Crab Boil: A Little Taste of the South

Hungry. It seems that's all I have been lately. These past few months I have been training everyday to run a half marathon in November.  After 5 to 7 miles of running everyday I can't stop to over whelming feeling of hunger. Hell, I can't remember the last time I blogged about what I was eating. With filming and retouching sucking up most of my time blogging has had to take a back seat. I know most of you were hoping for more MEAT Inc. episodes unfortunately this recipe will have to do for now.

I remember last year around this time I was in New Orleans chowing down on anything and everything I could get my hands on. These days anytime it's hot out my cravings instantly shift to Southern. Last night I decided to use my down time to cook up a Crab Boil. 

With a quick trip to the store I was able to pick up, (the full recipe is at the bottom) 1 sack of baby red potatoes, 1 pound of king crab legs, 1 onion, 1 head of garlic, 1/2 pound of shrimp (you can get a pound, my girlfriend isn't a fan), 4 dried chili peppers, 4 bay leaves, 3 sprigs of thyme, 2 lemons, some cajun style andouille sausage, and 2 ears of corn. 

This dish is a lot of fun. There are no rules you just throw in what you think will taste good. It's pretty hard to fuck up. In some cases you can swap the crab legs out for 12 whole fresh crabs. This particular dish was big enough for 2 to 3 people so you can easily double the ingredients to serve more. 

First you wanna grab the biggest stock pot you have. Start by washing and scrubbing the potatoes. Then separate the garlic cloves from the head. I like to use as many natural and/or organic products as possible. I figure the less chemicals in my food the better it will be for me. 

I used to spend hours peeling back the layers of skin on garlic, it would take forever. One day I slammed my knife on the counter in frustration only to find out that squashing the garlic was the best way to get the job done. I consulted some of my chef friends and it turns out I'm an idiot and everyone does it that way anyways. So you're welcome.

Now once the garlic is peeled and the onions are chopped in to 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces (these are just for flavor btw) go ahead and shuck the the corn and cut it into halves. Why? Cause giant pieces of corn in a pot look obnoxious when you have a food blog...

The third step is to clean the shrimp. Asian restaurants that serve shirmp tempura don't usually do this and it fucking grosses me out. You're eating shimp poop. It won't kill you, I just don't like the idea of eating another animals shit. In the cooking world they call this peeling and deveining.

Next you are going to pull out your 3 sprigs of fresh thyme and pour out a 1/4 cup of sea salt. Set this aside cause you will be throwing it all together in your pot.

Once everything is ready you will half your 2 lemons. Don't worry about the seeds, cause if you try to remove them you will probably loose extra lemon juice that would have been better off in your pot for more flavor. Now you will pour in 4 quarts of water. Turn your heat to high and throw in 2 TBLS of distilled white vinegar, your crab boil (I use Zatarain's cause it's easy and taste good), 4 bay leaves, 4 dried chile peppers, 3 sprigs of thyme, garlic cloves, 1/4 of a cup of sea salt, and lemons. You want to bring all of this to a rolling boil. 

Once you reach the rolling boil add in the crab, potatoes, corn, onions, sausage, and shrimp. Wait for that to get back to a rolling boil then time it for 5 minutes with the lid on. After your 5 minutes turn off the fire and let it rest with the lid on for 15 to 20 minutes. Then (this part I did not do because I was hungry) throw in a bowl of ice. This helps the crabs absorb the seasoning and prevents it from over cooking.

Then let the crab stand in water for at least 1 hour before serving. The crabs can be served warm or completely cooled. I like it warm or really hot so I did not let it sit for 1 hour, but you can cause you're awesome.

Last but not least I take out what I want to eat, put it in a giant bowl, and go to town. Some times I will sprinkle on Creole Seasoning just to give it a little texture. I also got some french bread and toasted it. In New Orleans it seemed every dish came with it so I felt it needed it.

