Smokin' Dinner: Puerto Rican-Style Smoked Pork Shoulder & Black Beans

When I invited two of my favorite Italian restaurant owners over for dinner, the last thing they were going to hear from me was, "Wait until you try my risotto. I think you'll love it!"

So I went in a completely different direction, to the small island east of Cuba that was hammered so mercilessly by Hurricane Maria a little less than two years ago, an island filled with our fellow American citizens who are still all but ignored in the sturm und drang of our current national crises du jour.

Going into the smoker.

It's hard to find this island's cuisine represented on our local dining scene, and while the flavors of cumin, garlic and chile are found in many Latin cultures, I thought it might be fun to make a dinner based on a Puerto Rican theme. Plus we love their take on pork shoulder, a dish called pernil that, though delicious when roasted in an oven or even on a grill, takes on a whole different character when left for several hours in the smoker.

With Dave primed to spend his day, beer in hand, tending the fire, I needed to come up with a side that would fit in. It just so happened that I had some black turtle beans from Anthony and Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm in the pantry, so I put them on to soak while I did a little research.

Ready to go! (And check out that smoke ring.)

Similar to the black beans I make for taco nights at home, traditional preparations start with a sofrito of onions, garlic, cumin and chile powder, then add in chopped peppers, splashes of wine and vinegar, and chopped olives. These are best simmered for several hours, allowing the beans to get buttery-tender and for flavors to meld into a rich, stewy whole, so I put them on first thing in the morning. Cooking them overnight in a 250° oven would work, too, the only problem being you'd wake up wanting to make huevos rancheros after breathing in the heady aroma of the cooking beans all night.

Dave, of course, did his usual magic with the pernil, allowing the pork to roast low and slow, swathed in the smoke from the mix of charcoal and fresh oak. And the beans got their share of raves, along with sincere thanks from our friends, who, like most chefs I've cooked for, are just grateful to have someone cook for them for once!

Pernil
Adapted from Mark Bittman

1 pork shoulder, 4-10 lbs.
4 or more cloves garlic, peeled
1 large onion, quartered
2 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves or 1 Tbsp. dried
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ancho or other mild chili powder
1 Tbsp. salt
2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil as needed
1 Tbsp. wine or cider vinegar
Lime wedges for serving.

Heat oven to 300 degrees or prepare a fire in the smoker, allowing it to reach a stable temperature of 250-275°.

Score meat with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. Blend in the vinegar.

Rub this mixture into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. Put pork in a roasting pan and film bottom with water or, if smoking in the smoker, place it on a rack above a pan of water. Roast pork for several hours until an instant-read thermometer reads 180°. [Our 10-lb. shoulder took 6 hrs. - KB]. Add more water to the pan as necessary, until meat is very tender.

Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting it up; meat should be so tender that cutting it into uniform slices is almost impossible; rather, whack it up into chunks. Serve with lime.

* * *

Puerto Rican-Style Black Beans

1  lb. dried black beans, rinsed thoroughly

3  Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1  large yellow onion, chopped

2 poblano peppers, chopped in 1/2" pieces

4 to 5  garlic cloves, crushed

2 tsp. ground cumin

2 tsp. oregano

4 c. water

3  bay leaves

1 Tbsp. salt, plus more to taste

2  Tbsp. red wine vinegar

1/2  c. dry white wine

1/2  c. green olives stuffed with pimentos, thinly sliced

The day before cooking, soak beans overnight in large pot with water covering them by at least 3". The next day drain them and rinse. Set aside.

Heat oil over medium-high heat in large Dutch oven. Sauté onions until translucent, stirring frequently. Add chopped peppers and garlic and sauté until tender. Add cumin and oregano and sauté 30 seconds. Pour in water and add drained beans, olives, bay leaves, vinegar, and white wine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook, covered, for at least 2 hours. Check occasionally to make sure the beans aren't dry. If they are, add more water.

When beans are tender, if beans are too soupy remove lid and keep simmering until liquid is reduced. Remove bay leaves, turn heat down to warm until ready to serve.

A Christmas Story in Fourteen Pounds

I knew we were in trouble when I mentioned to Ben Meyer that we were planning to smoke a bone-in ham leg for Christmas dinner in a week's time. The owner of Old Salt Marketplace got a concerned look on his face and said, "So how long have you had it brining?"

"Um…you mean I should have taken it out of the freezer already?" I responded.

The meat injector. Scary, huh?

