New Member - What's your Go To Cook that wins 'em over every time?

[Huskee]

My go-to are my ribs, everyone in my circle of friends and family raves about my ribs, I use a combo of 3 different rubs. Dry rub, never wrapped and never sauced. I have an older gentlemen who goes to a nearby town once a month to buy 3-packs of ribs and bring them to me to cook for him and he gives me a rack for doing it. It's win-win, he gets 2 racks of "awesome, world-class" ribs (his words, not mine) and I get to do something nice for someone who can't do it for themselves plus I get a free snack.

My personal favorite though is brisket on the stickburner. Extra fatty and extra seasoning.

My most favorite restaurant-good dish that I use pellets for is pulled beef nachos. Make pulled beef (just like making pulled pork, except use a chuck roast and peppery brisket-style seasonings, otherwise technique is nearly identical). Then make up a cookie sheet full of good tortilla chips like On The Boarder or Snyder's, layer on the pulled beef and your favorite cheeses, I like Havarti, Mont Jack and cheddar mix. Cook in the pellet grill at let's say 300-350 until the cheese is good & melted. Then add your favorite toppers. The chips actually take on just a hint of pellet smoke in the brief time they're in there, and they are actually HOT when you eat them- it's definitely restaurant-good or better! To be honest, next to brisket I am more proud of this than even my ribs.

[ajgrills]

Thanks. Lots of Chuck recommendations in this thread. I'm down. Love this nachos method. Will try for sure!

[GirlGrilling]

Yowza. I’m screen-grabbing this recipe. And yes, absolutely, to the On the Border chips. Super sturdy. Use them to make steak fajita nachos from left-over ribeye & 7-layer dip. But holy hell, man. Your nachos look other-worldly amazing. Thx for the pics.

[Richard Chrz]

I’d accept an invite!

[mgaretz]

Blasphemy ribs (of course), and if pork is not an option then tri-tip, cooked SV then seared.

[Beefchop]

1-800-dominos

[Huskee]

[ajgrills]

Hah, the ultimate backup plan. Use the app, you get free pizzas occasionally. 👍

[GirlGrilling]

My back-up plan is always crab claws; having no back-up plan stresses me too much. I steam ‘em up w/Old Bay and serve w/clarified butter & lemon, ready to eat as soon as people arrive. Of course, every time I put this plan in action, my brisket comes out ON TIME and cooked to perfection (on my OLD grill, anyway); when I don’t, it doesn’t. Murphy’s Law, I suppose.

[FishTalesNC]

Bacon! I actually get requests for that from people my wife works with that I've never met.

Brisket burnt ends come in a close 2nd, my kiddo and her friends will beg for it and its way up there on my list too.

[ajgrills]

Thanks, NC. Smoking/curing your own bacon? Please share recipes.

Love brisket burnt ends. Do you have to cook the whole brisket to get them? Any tips appreciated.

[FishTalesNC]

ajgrills check out the articles on the free side, there’s one re: curing meat safely, and also a recipe pages for 3 kinds of bacon. I’ve done them all, they’re great! Brisket burnt ends you’d just need the point. Sometimes I see just points for sale at my Costco, sometimes gotta buy a full packer and separate the point. So worth it tho! Lots of good recipes for it, I've taken things from both Malcom Reed’s and Susie Bulloch’s methods. Good luck!

[JoeSousa]

Around here most people don't really know what constitutes "good" barbecue. When people taste my pulled pork and brisket it is usually a revelation to them on how good food cooked on a grill or smoker can actually be. I cooked some briskets on Wednesday for a group of people and nearly all of them said it was the best meat they had ever eaten.

[Polarbear777]

My go to is a straight smoked brisket or smoked/braised chuck, cambro it and bring it hot.

Lately when I have the time, I've been using QVQ to get it started well ahead of time, and do the last finish step on site or at the event time (~90 minutes to finish as tender as traditional). As far as everyone's favorite, the pastrami _always_ wins.

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...s-pulled-chuck

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...s-vide-chuckie

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...trami%E2%80%9D

[ajgrills]

Awesome, thanks for sharing! Gonna try for sure.

[fzxdoc]

Smoked chicken in the PBC along with some Hot Italian Sausages.

Smoked Chuck Roast (PBC or kamado WSCGC)--get them in the 3 lb range, as densely marbled as you can find; prep and smoke like a brisket. You can serve it sliced or pulled. Sliced gets taken off the smoker when first probe tender. For pulled chuck, I usually let it ride to 207° so it pulls like buttah. Cambro for a couple of hours. Delicious. Also darn delicious in Malcolm Reed's Smoked Chuck Chili recipe.

Kathryn

[ajgrills]

Thanks, Kathryn. Is there a benefit to the cambro hold, or just to keep it hot?

