Summer BBQ = Baked Beans

Quick: Name the most ubiquitous foods at summer picnics.

Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Potato salad. Baked beans. Extra points if you envision them on a picnic table covered with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth. Maybe some smoke from the barbecue wafting by.

Agrodolce, a combination of sour and sweet.

They're all-American classics for a reason, of course. Generations have grown up putting yellow mustard and ketchup—spelling it catsup, apparently, has gone the way of the dodo—pickles and onions on their burgers. But sometimes it's fun to mess with the classics once in awhile, especially if the tweaks, if not a paradigm-shifting improvement over the original, at least offer a delicious alternative.

My friend Jim Dixon got me started thinking about the Italian idea of "agrodolce," combining sour (agro) and sweet (dolce) flavors using vinegar and sugar (or honey) and often onions or fruit to spark the other flavors in the dish, much as we use salt for the same purpose. As opposed to the baked beans I grew up on, ketchup-y and, to my tastebuds, a bit too sweet, the use of the sweet-and-sour agrodolce took this tried-and-true picnic dish to a whole new level.

And adding a bit of bacon or, in this case, a whole ham hock, well, what dish doesn't smoked pork enhance?

Baked Beans Agrodolce

2 c. dried beans*
Water
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil
3-4 large bay leaves
Smoked ham hock (or 1/4 lb. thick-sliced bacon, cut in 1/4" strips)
1 large onion, chopped fine
1/2 c. honey
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. sage leaves, chopped fine

Put dried beans in a pot and add water to cover by at least 2”. Cover and soak overnight on the counter.

Preheat oven to 250°.

Drain water from beans and add fresh water to cover. Add ham hock or bacon, bay leaves, salt and olive oil. Cover, place in oven and bake 7 hours until beans are tender (a slow cooker would work well, too). Monitor every couple of hours to make sure the beans are still covered with liquid; if they're a bit dry, add water to cover and continue cooking.

Two hours before the end of the cooking time for the beans, combine the onions, honey, vinegar and sage in a saucepan and simmer for 1 hour. When beans are tender, add onion mixture to them and combine, then bake for an additional hour. Remove the bay leaves. Remove the ham hock and shred it, then stir it back into the beans. Taste for salt and adjust as desired. This is great served right out of the oven but is also spectacular made a day ahead for dinner or a picnic the next day.

* Dutch Bullet beans from Ayers Creek Farm hold their shape nicely after hours of cooking.

White Barbecue Sauce: What Alabama Knows

Contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food knows his fire, and if he says white barbecue sauce is the real deal, then I'm all in. But he begins this essay with a caveat for all the barbecue essentialists out there.

[Note] Barbecue semantics: Anytime the word barbecue is used somebody will point out that the usage is wrong. Point taken.
Alabama White Barbecue Sauce

Big Bob Gibson created this mayo-based sauce for the chickens he cooked at his namesake Bar-B-Que restaurant in Decatur, Alabama, in 1925. You can buy it bottled right from the source, but it's easy to make. Since tomato-based sauces almost always have some sugar in them, they tend to burn if brushed on during cooking, but Alabama white bbq sauce doesn't. It adds a nicely caramelized coating to whatever you've got on the fire.

I don't actually measure anything when I mix up a batch, so these are approximate quantities. Start with about a cup or mayonnaise (I like Duke's), then add about a quarter cup of Katz Gravenstein apple cider vinegar, a tablespoon of good prepared horseradish (or grate some fresh), the same amount of mustard (Dijon or stoneground), a couple of chopped garlic cloves, several grinds of black pepper and a shot of Crystal hot sauce.

Brush the sauce on meat while it's cooking, use it as a table sauce for the finished product or try it as a dressing for a salad of raw sweet corn cut from the cob tossed with a chopped Walla Walla sweet onion. I like it on grilled pork shoulder steaks (top photo). Cut about a half-inch thick, these have better flavor than any pork chop. If you can't find them or get your butcher to cut some for you, buy some country style boneless "ribs" (not really ribs but chunks of shoulder). They're typically about an inch thick, so cut them in half, pound to flatten and thin a bit more, sprinkle with sea salt, and let sit for at least 15 minutes. Grill over a moderate fire, basting with the white sauce and turning frequently, for about 20 minutes; move to a cooler part of the grill for the last 10 minutes.

A Taste of Warmer Weather

It may not seem like it on these rainy, dripping spring days, but good weather is just around the corner. These beans from contributor Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood would be just the ticket with any grilled food, but would also warm up a cold spring day simmering in the oven and then again when they hit the belly.

I grilled burgers for some of my favorite moms last week, and to go with them I wanted some beans with a little more barbecue-y flavor than plain red beans I make most of the time. Here’s what I came up with:

Backyard Barbecue Beans

Cook about a pound of the Haricot Farms small red beans (rojo chiquitos) as usual: combine with water to cover, healthy pinch of sea salt, very healthy glug of extra virgin olive, bake covered at 200° until done (2-3 hours), adding more water if necessary to keep them barely covered. Or soak for a few hours, change the water, and simmer with salt and oil until done.