He went on to say—to his great credit there was no eye-rolling, at least that I noticed—that in order to have it ready by Christmas we would need to inject it with brine. There was no way that the brine for a ham that large, about 14 pounds or so, would have time to penetrate all the way through the meat. (I found out later that it can take as long as a month for that to happen. Heh.)

A classic on all fronts.

Fortunately he happened to have a spare injector that he could loan us, and brought out a tool that looked as if it was used in medieval dentistry or some other torture. The main chamber is pumped full of brine, then the needle—in this case, one with holes on the sides instead of the end—is inserted perpendicular to the bone, spraying the brine into the meat. For the brine itself, he suggested using Paul Bertolli's recipe from Cooking By Hand, a groundbreaking collection of recipes for making everything from bread to charcuterie.

Brining the ham.

I came home and ran to take the ham out of the freezer, leaving it on the counter to thaw. Two days later Dave made the brine, a beautiful and fragrant blend of vegetables, herbs, salts and water, and injected it every inch-and-a-half or so all the way around the leg. Then into the fridge it went, submerged in the brine to soak for six days.

Going in the smoker.

Dave pulled it out on Sunday morning, noting the hammy, dark pink tinge the meat had taken on from the curing process. He rinsed off the ham, then started the smoker with charcoal briquets, as well as soaking chunks of apple wood to add their unique notes to the smoked meat. He'd read various accounts of how long it might take to smoke a leg of pork that large, which ranged from six to 12 hours to reach his target of 140 degrees. He planned to keep his smoker in the 200 to 250-degree range, hoping for an overall time of eight hours.

When the smoker was ready, he put on what we hoped was going to be a perfect ham. After diligently tending the fire, six hours and two or three beers later it reached the desired temperature. Since the ham needed to rest anyway, we just wrapped it in foil, planning to serving it at room temperature. But first, of course, a few samples were sliced off to make sure it was company-worthy.

Six hours later…

I have to mention here that, lest you think that this project was a no-muss, no-fuss affair that we just dashed off casually, the night before I'd laid awake worrying about how salty the ham might be, running through the coulda-woulda-shoulda factors of whether we should have soaked it in water the night before to desalinate the ham and what to do if we had 14 pounds of puckeringly salty meat to somehow find a use for. And what would we be having for Christmas dinner? The Chinese restaurant scene from the movie A Christmas Story briefly flashed through my mind.

Fortunately I didn't turn over and shake Dave awake to relate my awful fears, I just turned over and forced myself to go back to sleep, probably one of the reasons we've managed to stay married for this long.

Oh, and those first slices? Heavenly, probably some of the best ham I've had in my entire life. Which was confirmed by our happy guests, who demolished a good third of the monster along with the creamy scalloped potatoes infused with bacon, caramelized onions and mushrooms, as well as the roasted vegetables and the apple pie for dessert.

A Christmas story with a happy ending? I'd say so. And the epilogue is that, after dinner, Dave was already saying he wanted to do it again. Soon.

Christmas Ham

Brine and preparation of leg from Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli, republished with his permission.

For the brine:
3 gallons water
454 grams salt
300 grams sugar
10 grams allspice berries
20 grams black peppercorns
5 grams whole cloves
10 grams whole juniper berries
2 onions (1 lb.), sliced thin
2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
2 celery stalks, sliced thin
Small bunch of flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
Small bunch of fresh thyme
8 bay leaves
57 grams Instacure No. 1 [pink curing salt]

For the ham:
1 fresh leg of pork, 13-15 lbs. (can also be thawed from a frozen leg)

To prepare the brine solution, put the water in a large pot. Add the salt and sugar. Crack the whole spices coarsely in a mortar and add them to the brine along with the sliced vegetables and herbs. Warm the brine to 160° (F) to release the spice and vegetable aromas and to dissolve the salt and sugar. Chill the brine to 34°, stir in the curing salt, and dissolve it thoroughly.

While the brine cooks, prepare the pork leg. Cut away the tailbone [if it hasn't been removed already] and trim away any skin, fat and glands that may remain on the flank side. Remove any excess fat around the skinless area of the aitch-bone.