Here is exactly what you need:

4 quarts of water

2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar

1 Zatarain's Crab Boil

4 bay leaves

4 dried chile peppers

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled

1/4 cup of sea salt

2 lemons, halved

1 pound of crab legs (or 12 fresh crabs)

1 pound of shrimp peeled and deveined

4 cajun style andouille sausage (cooked and/or cured)

3 pounds of red potatoes scrubbed 

2 ears of corn shucked and cut into halves or thirds

1 onion (10 ounce)

1 bag of ice

Enjoy this, it is fun and easy and if it's for a special occasion you will almost always get lucky...

Happy Summer,

Sean Rice

aka MEAT ME

Note* I will be at the Huntington Beach BBQ Competition this weekend so I hope to see you there.

Gift Couture Steak Wrapping Paper

A new Kickstarter Project needs your help. Sarah and Justin are in the start-up phases of a small gift wrapping company called Gift Couture. They design gift wrap sets that coordinate together into unique themes, and they wanted to share their latest set with me...

Sorry the video did not embed but if you click on this image it will take you r

A fresh new steak on gift wrap!

Hello! We are Sarah Fay and Justin Colt, owners and operators of Gift Couture, a small start-up wrapping paper company based out of our apartment in New York City. Our goal is to create unique, high-quality coordinated wrapping paper sets that feature original photography and designs. We were able to launch Gift Couture a year and a half ago, with the help of everyone who backed our cheeseburger paper.

Since then, we have started working with D&K Printing, a locally-owned family business in Boulder, Colorado with a focus on sustainable printing practices.  We are currently trying to raise enough funds to have them print and package our newest coordinated wrapping paper set–a steak and cutting board!

We already have the set completely designed, and if our funding goal is reached, we will be able to deliver to Kickstarter backers by the end of August, 2013.

This is a versatile set that can be combined with other elements–such as butcher paper and meat trays, for a highly unique gifting experience!  We have two different packages available to Kickstarter backers:

Thank you to all of our supporters! Everyone who contributes to our project will be featured on a special contributors section of the official Gift Couture website. Our highest backers will each receive one of our hand-made golden steak trophies as a sign of our appreciation!

Risks and challengesLearn about accountability on Kickstarter

Having successfully funded, manufactured, and distributed our past Kickstarter campaign, we've built a streamlined fulfillment process in order to deliver the paper quickly and efficiently. We can assure there won't be any mis-steaks.

We fully intend on keeping in touch with and updating all of our backers if any unforeseen setbacks arise along the way.

I really hop this works out for them.

Good Luck!!!
Sean Rice,
aka MEAT ME

Big Poppa Smokers & BJ's Brewhouse - Summer 2013

This is the video that has been taking up so much of my time lately. It looks like MEAT ME's videos have finally paid off. Sterling Ball of Big Poppa Smokers asked me to shoot his summer video launching his new partnership with BJ's Restaurants. They are using his Sweet Money rub on their ribs, and his Jallelujah rub on their french fries. Together they are packing quite the flavorful punch.

Sterling isn't lying when he say's, "As a consumer you are not expecting this good-a-rib at a restaurant!"

I co-direct this video with Ryan McClain, Sterling's Director of Event & Entertainment Marketing. We spent about 2 days shooting a recreation of the original magic that brought both Big Poppa and BJ's Restaurants together. Following the shoot I spent another 3 weeks editing and finally finished with this wonderful gem.

I would like to personally thank Sterling Ball aka Big Poppa, for the opportunity to create such a high quality product. They were a blast to work with and I look forward to creating more awesome videos in the future.

You can order Sweet Money and Jallelujah rubs right off Big Poppa's Website.

Finally success,
Sean Rice
aka MEAT ME

What it takes to be Grand Champion: Pechanga BBQ Competition 2013

That seems to be the question on everyone’s mind. How to be the best in BBQ on a consistent basis? How to create the perfect BBQ that judges are going to love at every competition? Well it seems Left Coast Q has it figured out, 5 Grand Champions in the last 11 competitions. Which means 2 more and they get an automatic entree into the Jack Daniels. 

There is really only one way to find this out and that’s to head out to a competition and see what everyone has been up to. I arrived at Pechanga just south east of Temecula. It’s hot, crazy, and chaotic with 70 barbecue teams competing, which is huge, since the largest comp ever held in California maxed out at a total of 77 teams.