[fzxdoc]

There's a huge benefit to a cambro hold, ajgrills . It allows the meat to rest, redistributing juices; but more importantly, it allows the connective tissue to continue to soften. A brisket or chuck roast will be more tender and more juicy, usually, if held in a cambro-type environment for a couple hours after taking out of the smoker. And yes, if your cook ends sooner than expected, it's an excellent way of keeping the food safely warm until serving.

Kathryn

[Huskee]

PBC chicken is special for sure. Next time you want to do chicken on your WSCG save any fat & skin trimmings and toss them on the coals early on, do it in stages if you can to prolong it. Stinks to high heaven but helps give them that PBC taste.

[Betty]

Hello from Kansas! Mine best of the best are pork kebab in kiwifruit marinade and grilled sweet pepper anointed with olive oil. And while first needs a lot of time, the second variant is just flawless! Even meatlovers/vegiehaters like the peppers.

[LA Pork Butt]

Welcome to the Pit from Dallas! My go to is Boston Butt.

[jfmorris]

My family's favorite thing off the smoker is probably my baby back ribs, with a good dry rub like MMD (Meathead's Memphis Dust), which you can find in the recipe section of the free side of the site. Follow the recipe for Last Meal Ribs, and you can't go wrong. My second most requested items are probably chicken wings and smash burgers.

Here is the rib recipe you NEED to try:

https://amazingribs.com/best-barbecue-ribs-recipe

If you want to make smoked and pulled chuck roast, this is the one I always follow, with the exception that while I do dry brine, I use Montreal Steak as my rub most of the time, from sheer laziness:

https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...k-roast-recipe

For large gatherings, pulled pork is always a hit and a cheap way to feed a lot of folks (I've done cooks of 10 to 84 butts). Each typical 8 pound bone in butt will feed about a dozen folks on average. Seems like you have the pulled pork thing down, so I won't link a recipe.

Wings are always a hit. For wings, there are lots of recipes on the free side of AR. My easy go-to right now, and I cook them on the gas grill usually, is Huskee's wing sauce, which is simply a mix of half Frank's Red Hot sauce with half Newman's Own Creamy Caesar dressing. Very easy to brush on the wings the last 5-10 minutes of the cook.

Brisket is always a hit, IF you can find high quality choice or prime in your area at a reasonable cost.

[gcdmd]

Ditto on the pulled pork for large gatherings. I get requests for it at church regularly.

[TripleB]

Unfortunately, my family is not really into BBQ. They tell me my que is the best (not too hard to produce good BBQ in California since there are really no good BBQ joints around here), but never specifically ask for anything smoked. If I make it, they eat it up. I do all the cooking so what they ask for is really my kitchen dishes.... Gumbo, Chicken & Dumplings, Spaghetti, various soups, Chicken Florentine, Salmon, Pot Roast, etc. On the grill would be Tri-Tip, Steaks and Chicken.

But I got a couple ideas from reading what others posted. My wife loves nachos, so I'm going to try Huskee's pulled beef nachos. And Katherine mentioned hot Italian sausages. Have not made sausage in over 6 months so I'm gonna put that on the menu. Linguisa, Italian, Andouille, Polish.... Which to choose .

[jfmorris]

For someone whose family doesn't like BBQ, you sure have a lot of grills and smokers! I still have that same Weber Genesis Silver A too (outfitted with Grillgrates a couple of years ago). I definitely think pulled beef nachos will be a hit. And lately I am looking for ways to move the heat out of the kitchen and out side, so am using the grills more with cast iron skillets and my dutch oven (for baking and frying).

[Huskee]

I hope you like! I don't see a pellet cooker in your sig, so I'd recommend heating the nachos up with well-lit charcoal, something to give you a *little* smoke, not a lot or it will be too much and ruin them IMO, but also something more than just a microwave melting the cheese. The oil in the chips, as well as the cheese, soaks up some of that smoke and makes it heavenly!

[Chief1232]

Welcome! If I'm cooking for a crowd I go for Brisket. If it is just a few people over for dinner I try to find a nice Ribeye Cap Steak (Costco). That always impresses!

[klflowers]

This isn't strictly an on the grill dish, but my wife asks for it all the time. I make it with ox tails - just increase the braise time to ~3 hours. I do the smoke part on a kettle/sns combo.

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...ked-osso-bucco

And turkey - I do a whole turkey every couple of months on the wsm.

[Clint C]

Memphis Dust baby back ribs. I win every time. The crowd goes wild.

Just cooked a butt with Memphis Dust and added a little jalapeno powder because I like my butts spicy....crowd pleaser.

Weber indirect method. Weber's make the cook feel like #winning when you nail it.

[klflowers]

One more - porterhouse steaks using the cold grate method.