Ray Lampe - Slow Fire

THANKS to Bruce Romanek for starting it all that day in Grant Park so long ago. Thanks to Dave Dewitt for starting my career in writing. Thanks to Scott Mendel for always putting me in the right place. Thanks to Bill LeBlond for always having faith in me. Thanks to Leigh Beisch for the great photos. Thanks to Tim Bryan for bringing the smoke! Thanks to Alice Chau for making it all look good. Thanks to my parents for giving me the tools. Thanks to Marsha for another great recipe. Thanks to Sandi for putting up with me while I write.

This book is dedicated to

SANDI

xxoo

IF YOU ARE A PORK-AHOLIC LOOKING FOR A RIB-O-LICIOUSLY GOOD RECIPE THIS IS THE COOKBOOK THATS GUARANTEED TO GIVE YOU A MOUTHFUL OF HOLLERS!

Hi! This is Famous Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Daves Bar-B-Que and one of Americas most passionate lovers of anything smoky, charred, grilled, or slathered with secret concoctions of magical herbs, spices, and fruit juices and slow-smoked over smoldering embers. I am a steadfast believer that man has a primal craving for chewing charred meat off a bone. It just brings out his inner caveman, and there is no question that Ray Lampe has to be King of the Molten Sauces and Smoked Meats.

For forty years, I have been on a personal quest to discover the holy grail of barbecuethe trinity of meat, smoke, and sauce. In the beginning, back when charcoal was just beginning to be squeezed into briquettes, I can remember saving up enough money to buy my first barbecue cookbook from Sunset Publishing. Their idea of a barbecue sauce was nothing more than ketchup, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. I knew from my dad, an old Choctaw Indian from the Bible Belt of Oklahoma, that there was more to great-tasting barbecue sauce and smoked meats than I was going to find in a cook book. The only way you were going to really learn the craft of award-winning barbecue was if you were able to find some old-time pitmaster from the Deep South who was willing to fess up his hard-earned secrets. And the reality of this happening was next to impossible.

Until now, that is! Meet Ray Lampeor Dr. BBQthe closest thing youll ever get to a real old-time championship pitmaster. To say that Ray Lampe loves barbecue would be an understatement. Ray Lampe is the self-professed Don King of Barbecue, with his hair sticking straight up and clothes all aflame. Ray is a tireless promoter of all things smoky, sticky, and addictive. For over thirty years, Dr. BBQ has devoted himself to eating, drinking, and sleeping BARBECUE. All you have to do is take one look at Ray and you can tell this man eats for a living! Unlike the old pitmasters who never gave up their closely guarded secrets, Ray is passionate about spreading the gospel of barbecue.

In this book, Slow Fire, Ray spills the beans on how to turn your backyard grill into the best rib joint in town! Dr. BBQ reveals all the pitmaster secrets to mixing up your own secret rubs and sauces and how to smoke meats slow and low over glowing embers until they are mouth-wateringly tender and juicy. Slow Fire is the real deal. There are no namby-pamby Good Housekeepingtype recipes in this book! When followed with the same passion as they were written, every one of these award-winning recipes will knock the socks off your family and friends. Some of my personal Slow Fire favorites are Dr. BBQs will have you thinking that your taste buds just took a vacation to South Miami! Once you start cooking out of Dr. BBQs Slow Fire cookbook, youll never go back to cooking on a gas stove again! Enjoy

MAY YOU ALWAYS BE SURROUNDED BY GOOD FRIENDS AND GREAT-TASTING BARBECUE!

Rib-O-Liciously Yours,

Famous Dave Anderson

There is something magical about barbecue that makes it different from any other cuisine. No matter where my travels take me, there is always a local barbecue joint that is known far and wide as the best there is and the people who cook there are revered. Theyve even been given a title that sets them apart from any other cook in the kitchen: The Pitmaster. And a pitmasters secrets are accepted as something only he knows. Hes a sorcerer of sauce and a wizard of wood.

Cooking great barbecue is unique and mysterious and we all love to eat it. Just about every carnivore Ive ever met can tell you where to find the best barbecue he ever had. But for many new barbecue cooks, the idea that they could re-create this wonderful cuisine at home seems pretty far-fetched. They see the big concrete block barbecue pits built into the walls of restaurants or the big shiny industrial smokers on trailers outside and they cant imagine where theyd even start. I was one of those guys twenty-some years ago, but I wasnt willing to accept that this cooking method was only for the big boys. There had to be a way for the beginner to create good and authentic barbecue at home.

Ive spent a lot of time since then learning the ways of the legends. Ive been lucky enough to travel to all of the lower forty-eight in my pursuit of barbecue knowledge and Ive seen everything. Ive eaten in most of the shrines that have been serving barbecue for decades and Ive talked to the pitmasters who cook it. Ive competed on the national barbecue cook-off circuit at a high level for a couple of decades and I count the top champions of all time as my friends. Ive even written a few cookbooks on the subject. Ive worked for grill companies and even a famous barbecue restaurant, and Ive cooked on just about every type of smoker or grill that you could imagine. I know how the equipment works and I know how the barbecue is created. Its created with meat and fire. Its the original cooking method. What could have come before that and what could be more simple?

Modern-day barbecue is a little more refined, but Ive spent hundreds of hours breaking it down and teaching people so that even the greenest beginner can do it. The old tradition of barbecue is to take the lesser cuts of meat and cook them slowly over a wood fire until they become tender and delicious. Thats the basic principle and when you do that, magical things begin to happen. Its kind of like making a roux in Louisiana-style cooking, where the flavor develops over time and it just cant be rushed. The long, slow cooking with spices and wood smoke added for flavor helps to develop the deep mahogany-colored outside crust we lovingly call the bark into an intensely flavored shell that is what the taste of real barbecue is all about. At the same time, the inside meat is slowly cooking into mouth-watering tenderness and rendering the excess fat. This can happen only with cuts of meat that are tough to begin with and loaded with collagen. As the collagen breaks down it enhances the taste of the meat but it also creates that mouthfeel that covers your tongue with creamy goodness. The end result is a mix of the amazing flavor of the outside crust combined with the juicy, tender, velvety meat from the inside and the combination is about the best thing youll ever eat. This all may sound complicated, but Im here to tell you that you can create this kind of great barbecue at home and you dont need the skills of a Master Chef to do it. With a small investment in a home smoker and a little practice, you will go from beginner to the champion of your neighborhood in no time.

To get started cooking real barbecue, the only equipment a beginner really needs is a closed grill or smoker capable of cooking at low consistent temps. There are a lot of affordable ways to do this and you should have no problem finding one to fit your needs. Ill get into the specifics of the equipment in the pages ahead, but the key is to cook low and slow. Thats the barbecue mans mantra and its the most important thing you need to learn.