Tune Up Your Grill, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview With Ryan Mitchell, Pork Posole & More!

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough. Together with Bruce, we have written three dozen and now counting cookbooks. And here's the weird thing, only one book on grilling a long time ago, although for many years. We did work for a major grilling company and Ghost wrote some of their books and developed recipes for them. So we know a lot about grilling and we wanna talk about grilling. This is gonna be a show largely about it.

Whole hog North Carolina barbecue.

Oh, there you go. And we'll, of course, as always will tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Summer's here and I'm grilling, although I grill all winter long. So I don't know why I am so excited that I'm grilling in the summer, but I am actually, what it means is summer means you even

charcoal grill, sorry I'm interrupting you, but you even charcoal grill in the winter. And we live in rural New England and let me tell you this, winter is serious winter stuff. When I say. Grilling in the winter. I mean, where you have to shovel out to your grill. It's a kind of insane thing.

So what I have to do in the summer though, is clean my grills, right? I've got gas grills and I've got charcoal grills and I'm using plurals. Yes, I have multiple grills, and they do need to be maintained. They are not self-sustaining pieces of cooking equipment.

I know. And I think this is really something that a lot of people think that they. Are somehow you would never not clean your stove? Well, I suppose some people, well,

I, I've been to some houses where the stoves,

I was gonna say, you would never not clean your oven, but I guess some people don't clean their ovens. But you would never not clean a pot.

This is true. You wouldn't throw soup into a dirty pot.

No, you would not. So grills need, uh, taken care of. We, a long time ago when we wrote. R one and only grilling book. We rented a house in northern Vermont and we had enough budget for this book to literally rent a house about a mile from the Canadian border in far northern Vermont. It's what our budget allowed, and so we rented this house so that we could write this book and have a nice house for the summer. It was a nice house. It was just literally in Nowheresville and then North.

well, if you wonder why we had to rent a house, cause we lived in an apartment Yeah. In Manhattan. And there was no way to grill. And we were gonna write this grilling book. So Mark said we took our budget and we drew a circle of where we could afford, which was outside the circle. Right. And that was like almost in Canada.

And they wanted, it was really, well they wanted game in this book. And so we drove from New York City. To far northern Vermont with a rack of elk in the back of our car along with game birds and everything. It was like this insane project. I didn't quite understand it all, but we certainly ate well, what? I don't understand. Course. The summer. Yeah.

Why didn't we wait till we got up there to get the game instead? We paid like ottominelli's prices. I dunno,

the, you'd find an elk rack up there. I don't shoot one. I don't know. It's fri, I don't think they're elk in Vermont. And, uh, anyways, so we started doing that up there and grilling all that summer, but we had to find different kinds of grills. This house did have a grill, right? Remember this? Yeah. They had a grill. Yeah. And there was a, but we still brought

a grill. We did. We brought a charcoal grill. They had a gas grill. Oh my gosh. There's, there's a lot you have to do to both kinds of grills. I mean, I know people think we'll have a gas grill. I really have to do anything to it. There's no charcoal, but not true. You've got a grease strap in that gas grill. And if you don't, then just look underneath cuz the grease is just dripping and flowing on the ground.

And if you live where we live in a rural area, if we leave our grease trap unattended, we get as I call them, furry, well wishers, which 800 pound furry. Well, I mean, which include bear. And they really want that grease trap because it stinks and it smells like food. And you know, I mean that's high nutrition stuff for them. Mm-hmm. So you have to clean out your grease trap and you do, because. Over time.

It'll be over time. It's disgusting. And you have to inspect your burners a lot. Not just the beginning of the year. You have to do it even throughout the summer because spiderwebs, twigs, dust bunnies, pollen can build up. Mm-hmm. And it can all block. The burners. Mm-hmm. And block the flow of gas or doesn't let it ignite and that could be a real problem.

Usually what they say is that you should take for like the lines, right? You should take soapy water and run it along them and see if at any place the soap bubbles up. And that means there could be a leak. In the line. Mm-hmm. You want to immediately have that replaced, but by the way, we should just note that most detergent soaps are corrosive to copper. So once you do this, then you have to wash your copper connections. Yeah, really carefully.

And the other thing, a lot of gas grills have either flavor bars where the flames shoot

flavor bar, it feels like it needs a TM after it flavor bars.

Tm, I think they are actually. Mm-hmm. And that's where the flame shoots up and hits these metal bars, which creates smoke and flavor, or they have lava rocks or ceramic briquettes that heat up. Right, right, right. All of those need replacing every few years.