Place the ham inside a deep pan with the shank end facing you. First, inject brine directly through the base three or four times, adjusting the position of the needle so that the entire shank section receives the brine. Next, turn the leg aitch-bone up so that the shank end is facing away from you. Beginning at one edge, plunge the needle deep into the heavy muscle of the lower leg, directing the needle toward the bone. Continue injecting brine at 1 1/2-inch intervals across the leg. You will notice the various muscles of the leg swelling as  you pump the brine [some will leak out, which is fine]. Once you have reached the edge of the leg, return to the starting point and make a second row of injections 1 1/2 inches behind the first. Continue altering the angle of the needle around the bone until you have injected the entire leg. In all it should take 15 to 16 injections.

Place the leg into a bucket—we used a 12-quart Cambro container that fits in our fridge—and pour in the brine until the leg is submerged. Place the lid on the container and refrigerate for at least six days. After six days, remove the ham from the brine and rinse off. Discard the remaining brine.

Prepare the fire in the smoker, adding whatever well-soaked wood chunks you prefer. Put the ham in the smoker and maintain the internal temperature of the smoker between 200 and 250 degrees, adding more briquets as needed. When the internal temperature of the ham reaches 140°, remove from the smoker and rest for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Big Holiday Barbecue Begs for Baked Beans

My husband, it can be stated without hesitation, is a guy who knows what he wants. For his birthday, which happens to fall on Memorial Day weekend this year, he was given the choice of what to do over the long weekend to celebrate his special day. No restrictions…anything he wants, I'll do my best to accomodate.

No "trip to Paris" crossed his lips, no "dinner at _________" restaurant. Without hesitation, he answered, "Brisket."

Dave's brisket.

You see, Dave is a guy who loves his smoke. The last brisket he made (left) used a method called the "Texas crutch" where the meat is first smoked for several hours, then wrapped in butcher paper and returned to the smoker. After a few more hours, it goes into a cooler to rest and break down any remaining collagen that has withstood the battering of heat, smoke and time. At the end of which emerged the most succulent, tender and delicious hunk of meat he'd ever made.

Ayers Creek Farm borlotto beans.

The pressure to come up with appropriate sides then lands on me. My fallback is always my mother's potato salad, a family favorite that pairs perfectly with smoky protein. I was struggling with what else would be appropriate when I remembered a baked bean dish I'd made a couple of years ago that had the slightest bite of vinegar, an Italian-inflected version based on a recipe from contributor Jim Dixon.

So the menu is set, and if you want updates I'll be posting photos of the results to my social media feeds (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook). But if you're simply want to make the baked beans for yourself this weekend, you can find the instructions below.

Baked Beans Italian Style

2 c. dried beans (I'm using borlotti beans from Ayers Creek Farm)
Water
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 bay leaves
1/4 lb. bacon
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 by 1”. Add bacon, bay leaves, salt and olive oil. Cover, place in oven and bake 5 to 7 hours until beans are tender (a slow cooker would work well, too).

One hour before the end of the cooking time for the beans, combine the onions, honey, vinegar and sage in a small 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 piece of bacon and slice it into pieces or 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.

* My last batch had quite a bit of liquid left after cooking, so I simmered it on the stovetop for several hours, uncovered, to evaporate the liquid, stirring it occasionally to keep the beans from sticking. It worked like a charm, and the liquid turned into a luscious, beany sauce.

Makin' Bacon? Easy Peasy!

People who deny the facts of evolution completely puzzle me. Even putting aside the fossil record, DNA evidence and untold hours of programming on public television (Have you pledged yet?) do these people ever look around them? Stuff is changing all the time, for heaven's sake.

Cured and ready to smoke.

And I'm not even talking about the famous example of the beaks of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands, where "an immigrant first settled on one of the islands [and] it would undoubtedly be exposed to different conditions in the different islands (where) it would have to compete with a different set of organisms. ... Then, natural selection would probably favor different varieties in the different islands."

You don't have to look any further than this blog, which in geologic time has only existed for a millionth of a nanosecond, but it has evolved from a simple food blog with restaurant reviews, farmers’ market reports and recipes to a forum for discussion of issues about our food system, from the fields to our plates. And the recipes have changed, too, as I've learned more and tweaked them to fit the way we're eating now.

In the smoker.

Take Dave's bacon recipe. On the recommendation of a friend, I bought him Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, considered the primer for those interested in learning about cured meat. In the five years since he cured and smoked his first pork belly, he's adjusted it to his own tastes, to the point where we have a hard time stooping to store-bought because even the most highly-touted examples simply don't measure up.

So if you're at all interested, it's incredibly easy. The only special equipment required is curing salt, large zip-lock plastic bags, a charcoal grill or smoker and a thermometer, then a week for the curing. Seriously, that's it.