As you can imagine with more teams competing the competition gets much harder. Along side the traditional categories of chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket they added the Iron Chef category; as if cooking for 18 to 20 hours, serving a couple thousand people and trying to bring your A game isn’t enough they add an open category. Don’t worry they can handle it, their professionals, well… Most of them. 

Meat Inc. gets their team together around 9:30 am to go over the game plan. They need People’s Choice tickets, and have the upper hand being by the entrance. Sell, sell, sell. Do whatever it takes to get the food out. 

This is a great place for people with families to bring their kids, plus it’s pretty hard to find a kid that doesn’t like bacon.

A lot of the teams find themselves in the position of hurry up and wait. You sit around waiting for that one widow to open when the meat is ready and then you go right back to waiting. At these events half of the fight is not getting distracted by what other people are doing, you have to stay in the right mind set to keep up with your game plan. Some times I feel like people go and chat with other teams as if it’s part of their game plan.

Then there is the drudgery of putting together the turn in boxes and preparing them with parsley. Any one who usually gets stuck with this job is the BBQ Bitch. Make It Squeal BBQ Team couldn’t have said it better on the back of their shirts.  Some have it down and only spend 10 minutes on a box, others spend hours on end making it resemble the perfect putting green. I give these people credit it takes a crazy person to want to do this job.

You also have to keep the little ones preoccupied and no one does this better than When Pigs Fly taking with the job of trophy protection signage. It’s a tough task but only the highly skilled typesetters can pull it off. “Do Not Touch Trophies” it might be bad luck but who wants to find out.

These events are complete chaos and this photo says it all. You have to deal with fire and safety, the health department, the needs of 70 BBQ teams, tending to the KCBS judges, and making sure everything goes smoothly for the people attending the event. This is all done by one Henry Sylvestre. As you can imagine it’s pretty hard to keep all these people happy but he does, and some how manages to put on a pretty successful event at the same time.

Food prep can be a long extensive process that only ends once everyone has gone or there is no food left. Meat Inc.’s ABT’s are no simple task to build. Jalapenos are hallowed out and then filled with cream cheese and salami finally wrapped with bacon. They will make and sell over 1,000 of these along side, moink balls, smoked bologna, ribs, chicken, candied bacon, pulled pork and some brisket. They have some how figured out an assembly line style of a system that produces food non stop.

Aaron Black of Meat Inc. is always trying to top his people choice numbers from the year before. He is finding that his lavish good looks and fire cracker personality fueled with a cocktail and a microphone aren’t bringing in the numbers like they used to. So he has enlisted the help of a beautiful dame to drawn in more people and it seems as though for now it is actually working.

Beautiful women and barbecue have always been a popular item at competitions. If your team is composed of a stunning array of vivacious beauties accompanied with some tasty barbecue chances of success are pretty eminent. If you just happen to have some irresistible bacon you may just steal the show.

Hawaiian shaved ice is to be taken very seriously. In these sizzling temperatures it tends to serve more as a need than a want. You can tell by the intimidation in the little girls eyes, she is more worried about the fate of her slushy than her photograph being taken.

Chicken. Everyone has a secret way of doing chicken. Scrap the skin, remove the bone, don’t remove the bone, soak in butter, and of course season and sauce multiple times but don’t get any on the inside of your turn-in-box or you’re screwed. I have seen it all. Everyone thinks that their way is best and it is cause it works for them. If you’re Left Coast Q you have tons of trophies to back you.

At the end of the day you are going to do what makes you happy and what you believe the judges want. That is what gives you the confidence to take 1st place chicken. If you believe in your process 100%, and combine that with perfect chicken size, appearance, taste and texture I’d say your chances are pretty good.

If you don’t win, you know why. You didn’t believe in what you turned in. There are so many variables involved if one fails it throws off the rest of the entire process leaving you with a box of shit to show the judges.

People will go crazy for your food. They will want it, and if you tell them it’s the best they’ll believe you. Of course a pretty smile and a trophy always help, but there is the case of Peoples Choice winner H&H BBQ.  They had a really long line, but when I asked people no one really knew what they were standing in line for.

Which also proves my theory that people  in general, really don’t know what they want and need to be told. It’s the same reason really popular night clubs have a line out front when there is plenty of room inside. It’s free marketing, why not?

