor of the outcome, but I still like to rub the fat-cap with sea-salt.  Home cooks (especially barbecuers), like baseball players and gamblers, are a suspertitious lot, and my salt-rubbing ritual seems to bring me good barbecuing luck.  You, on the other hand, need not be bound by my superstitions, so you can omit the salt.  Besides, I only claim that it brings me good luck.  It may (Heaven forbid!) have the opposite effect on your barbecuing.

We’re ready to start barbecuing - FINALLY! The pork shoulder has been prepped (with or without the inclusion of the salt-rubbing ritual), and the hardwood chunks in the kettle look like they mean business.  We cover the kettle with the lid and adjust the intake damper in the base of the kettle, all the while eye-balling the fire through the fully-open exhaust damper in the lid.  When there’s just enough air getting to the fire so that there’s no longer flame, we’re ready for the shoulder.

We remove the lid, place the shoulder on the cooking surface over the drip-pan, and replace the lid.  All we have to do now is stoke the fire periodically, and think about what sort of sauce we want to serve with our barbecue.  We’ll take up these rather important matters in future posts.

Happy cooking (or more specifically, barbecuing)!

Pork Barbecue: Kettle Cooking Method, Part IV - Let's Recap

We’ve finally arrived at a point where we have all the information we need to make pork barbecue.  However, there are an awful lot of details, so let’s recap to make sure we're all on the same page:

We’ll be barbecuing a 10- to 14-pound bone-in, uncured pork shoulder.  Our shoulder has had half its skin and external fat removed so that a fat-cap remains on one side.  We will not use a dry rub.

We’re cooking in a round kettle of relatively large diameter.  The kettle is equipped with adjustable ventilation dampers in both kettle body and lid.

We’ll be cooking slowly, at a low temperature.  Total cooking time is based on the rule of one hour per pound or fraction of a pound.  For example, if the shoulder weighs 10-1/4 pounds, then total cooking time is 11 hours.

We’re cooking with smoldering hardwood. and we’re using the indirect method with a drip-pan.  In order to do this:

• We first place an oblong metal-foil drip-pan - one that’s large enough to catch any drops of liquid fat that fall from the shoulder during cooking - in the center of the fire-grate.
• Then, alongside the drip-pan on either side (i.e., along the two opposite sides of the pan that are longest, where there’s enough space), we lay down splints of fat wood in a crossing, or ‘star-like’, pattern (or at least as near to such a pattern as space permits).
• Next, we build a stack of hardwood chunks on top of the fat wood on both sides of the drip-pan, in such a way that all of the chunks will be exposed to the flame of the fat wood when we light it.  We stack our hardwood chunks on the fat wood so that there’s enough fat wood exposed under both stacks to be able to light them.

At this point, we’re ready to fire up our kettle and actually start barbecuing, which is the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Happy cooking!