Arthur Aguirre - Americas Best Barbecue: Recipes and Techniques for Prize-Winning Ribs, Wings, Brisket, and More

Skyhorse and Skyhorse Publishing are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aguirre, Arthur. America's best barbecue : recipes and techniques for prize-winning ribs, wings, brisket, and more / Arthur Aguirre. pages cm ISBN 978-1-62636-256-7 (alk. paper) 1.

Barbecuing--United States. 2. Cooking (Smoked foods) 3. Barbecuing--Competitions--United States.
I. Title. II.

Title: Recipes and techniques for prize-winning ribs, wings, brisket, and more. III. Title: America's best barbeque. TX840.B3A339 2013 641.7'6--dc23 2013031766 Printed in China CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BBQ.I.AM A s if I needed to write a cookbook to show how passionate I am about barbecue. My devotion for smoked hunks of meat culled from heritage cattle, hogs, and fowl was an evolution that started a decade ago. It began the day I realized that I had no idea what barbecue was or how to prepare such smoky goodness.

This epiphany came after I served undercooked pieces of chicken to my friends at a backyard gathering. Not to be discouraged, I invested in the most popular type of grill in the US, a propane gas grill. Unfortunately, over time the grill built up grease and I had myself a fireball on the deck of my apartment. In a panic, I showered the low-grade grill with water that not only put the fire out, but also gave the neighbors outdoor furniture below a filthy grease bath. For years, I overcooked and undercooked every protein put on the steel grates. Even those TV food channels failed to improve my culinary skills.

How could that be? They make grilling look so easy! This changed, however, when my wife bought me an off-the-shelf smoker that could only cook for a few hours at a time until the fire smothered itself due to poor airflow. Nonetheless, I learned about indirect cooking from that flimsy flame extinguisher. As a result, I no longer burned my food and everything I cooked from that moment on was deemed edible by friends and family. Little did I know that other folks had the same issues I had endured. Those of us that are considered barbecue challenged, myself included, find solace on the Internet, where barbecue forums allow enthusiasts the ability to discuss shortcomings and improve our game over the embers. Through this community, I picked up on barbecue concepts and I proudly showed off my smoking skills to friends who awed at the sight of smoke rings and moisture oozing from the meat fibers.

Along the way, my barbecue became refined and I became comfortable with cooking traditional barbecue in addition to the foods I grew up feasting on, which I like to call So-Cal Chicano cuisine. Such gluttonous recipes include tamales, albondigas, mole, and more. This Southern California transplant realized that the Heartland was looking for something like this, so I started my unique style called Mexi-Que. My goal is to blend two traditions into one product and the results have been amazing. My barbecue competition team, Major League Grilling, formed when my good friend Scott Thomas invited me to compete in his local backyard competition. Ive been hooked ever since.

The friends I talked to that day are still around and we talk about Qing all day long. Competition barbecue allows me to meet new folks and make new friends from all different backgrounds. And while Im at it, winning trophies is great for my competitive nature. Not all of us are born into barbecue royalty and handed a wealth of knowledge from generations of ground-digging pit builders (although that would be awesome). I suggest doing the second best thing, finding yourself a friend born into barbecue royalty! All kidding aside, there is no secret to barbecuing; it just takes patience and practice. How do you manage time in your busy life for patience and practice, you say? Start by lighting a fire; drag the kids away from their computers, turn on some tunes, and chill outside with a can of barley and hops.

The purpose of this book is to enjoy making the best barbecue in America, so I hope you brought enough cans for the both of us. Before this journey began, I knew nothing about barbecue. I didnt know the various types of ribs. I didnt know it took longer than one hour to make pulled pork. I didnt know to that pink chicken was a bad thing. Now all I do is talk, eat, sleep and breathe barbecue and I win! In my first competition in 2010, my team was called Work of Art BBQ team.

We placed third in ribs, third in pork steaks, second to last in appetizers and fourth place overall (out of 18 teams) at the inaugural GrillinFools Backyard Barbecue Bash. At the end of that contest, I was exhausted, my back hurt and I was stressed out from turning in the food. For some bizarre reason, I loved every minute of it. But in the back of my mind, I had thoughts that if I didnt do well, this would be the first and last barbecue competition I ever do. Fortunately, I did do well and knowing that I can get better was all the validation I needed to pursue more competitions. With the help of my wife, Jamie, and my buddy, Tony MacGyver St.

John, I rebranded our team Major League Grilling (MLG). In addition, for fun I started a barbecue blog under the same name, www.majorleaguegrilling.com. After some encouragement from Scott Thomas, the founder of the www.grillinfools.com blog, I began blogging about my experiences in competition barbecue and Mexi-Que recipes. For the next couple of years, I wrote and folks positively responded to my barbecue musings. As a result, my blog receives over twenty thousand hits a month for something I thought only interested me. Winning obviously plays a big part of my success.

As MLG, we have won awards in all four main categories (chicken, ribs, pork and brisket). Furthermore, I win with the least impressive setup you could find at a barbecue competition. The best description I can offer is that we look like a destitute tailgate party. That may be a bit harsh, but I like it that way. Its fun going up against the guys sleeping in the RVs and hauling ten thousand dollar smokers. That is what motivates me and I have all the confidence in the world in my abilities.

As a result, my recipe for success is lots of practice and the desire to work harder than everyone else. Despite the early success, I have only just begun and I keep improving. There are many proven barbecue cooks that have more accolades and trophies than I do; I tend to look up to them and if possible pick their brains about barbecue. I found that learning from the successful pitmasters is a way for good cooks to become great. Major League Grilling is on the right track, but much more work needs to be done. But I got one thing that very few barbecue icons have a cookbook! A PIT COOKERS CREED T here is no such thing as bad barbecue when its cooked right.