Myron Mixon - Everyday Barbecue: At Home with Americas Favorite Pitmaster

A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original

Copyright 2013 by Myron Mixon

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Food photographs and photographs of Myron Mixon by Alex Martinez, copyright 2013 by Alex Martinez; photograph on by Corey Shelton, courtesy of Corey Shelton.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mixon, Myron.
Everyday barbecue / Myron Mixon with Kelly Alexander.
pages cm
Includes index.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54365-3
1. Barbecuing.I. Alexander, Kelly.II. Title.
TX840.B3M58 2013
641.76dc23
2012049200

www.ballantinebooks.com

Book design by Susan Turner

v3.1

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY MOTHER, GAYE MIXON (GAYE GAYE), WHO ALONG WITH DAD POINTED ME NOT ONLY IN THE DIRECTION OF WHAT GREAT FOOD IS, BUT ALSO SET A HIGH STANDARD ON HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSON. THE SECOND PART IM STILL WORKING ON.

SECOND, MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, EVELYN GOODROE (BIG E), MY BIGGEST SUPPORTER, WHO BELIEVED IN ME REGARDLESS OF THE OBSTACLES THAT I ENCOUNTERED.

THIRD, MY FRIEND AND BUDDY JACK (JACKLEG), AN ENGLISH BULLDOG WITH A LOOK AND DEMEANOR THAT MOST PEOPLE WOULD DO WELL TO HAVE. HE GAVE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

I m Myron Mixon from Unadilla, Georgia. The winningest man in barbecue. The baddest pitmaster there ever was.

I make my living winning barbecue cooking competitions across the country. Ive been doing this for nearly twenty years. Its led me to having my own line of barbecue smokers for professionals and home enthusiasts and my own brand of rubs and sauces; to be the judge of the hit show BBQ Pit-masters on Discovery Communications Destination America; and to be the chef/owner of the Smokin with Myron Mixon .

So, having done all of this, what do I do next?

I have one mission. I want to teach one lesson and one lesson only about cooking barbecue: Make it easy on yourself. Barbecue is simple food. People come up to me all the time and ask me the same question over and over: How can I cook barbecue in my backyard if I dont have a smoker like yours? My answer: I could cook great barbecue with a handful of coals and a trash can. (I actually proved this when I was on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. ) I learned to barbecue the old-fashioned way, in hand-dug pits, from my daddy, Jack Mixon, and I didnt design a big ole cooker like the kind I use now until Id already won a few cooking contests and could afford to. Today I design and build all my own cookers, but you dont need anything fancy to make great barbecue. You can do it on the smoker or grill you already have in your backyard, or even in the oven in your home. You just need to know what youre doing, and Im going to show you.

The first thing you need to know is that barbecue isnt special occasion food; its everyday food. It doesnt have to take all day to cook, and it sure doesnt have to be complicated.

Now, if you want my championship-winning recipes for traditional barbecue favorites, including my world-famous, often imitated but never equaled whole hog, you should buy a copy of my first cookbook. But can you make most of those recipes in half an hour on a Tuesday night? No, you cannot. But that doesnt mean that there arent easier, quicker ways to achieve great barbecue, and Im here now to show them to you.

If you wonder what I know about making dinner, let me tell you how it is. See, I dont just cook when Im trying to win a pork shoulder competition in Kansas City or ). What a lot of people dont realize about me is that I dont have a side job like most people on the barbecue circuit: I dont have a building contracting business, I dont own a car lot, and I sure as hell dont sell insurance. I am a professional cook, and so Im always cooking. I live and breathe and even sleep and dream barbecue. I have to: To keep winning competitions, my recipes need to be constantly evolving and getting better.

So Im perpetually thinking about recipes, and always experimenting in the kitchen, too. When Im not on the road, youre just as likely to find me grilling a steak on my patio as you are to see me worrying over a brisket in my smoker in my laboratory, oras I like to call itthe Billion-Dollar Barbecue Pavilion, I erected in my backyard. This book is more about what I do on the patio than what I do when Im smoking meat for competition.

Im giving you those recipes that I rely on in my everyday life. These are the , for example, is the best sandwich ever invented.

Im here to tell you: Nothing in this book is particularly time-consuming to cook. Thats because Im here to prove to you that you can cook on your barbecue every single night of the week if you want to. I like fast cooking and I dont like worriation, and I think most home cooks are probably a whole lot like me when it comes to those two things.

There are three special chapters in here that I want you to look at if you feel like doing something a little different, breaking from the norm, if you will:

My DRUNKEN RECIPES chapter is all about showing you that if you use a little bit of whiskey in your cooking, you raise its flavor profile and add a level of interest to your food that will make whatever youre cooking about 100 percent tastier. Make my and youll see what I mean.

My BARBECUE-FRIED chapter is a personal favorite: For years Ive been ruminating on how to combine my two favorite cooking techniques, and Ive come up with a roster of recipes that show you why its such a good idea: Try my and youve got the recipe for your next kitchen addiction.