Ribs, Pork, and Brisket and of course there is only one way to cook them in order to win and that is usually known only by the person who wins first place in each category or is there more than one way?

It seems like a lot of the same KCBS judges are seen at a lot of the same events, and if a lot of the same teams compete at these events why isn’t the winner always the same? Who knows, but I can only come to one conclusion.

You’re probably wondering what that is… What is the secret to winning? What is the one thing you need to pull out a GC at almost every other event, Left Coast Q knows, but they aren’t telling me. So I can only guess…

Are you ready? I have followed a lot of the greats that have strung along multiple GC’s together and they all seem to have one thing in common constant consistency across all variables. Barbecue is a chemical science, and when you are able to duplicate results you can adjust the variables just enough so the final product is exactly what you want.

So how do you do this? There are thousands of variables in BBQ how do you duplicate results?  It’s basically the same way a bowler can bowl a perfect game, or how a pitcher is capable of pitching a perfect game; it takes a shit ton of practice and that has to be done at an obsessively perfect level.

The teams that are winning over an over again, Left Coast Q, Simply Marvelous, Big Poppa Smokers, and Slap Yo Dadd barbecue ALL the time. It is their life. They live it, eat it, breathe it, and sleep it. If their not talking about it their doing it and when you are that familiar with a process that you do almost daily, changes in your variables become second nature. You develop a 6th sense for barbecue.

Left Coast Q is extremely focused. BBQ Comps is all they do. They are not selling BBQ products, they are not doing TV shows, and they are not teaching classes. They just BBQ week after week after week. I believe that staying focused, as in any form of competition, gives you that much more of an edge. For Left Coast Q it shows, on top of winning 5 of their last 11 they won Pechanga by 16 points. That’s a lot… People need to get their shit together if they think they even have a chance of competing with these guys.

Don't get me wrong of course your food has to taste good. It needs to have that perfect balance of sweet, salt, and spicy flavor. It needs to have the perfect texture, it needs to snap in your mouth when you bite into it, and it can't fall apart or be to hard, but how do you do that? How do you know when it's perfect?

This I actually have the answer to... It needs to be boring. Yep you heard me right. Harry Soo said it best, it needs to be "Extraordinarily Ordinary BBQ". Each bite must tell a story. It must take you through all the flavors and can't be even slightly dominated by one or the other.

If you take a bite and you say to yourself, "It's too... whatever." You're fuck'd, that's just how it is. If it's too anything you are out of the running. If it's too soft, sweet, spicy then it's too far out of first.

You're shit has to look good. If that is something you struggle with then hire a food stylist for a day and work with them to help you make your shit look good. If something looks good you already have a biased in your head that it is going to taste good.

Now I know people say that the temperature of the food doesn't matter... That is bull shit cause if it comes down to a tie break the hotter food will have the edge. It's the same reason beer companies sell you how cold their beer is, "Ice... cold... refreshing... you could blow me beer." They have no control over how cold it is. It just sounds better.

This right here is a picture of a beautiful Grand Champion sample plate provided by the champions themselves Left Coast Q. See how pretty it is? And yes it is all perfect in taste and nothing was too anything. I had a feeling based on their recent success that they would win so I asked that they prepare this pretty plate for me so I could show you what perfection looks like.

You can think I am wrong, you can think I am full of shit, or that I don't know what the fuck I am talking about but the fact of the matter is you are ones competing, not me. You know what you do, you know what works, you're just making excuses for not being your own Grand Champion or you just don't want it bad enough.

Here is a link to the final results to the 2013 Pechanga BBQ Competition on the KCBS website.

I wish you all the best of luck and I hope if the planets align correctly Left Coast Q will let me document their journey to the Jack Daniels for all of you to see. *clearing throat* Matt now would be a good time to text me and say, "Hey Sean wanna shoot a documentary on our trip to the Jack Daniels?"

To be continued...

Good LUCK!!!
Sean Rice
aka MEAT ME

P.S. More episodes to come on Meat Inc. I have been busy and trying to produce a youtube show by yourself is hard. So hang tight and I promise you more content soon.