Let me, let me ask you this about. The grills, since we're talking about gas grills. So many years ago, we went to this giant grilling expo in Atlanta. We were invited as guests to do cooking demos there and, uh, by this, uh, grill maker that we were working for and. And ghost riding for, so we went down there and we had a lovely time at this. It was giant. It was like football fields and football fields of grilling and grill wear. But everybody was crazed.

it was

the

hot thing of that year and I don't see it anywhere. What is, what is the deal? I don't even where to go see it. Any, I don't know. I don't, I see very few grills with infrared. The only infrared that you might see fairly often, and we actually have an. Our grill is the rotisserie burner, right? Which is, you know, the burner that's on the back face of the grill. It's on the inside, but it's on the back of the grill, right? Facing in. Right.

right? But I mean that 10 years ago, they were predicting that infrared was gonna take over the world. It didn't. It didn't. No. Well, maybe it will, but I, you must still be out there, the infrared, but we're not speaking about cleaning and getting infrared grills ready if you happen to have one of these cutting edge utensils. The infrared grill, we're talking about gas grills. But again, do check all your connections. Do check everywhere that you can for grease. Do clean it up.

Scoop out the ashes. Don't let them build up. It's disgusting cuz they will fly up and get on your food. Eventually you have to scoop out the ashes from your fireplace, right? There's no more room. Well, the same thing happens on your grill when there's no more room. For fresh charcoal, you're in trouble. But don't wait that long because the ashes are gross, and then they just get up into the flutes and scoop out the ashes.

I think people don't think about this, about charcoal grills, but do check the rivet joints and the places where, let's say the legs attached to the body, check all those places to make sure they're tight. You do not want a charcoal grill falling over. Oh, gosh, gosh. Or a leg falling off while you're grilling. You don't want that to happen, so just it doesn't take, you could start a five, five minute. To check that and check where the handle is on the lid. Mm-hmm.

And the air vents, all charcoal girls have air vents. Make sure that they're. In workable condition that they turn easily, that they're not blocked. Otherwise, you ain't gonna be having any good barbecuing going on. No. And if you want to improve your barbecue game, why are you using charcoal lighter fluid? Oh, well that just makes you burgers taste like charcoal lighter fluid. Yeah. Yeah. Get a chimney, buy a little,

it is a hum Simpson thing. And put like three bottles of it on it, and then suddenly like the whole grill explodes and you're like, oh, perfect. So,

no, it's not perfect. So get a chimney instead of that. And when you are grilling, cover the grill. Put the lid down. Mm-hmm. Don't grill with the lid up. Rarely. It's not an effective way to grill.

Rarely. I mean, really rarely. You can grill with the lid off for super fast things. Right. You're gonna

have huge flames shooting up because of all the air. Even

burgers. You should put the lid on

it. Yeah, you'll get more smoke happening and you'll get more smoke flavor. If you leave the lid open, there's more oxygen. Feeding the fire, shooting up a flames, your food is more likely to get burned and not a delicious smokey taste.

And let, let's say, while we're talking about grilling, and now we're gonna talk about the grill, but we're talking, since I brought burgers up, I'm just gonna mention this. Don't press down on a burger. On the grill. You can't make smash burgers on a grill. You need a griddle for smash burgers unless you have. Pre smash them until they're very flat in the kitchen. You can't do the standard smash burger technique.

it dry, you're squeezing it out. The fat will drip down. It'll make a flame shoot up. But don't do that. As Mark said and. Don't turn them endlessly. I know you turn them once. I'm really guilty. All you need to do is turn them once.

I'm really guilty of overturning. When I was a kid, I was the one who grilled in our house. Uh, from about when I was about maybe 12 on I grilled dinner and mom would buy steaks or burgers or whatever, pork chops and I would grill them in the summer and. I was just the Mr. You know, oh, turn it, and then 30 seconds later, turn it and then 30 seconds later turn it and then count to 20 and turn it, and then count to 10 and turn it. So it and it, what my problem was is that I was trying to get my.

I saw an interesting TikTok video this morning. On grilling and some guy was doing skirt steaks and he was saying how it takes, you know, like an hour to two if not overnight, to marinate them. Oh right. And he said rather than do that, he marinates them after. I'm like, isn't that just putting dressing on a steak? So anyway, he grilled his skirt steaks and then he poured his oil vinegar or marinade over at the end. No. And I'm like that.

Does that work? No. No. Well, okay. It won't work for me because although I like my, I dunno about skirt steak, but I like beef super rare. I also like a crusty char on the outside of it. What I want is it charred and then rare inside and that dressing would turn that char soft and soften it up. Yeah. Oh no. No, no, no, no.

And the dressing's also what's gonna help get the char the fat, and it's gonna sizzle the sugar in it is gonna burn on. Yeah. Yeah. That was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen.