Done.

And, of course, Dave's notes, which are here in his own words:

"The bacon recipe is based on the Michael Ruhlman recipe, with a couple of changes. I use half as much kosher salt as the recipe calls for—a quarter cup makes it way too salty. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt (I understand that Morton’s is a bit different). I use a little more garlic than called for—8 to 10 cloves, maybe. I don’t think I’ve ever made it with the optional thyme. I have made it with the optional juniper berries once or twice, but most of the time not. I usually make 12 or 13 pounds at a time, so I double the recipe as I’ve altered it. I usually have two pieces of belly, each rubbed and placed into the big plastic bags in the fridge on a Saturday or Sunday for smoking the next weekend. I turn them once a day. I put it in my Weber Smokey Mountain smoker, on the grates over a water pan, at a low temperature—I try to keep it about 200-225 degrees—over Kingsford with four or five chunks of soaked maple or cherry wood (not too much or the bacon’ll be too smoky and bitter). I smoke it until it’s about 145 degrees internally, usually about three or four hours."

As this changes—and evolves—I'll keep you posted!

Taking the Cure: Home-Smoked Bacon

There are very few things that draw me like a moth to a flame like the smell of smoked meat. I've been known to wander around the neighborhood, my nose in the air, tracking the smell of cooking meat as it wafts on the breeze until I locate the source of the intoxicating aroma. Even my dogs start looking at me askance as we cross streets willy-nilly, though their puzzlement is likely a fraction of the muttering from other pedestrians I'd occasionally (and even literally) run into.

Fresh pork belly.

Bacon was high on the list of favorite smoked meats, and I'd sampled all kinds from Trader Joe's to Gartner's, and quizzed friends on their favorite sources. Then Dave found a smoker on Craigslist and got a yen to try making it himself, with, yes, lots of encouragement from me. That first batch, one slab weighing five pounds, was a smashing success, earning accolades from family and friends alike. Which, of course, encouraged him to make more, increasing the amount each time.

The experience of working with the smoker, and the resulting briskets, ribs (flat and rolled) and smoked albacore has begun pulling him away from briquets and into the realm of wood. He's now got sources for cherry, apple, hickory, oak and maple, with bags of same stashed alongside the smoker in the garage.

Cured belly ready for the smoker.

Today's batch of bacon—briquets providing the primary heat source, with chunks of dry apple wood soaked in water providing the smoke—was the biggest yet. Two full bellies weighing just shy of twenty pounds total, cured for a week in the fridge (details here) then smoked for a little over three hours. Which resulted in around 16 1/2 lbs. of finished bacon. Once they cool down, we'll slice them into one-pound chunks, then throw them in zip-lock freezer bags, except for a bit we may need for a completely homemade BLT or perhaps some carbonara.

Seriously, if you've been thinking about making your own bacon and you can get your hands on a smoker (I repeat: Craigslist), this is so easy to do and, as long as you follow the directions for the curing, a complete cakewalk. Your family and friends will thank you!

The Best Bacon Ever

I'd been working on getting Dave to smoke some pork belly for at least a year. It's not that he didn't want to, or was just being intransigent about taking his wife's suggestion. After all, he has a full-time job that supports his family, and any free time has been subsumed by a passion for developing his own sourdough starter, using it to make some fine breads, English muffins and biscuits.

Ready to cure in the fridge.

And that's not to mention the cocktail research, which these days is focused on the subject of bourbons and bitters. But after buying him a couple of books on home charcuterie and sending links to online articles on the subject, I could see his interest shifting to a more active state. Then came the day that he announced he'd ordered five pounds of pork belly from New Seasons and needed to go on a hunt for curing salt.

If we were the types to plan ahead, there are myriad online retailers who carry this special combination of table salt and sodium nitrite or nitrate, dyed pink to distinguish it from other salts since it's apparently quite lethal. But because we subscribe to the last-minute school of life, a little research led us to The Meadow, Mark Bitterman's shrine to NaCl. Fortunately it's also close by, so we could run over and get back while the sourdough Dave was working on that day (I didn't say he gave up his infatuation) finished rising.

A sample of the finished product.

The only problem we ran into was finding a bag that would fit the five-pound slab, since it needed to cure in the fridge for a week. Now, we could have cut it in half and slipped it into two one-gallon bags, but that would have reduced the impressive feat of slapping the whole monster on the grill. So not being able to find the 2-gallon bag called for in the recipe, we used a large size oven bag sold for turkeys.

