British BBQ Society Forums

Pecker wrote:But I agree, I don't like sugar in the rub. It's a bit of a waste if you're adding a sauce, because there's no way the sweetness of the sugar in a rub won't be completely swamped by the sweetness of the sauce.

Adding sugar to a rub isn't about getting sweetness on the meat but using the sugar to create a better bark on the meat. Using the reaction of the sugar and the meat when added raw to get the rest of your spices to be better absorbed by the meat without using too much salt which will dry out your meat or turn it into bacon.

If you're adding sugar to get more sweetness into the meat you need to heavily cover them just in sugar, this is also good as you'll build different dimensions of flavour as the sugar on the meat is cooked differently to the sugars in the sauce and as such will taste different

Sugar burns at roughly 175C - hence why it is not good for grilling.

aris wrote:Sugar burns at roughly 175C - hence why it is not good for grilling.

Indeed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy#Sugar_stages

Just watch last night programme on 4oD, it was nice to see the BBBQS was shown in a good light and that it may bring some attention to others that want to get involved?

Eddie

Just got round to watching this.

I think I misunderstood the comments previously to mean he'd used loads of balsamic and fennel seeds - it actually looked quite good to me.

He doesn't cook the ribs as long as he might, but that's okay. It's like the difference between roast pork and pulled pork - it's not a case of one being right and another wrong, they're just two different ways of doing things.

Having re-read the thread, I think there's a lot of negativity to people like Jamie Oliver & co. Well, personality-wise, and regarding his likeability as a presenter, that's obviously a matter of opinion. But criticising Oliver's food is a bit like me criticising Lionel Messi as a footballer. Okay not Messia - maybe Paul Scholes. Listen, the bloke is a damn good chef, whether you like it or not. He's not superb, but he's very good, and far better than any of us amateurs.

So Jamie Oliver can't cook, Scholes can't play footie, and both of them are crying all the way to their mansions, that they've bought from their earnings cooking and playing footie. I doubt either of them will lose a lot of sleep about my opinion of their skills.

Steve W

Eddie wrote:Just watch last night programme on 4oD, it was nice to see the BBBQS was shown in a good light and that it may bring some attention to others that want to get involved?

Eddie

Good point.

Does anyone know if the BBQS get any more of a front seat later in the series?

Can't be a bad thing, even with what we've seen so far.

Steve W

RobinC wrote:

Pecker wrote:It's largely thanks to Heston that it's become popular to cook meats by heating them at a very low temperature for a very long time, then blasting them to crisp the outside. This is not unlike low & slow cooking, taken to its Nth degree.

No its not. That's nothing new its been done for years.

Heston cooks his chicken at 70-90 degrees. Lowest I can find is 200-230f which is 95C+, with an ideal of 215f, which is 100 C Can you provide a link to someone who has done that previously?

Happy to apologise if I've missed it.

Steve W

Pretty much anyone who's been cooking chicken sous vide for starters

Google is very useful (facts, figures, stats, blah blah blah) but knowledge and experience is invaluable...
Robin is absolutely correct, the sous vide method has been around for a couple of hundred years.

I've never eaten at a "Jamie" establishment, had a great meal at his dad's pub a couple of times, but the guy can cook. Along with a lot of my generation I couldn't "get on board" with the "image" the publicists portrayed him as in his "Naked Chef" days. However he did well out of it and shook it off as soon as he feasibly could. Balsamic & Fennel feature in a lot of Italian food so that doesn't bother me.
What I can't understand, having spent days or even weeks obtaining the right flavour profiles for a dish just before service they will drizzle Olive OIl "artistcally" over the dish, not necessarily the food, Or is that the difference between Michelin Stars (humerous comment don't bother to research the Michelin site for judging criteria please)