Chop an onion, 1-2 celery stalks, and a carrot into small dice (roughly same size as beans). Cook in olive oil for about 10 minutes, then add about a quarter cup Katz Gravenstein Apple Cider Vinegar, a cup of ground or pureed canned tomatoes, and about a quarter cup real maple syrup. Let this cook for 15-20 minutes, then add the cooked beans and their liquid. Cook for another 15-20 minutes, longer if it needs to cook down.

These are good on their own, but I like them over Kokuho Rose brown rice.

Our Fourth? Smokin'!

I'm a Yankee Doodle dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die.
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam'sBorn on the Fourth of July…

- George M. Cohan, circa 1904

When Dave gets a bee in his bonnet, there's nothing to do but stand back and stay out of his way. It was like that when he decided to build a work bench so he could pursue his woodworking dream, or getting a Mini Clubman (which arrives next Friday…woo hoo!).

Removing the membrane from the ribs.

So when he told me he was going to smoke some ribs for the Fourth of July, all I said was, "Tell me what kind and how many and I'll go to Gartner's."

Two days before the holiday (read about what it's like on July 3 and you'll see why I went early) found me heading in the door to find a moderate and friendly crowd, so I took a number and waited my turn. Dave had decided to take advantage of both grills on the smoker, so I walked out with four racks of baby backs and a six pound brisket, the equivalent of about 12 pounds of meat.

Nearly done (you can just see the brisket on the rack beneath them).

In his research he'd run across a website that suggested rolling the racks into cylinders and securing them with a skewer, so he was able to get all four racks on one grill, leaving the lower grill for the brisket. Which, conveniently, also meant that all the juicy goodness that dripped off the ribs would fall directly onto the brisket, bathing it in fatty, smoky deliciousness.

He was going for a long, slow smoke this time, keeping the temperature between 200° and 225° for at least eight hours on the brisket to try to get it to the point of dissolving, with the ribs coming off an hour beforehand.

The result? Some of the most delicious ribs we've had anywhere, completely moist and tender. The brisket was very close to (but not quite) falling apart, indicating that there will be another attempt to achieve perfection, but it was amazingly tender and flavorful. Paired with a bean salad and my mom's potato salad, and with raspberry and blueberry shortcake for dessert, it was about as traditional a Fourth as it gets. Yankee Doodle, indeed!

Dave's Amazing Rib Rub and Barbecue Sauce

For the rib rub:
Adapted from Soaked, Slathered & Seasoned by Elizabeth Klarmel2 Tbsp. Kosher salt
3 shakes Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. garlic powder

For the mop:
Adapted from The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen
1 1/2 c. cider vinegar
1 c. water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. hot red pepper flakes
1 dried ancho chile, seeded
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

For the dipping sauce:
3/4 c. ketchup
1/4 c. molasses
1/4 c. Bubbies pickle juice (or brine from jar of pickles)
1 tsp. hot red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. cider vinegar
3 shakes Worcestershire sauce

Take ribs out of refrigerator and set on counter for one hour to come up to room temperature. Remove the thin white membrane on the bone side to allow rub to penetrate both sides of racks. Combine all ingredients for the rub in a small mixing bowl. Smear ribs with rub, roll them up and place them in zip-lock plastic bags in the refrigerator overnight.

To make the mop sauce, combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process till finely chopped and combined. Pour into non-reactive mixing bowl or in an aluminum foil pan that will go in the smoker.

Remove ribs from zip-lock bags and roll up, securing them with skewers. Place in smoker with mop sauce. Brush with mop sauce after two hours and then every hour and a half after that. Maintain temperature of smoker between 200° and 225°. Ribs are done when meat starts pulling away from the bone.

While ribs cook, prepare the dipping sauce. Combine all ingredients in bowl of food processor and process till smooth. Pour into saucepan and simmer briefly but don't allow it to come to a boil. Remove from heat, cool and serve in a bowl on the side.

Sticking to His Ribs

The onset of warm weather has Dave on a tear with his smoker, and for the Fourth of July he was determined to take a stab at that all-American summer classic, ribs. So we hit Gartner's the day before and went inside to find it packed cheek-by-jowl with trucker hats and "Everyone Loves a Good Butt Rub" t-shirts.

Beef ribs ready to go in the smoker.

Wading through the crowd to the counter, we got our number and found they were serving number 3 while ours was 87. Heading to a corner to wait our turn, I spied a tag with the number 27 on the floor that someone had dropped. I prayed it wasn't from an earlier round and, sure enough, when 27 was called no one came forward, so we stepped up to claim our two racks of beef and three racks of baby back pork ribs.

Almost ready (note the pork ribs on the lower rack).

Rubbed with spices, Dave let the meat sit and warm up to room temperature while the fire was lit, then slapped them on the grills and into the smoker. Seven hours later they were ready for the table, and with a big bean salad and rhubarb crisp for dessert, it was a most fitting way to celebrate our national holiday.

Dave's Rib Rub

2 Tbsp. chili powder
2 Tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
4 or 5 medium sized garlic cloves, minced

Combine ingredients in small bowl, sprinkle on ribs and rub it into the meat.

Dave's BBQ Sauce

1 1/2 c. ketchup
1/4 c. molasses
1/4 c. Kosher dill pickle juice
1 tsp. finely chopped dried red peppers or flakes
1 Tbsp. cider vinegar
3 good shakes Worcestershire sauce
Juice of 1/2 small lemon

Combine ingredients in small sauce pan, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer 20 min. Serve on side.