Puerto Rico BBQ

Happy Puerto Rico Day. Here in New York City today is Puerto Rico Day which means that there will be a large parade down 5th Avenue, cars wrapped in Puerto Rican flags, and general mayhem and celebration in the streets.

Since today is Sunday, I was going to give you a recipe for Puerto Rican barbeque, but unfortunately I couldn't find one on the internet. But I did stumble across the Caribbean BBQ Association. Here's their recipe for Texans' Beef Brisket.

"Texans get mighty finicky about their BBQ. This brisket with a mopping sauce, dry rub, and passing sauce covers all the bases. Up to now you have been grilling most everything. Now is the time to get started slow smoking your beef and there is no better way, or cut of beef to start with than a good brisket. For this recipe you will need a smoker, not a grill, and this can be bought at Home Depot or many other places like hardware stores or Sears, Big-K, Wall marts… they are relative inexpensive, you can get a smoker for around $30.00.

Prep: 15 minutes

Soak: 1 hour

Smoke 5 hours

Serves: 12

• 1 bag of mesquite, hickory or pecan wood chunks ( Home Depot)
• 1 brisket 3 to 3 & ½ pounds
• 2 teaspoons of Parrillera coarse salt ( Pueblo or Econo)
• 1-teaspoon paprika
• 1-teaspoon garlic pepper
• 1-teaspoon chili powder
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 batch of vinegar mopping sauce
• 1 batch of spicy beer sauce

1. At lease 1 hour before you start smoking put your wood chunks into a bucket of water, enough water to completely cover the chips and soak them babies good. wouldn'tn't recommend this, it's better to get wood chunks and not to soak them at all)
   
2. Trim the fat from the meat. In a small bowl combine the salt, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and garlic pepper. Sprinkle the dry rub on the meat and with your fingers rub the mixture into the meat well.
3. In the smoker arrange the coals and water pan according the manufacturers directions, coals on the bottom, water pan on the rack above the coals, an place the brisket on the grilling rack above the water pan. Have you coals going before putting the meat on the rack and cover with the lid and smoke for 5-6 hours until tender. As the fire dies down during cooking add more coals to keep the heat up and throw on wet chunks of wood to keep the smoke coming. Don't peek into the smoker too often, trust me it's cooking. Every time you open it up to look you loose the heat.
4. To serve thinly slice the meat across the grain and serve with spicy beer sauce.

Vinegar Mopping Sauce:

In a small bowl mix ¼ cup of good cold beer and drink the remaining portion, add 4 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1-tablespoon cooking oil, 1-tablespoon vinegar, ½ teaspoon jalapeno mustard or other hot mustard of your liking, and a few dashes of bottled hot pepper sauce.

Spicy Beer Sauce:

In a medium saucepan melt 2-tablespoons of butter. Ad d one large peeled, seeded, and chopped tomato (3/4 cup); ½ cup chopped onion, and ½ cup chopped sweet green pepper. Cook about 5 minutes until onion is tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in 1 cup bottled chili sauce, 1/2 cup of beer, drink the remainder of the can yourself, ½ cup cider vinegar, 2-tablespoons brown sugar, 1 to 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh or canned chipotle chili peppers in adobo sauce, 1 & ¼ teaspoons of ground black pepper, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Bring this mixture to boil and reduce the heat. Boil gently for about 10 minutes or until reduced to about 2 ¼ cups."