Well see. TikTok ERs don't know everything. While we're stopped on that, let me just say, if you don't know, we have a TikTok channel cooking with Bruce and Mar. Go. What a shock you can become. Our friend there on TikTok, we have a ton of videos going up every week, mostly about air frying right now. Although there are other videos that are going up and you should check that out. You can be our friend on TikTok and we would love to hang out with you there. I know, it's crazy.

skip the charcoal briquette. And by yourself? Hardwood, lump,

charcoal. Okay. Can now you're gonna have to stop and say what that is.

Charcoal is made by burning wood. Right? Right. And what's left is the charcoal to make briquettes. That charcoal is ground up into a powder and formed into little cubes, little briquettes. Right, right. They also sometimes add stuff into them. There's filler added, and you don't get as delicious a wood taste if you just use the charcoal in its wood form. So you buy lump. Charcoal, which is so hardwood, which expensive. It's more expensive than briquettes, but it burns hotter.

Before we get to our big barbecuing interview on this episode of Cooking with Bruce, mark, let me say, it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast. If you could rate it even a comment like Great podcast does wonders for us. We are unsupported. Thank you for finding us and being with us on this journey. If you would like to be with us more, I know you would, right? Who wouldn't? You can sign up for a newsletter, go to our website.

His dad. Ed Mitchell.

Yeah. All right. They have got, uh, North Carolina Barbecue House that is legendary Ed Mitchell's barbecue, and they have a new book out. Ed Mitchell's barbecue at Mitchell's Barbecue. So up next Bruce with Ryan.

Today we're talking barbecue with Ryan Mitchell. He is the business savvy brain behind his father's brand. Ed Mitchell's Barbecue. He's also the co-author along with his father of the new book, ed Mitchell's Barbecue. Hey, Ryan, welcome.

How you doing Bruce? Thank you for having me.

Hey, your book is the story of your family, the history of the Mitchell family, as well as incredible recipes for classic barbecue and southern food. And I've heard you say in other interviews that your family got into the barbecue business from a place of pain as opposed to like barbecue competitions and. What did that journey look like?

You know, it was a very, uh, you know, it was spiritual. It was emotional. Um, it, it, it has always been positioned in a place of hospitality and love for taking care of people. But, you know, uh, just to take you back, my grandfather passed away in 1991 and you know, at that point him and my grandmother were running a little corner grocery store.

Whole hog barbecue, as you say, is what you specialize in, and it is the first recipe in your book how to do a whole hog. But for most suburban cooks, a whole hog isn't necessarily something they can easily do at home. Do you have any advice for home cooks who wanna try and recreate your classic barbecue?

You know, we start out with the whole hog and then, uh, later on in the book we add in the pork shoulder and the Boston. And so, um, The shoulders, the hams are just as good. You know, you smoke those, put those on a grill, you know, in a, in a smaller setting. And we have a recipe in there that includes our vinegar based barbecue sauce and our, and our, uh, Carolina Classic barbecue rub.

Uh, let's talk about that sauce for a second. One of the early partnership products you made with your dad was a line of zero sugar barbecue sauces. So why'd you create them and where'd the inspiration come from?

You know, we got into the barbecue sauce business early in the late nineties, honestly. Uh, we were selling out of our restaurant and just a lo one local like. Gas station, gro grocery store that was carrying us. Um, you know, and that that recipe, you know, was uh, was just something we just kind of kept close to the vest. And then, um, right around 2016, 17, my father was diagnosed with diabetes and we.

you write in the book about barbecue brisket as being. The most scrutinized meat to come out of the pit at barbecue competitions. And that, I love this cuz you say you didn't enter the barbecue game for aesthetics. Yeah. You cooked brisket to eat, not to show. That's right. So your recipe says, After five hours in the smoker, you wrap the brisket. Is that the secret to making it as delicious as possible? Why do you do that?

You know, here in the Carolinas, the brisket wasn't, you know, the go-to piece of meat. You know, we gravitate to pork. The brisket is Texas competition. Uh, barbecue. What we found out was a, you know, we put it at the smoker for about five hours at, at a little bit higher heat than what you would probably normal normally have in, in some of the competition styles. And at that five point mark you could pull it.

Uh, in the book, your dad talks about the pig bar. In the restaurant. Can, can you tell me about that?

The pig bar was really just, you know, an area at, you know, just picture a regular sitting bar, but we have a half of a whole hog sitting there, uh, in front of the customers or the line of customers that are able to sit at the bar. And you're able to have a, um, a bartend kind of give you the experience of being at a, a. You know, a old-fashioned barbecue pick picking, right? Mm-hmm.