Other than that it was rubbing the slab with the salt mixture, putting it in the fridge in the duct tape-sealed bag and turning it daily for a week. Smoking took about three hours, and then we cooled it, whacked it up into one pound chunks and put it int the freezer. A sample we fried up on the spot indicated a deeply but not overly smoky belly that one volunteer said was some of the best he's ever had. I'd say it was definitely worth waiting for.

Home-Cured Bacon

Adapted from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

• Order five pounds of fresh pork belly from your grocery store, the pork guy at your farmers market, or from a local butcher shop.


• Buy a box of 2-gallon zip-top bags if you don’t have a container big enough to hold the belly or use oven bags meant for turkey.

Mix the following together in a small bowl:
2 oz. (1/4 c. Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 tsp. pink curing salt #1
4 Tbsp. coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 c. brown sugar, honey or maple syrup
5 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 Tbsp. juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)




Put the pork belly in the zip-top bag or in an oven bag. Rub the salt and spice mixture all over the belly. Close the bag (if using the oven bag Dave recommends black duct tape for the aesthetics) and stick it in the refrigerator for seven days (get your hands in there and give the spices another good rubbing around midway through). After seven days, take it out of the fridge, rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.

For cooking in the oven:
Put it on a sheet tray and put it in the oven (put it on a rack on a sheet tray if you have one) and turn the oven on to 200°. (if you want to preheat the oven, that’s fine, too). Leave it in the oven for 90 minutes (or, if you want to measure the internal temperature, until it reaches 150 degrees F.). Let it cool, cut it into usable chunks (we did approx. 1-lb. chunks) and refrigerate or freeze it until you’re ready to cook it.

For cooking in a smoker:
Build a fire from charcoal or hickory chunks. When the temperature inside the smoker reaches 125-150°, put the pork belly on the top rack. Maintain the 125-150° temperature inside the smoker for approximately 3-3 1/2 hrs. or until the internal temperature of the belly reaches 150°. Remove and cool. Slice into usable chunks and refrigerate or freeze.

Back to the Smoker

Most wives would find a husband's new romance to be somewhat threatening. I, on the other hand, heartily encourage these dalliances, since Dave's tend to take the form of comestibles, either liquid or grill-related.

As mentioned previously, this is the summer of the smoker and his latest experiments have been turning out magnificently. The most recent, a nearly-six-pound hunk of brisket, went in the smoker for about six hours and came out with the requisite smoke ring (that pink edge in the photo) and a melt-in-your-mouth texture that rivaled the pernil he smoked earlier for its meaty deliciousness.

Brisket

5-6 pound beef brisket

Rub
1 Tbsp. cumin
1/4 c. Kosher salt
5 or six garlic cloves, crushed
3 Tbsp. paprika
1/4 c. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. ground black pepper
2 dried red peppers, finely chopped

Mix non-meat ingredients together and pat it firmly onto the brisket. Save a little bit of the rub for the barbecue sausce. Put the brisket into a container, cover it and put it into the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Remove it from the refrigerator a half-hour or so before the smoker is ready.

When coals are ready and in the smoker, add four or five bigger chunks of hickory or other wood that has been soaking in water for at least an hour. After about an hour of smoking, add four or five more chunks.

The barbecue sauce is basically the same as the one for the baby back ribs, with the addition of two tablespoons of the rub.

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.

Ssssssssssmokin'!

You know how just last month I was raving in a post about a Puerto Rican pork dish that we made after seeing it in Mark Bittman's NYT column? You can completely flush that one, because we've done old Marky-Mark one better.

Here's the deal: You take a large, and I mean around 10 lbs., bone-in pork shoulder. You make the pernil sauce and rub it all over that shoulder. Then get out the Cook'n Ca'jun, crank up the fire and lay that hunk of pig on the grill. Then about, oh, say, eight hours later, after you've had a beer (or so), kept the fire stoked with coals and hardwood, filled the water bowl a couple of times and turned the meat once or twice, you check it.

And there, right before your very eyes, is the smokiest, loveliest chunk of roasted pork you've ever seen. Caramelized and black on the outside, juicy and tender inside with the legendary "smoke ring" that barbecuers live for.

This is truly a "best and highest use" of the holy pig we've ever had the pleasure to prepare, not to mention consume, and bodes well for summer dining. If, like me, you live to see your guests' eyes roll back in their heads and have them fall off their chairs moaning like they're possessed, you've got to try this.