Hey Ryan, there's a recipe in the book that I love this title. I don't eat everybody's potato salad. What's the story behind that

black barbecue culture? You know, there's certain dishes that you, you know, bring to a cookout that are, you know, Scrutinizes and family and friends wanna know who made it, where it came from. It's kinda, you know, one of those, uh, high profile dishes that come to the family barbecue. And usually there's only, you know, a handful of, uh, elder family members who can make it, you know, just Right, right.

Well, let's talk about another one of your grandmother's dishes. In the book, it's referred to as the oddball carrot cake. Was your grandmother an oddball or is the carrot cake an oddball carrot cake is an oddball.

Uh, you know, my grandmother, so again, uh, you know, it was my favorite dessert growing up that she made at the church in the south. Uh, you know, after service, you know, we would feed the, uh, clergy and we would feed, you know, the members and have these very nice after church dinners. And so, you know, as people know, the women in the kitchen of a Southern Baptist church are pretty competitive about, you know, the stuff that they bring and the stuff that they cook.

There's another recipe in the dessert chapter that I wanna talk about, something I'd never heard of. Country boy chew bread. What is it?

It's basically, um, we'll just say it's like a cookie bar, so to say. It's kind of a southern rendition on a brownie without the chocolate. And really just the ingenuity of just taking some of the leftovers around, um, around the kitchen, man, you know, the flour, eggs, and little bit of, uh, vanilla flavor and walnuts if you choose brown sugar.

from desserts back to the whole hog. This book. Ed Mitchell's barbecue is filled with amazing recipes for the taste of your family's barbecue. The stories of your family are just wonderful to read. Hey, great. Good luck with the book, ed Mitchell's Barbecue, and thank you for spending some time with me this morning.

Thank you so much for having us. I appreciate it.

There's just nothing like good barbecue. There really isn't, and it is such an. Art It is. I think that, you know, I, to go back to TikTok, I saw these Brit guys who have been on like a yearlong tour of the United States, and one of the things they keep coming back to these two Brits is that they are just undone by American barbecue. They wouldn't be undone by the whole brisket, Fandango, and. Just like me, they are crazed about brisket.

Well, I love Ryan's way of doing it where you wrap that brisket after a few hours so it doesn't overs smoke, it stays moist. And as he said, it's not the most beautiful brisket because you don't necessarily have the crunchy bark on it and some pieces get pulled off. But you're making brisket to eat it, not to look at it. Yeah,

it's true. And, you know, uh, the, this is gonna, sorry, we're banging on here before we get to what's happening, make us happy and food this week. But this is gonna be super controversial, but I don't like burnt ends. And I'm a Texas boy. I grew up on barbecue. I grew up on serious barbecue, serious places that we would go, where they, they tended it all night and they would sell until they were sold out. Yep. Those kind of places. And I never heard of Burnt Ends until I became an adult.

You have to like the sweet, you have to like the burned and they're also all dried. And I like the burn, but they're also dry. They're not, it's not the fatty, fatty pieces. Yeah. See

that's, I like burn on my steak, but I don't like just. Charcoal with sugar. That, that to me is like, I don't get it. I, I want a good slice of brisket that is juicy fatty. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. So since

Pork pozole.

Oh, that was gonna be my, well then you talk about it. No, well, okay. I'll talk about it. Fine. So last night we went to a friend's house and we played bridge. Bruce and I do play a mean game of Bridge and we played bridge with six other people. And Bruce was kind enough to bring dinner to a friend's house and he made pork Paola Verde and. It is one of my childhood Texas favorite thing. So how did you make your pork paoli? Well, I

did not use canned pozole. I had dried, he means he means canned harmony. Yeah, canned harmony. Instead, I had dried harmony and it had to be slay. It had to be nix symbolized, and it was ized, which means you soak it in lie and you get all the skins off it and then you cook it. And I had a beautiful.

Pork PA Verde was a thing when I lived in Austin. You, you probably know I'm from Texas and I grew up in Dallas, but uh, I lived in Austin when Bruce met me and I was teaching at St. Edwards University and there was a place downtown called Los Manita run by these two women and it was a place to go for breakfast and they made.

In our book, grain mains. No, there is, I didn't even anticipate this one. Lovely. There you go. Pork Posole Verde, which is the recipe I used last night.

If you don't know, we have a book called Grain Mains, where every single recipe uses whole grains as the main ingredient, and it's all main coarse recipes with whole grains. Mm-hmm. So it's a, it's not a vegetarian or vegan book, although there are vegetarian, vegan recipes. Yeah, right. But there, uh, but it's wheat berries and o berries and. Ribber and it's using whole grains to form the ballast of the main course and NTA moated corn counts that does that. So that's the podcast for this week.

Hey, if you've got a favorite barbecue recipe, something you like to throw in the grill, go to our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark. Share it. Share a picture of it. Tell us what you like to do. We'll share some of our favorite recipes, and we will see you for another episode here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.