THE COOKBOOK TEST #0057: THE SONORAN GRILL

INSTALLMENT #0057 (FREE) THE CAMPFIRE COOKING REPORT / THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF CUISINE, THE SPICE OF LIFE / SONORAN BEEF BRISKET

Dear Readers,

I'm easing back into civilization this week after a five day sojourn into the wild. To help bridge the gap, I dove into a book called THE SONORAN GRILL that's big on smoke and wild flavors. It's also written by “Mad Coyote Joe,” which definitely suggests a certain sort of rustic charm and/or serrated knife-based menacing.

Before we dive into that: a brief campfire dining report from one night of cabin glamping and three nights of sleeping under the stars in 35 to 55 degree weather at Crosby-Manitou State Park. (We'd originally aimed for the Boundary Waters, but savage winds and a campfire ban led us to rework that plan.)

If you’re an outdoorsy person, perhaps one of these ideas will inspire you for a future camping trip. And if you’re not an outdoorsy person, perhaps one of these ideas will inspire you to give it another try…?

Flank Steak and Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and Scallions

We ended up cooking this on a gas grill at our swanky first-night cabin (it had a gorgeous sauna! and a glass guesthouse in the woods!), but it absolutely could've worked in a campfire setting.

Primally satisfying camping fare: literally meat and potatoes. And if you properly marinade your steak, it takes active work to mess this up - just get a fire ripping hot beneath some cast iron and away you go. A great first-night meal, to minimize cooler needs.

This is a meal that also goes brilliantly with canteens of whiskey (we had Highland Park Cask Strength, Highland Park 18, and Lagavulin 10), and if you happen to be at a cabin like us, you can also make a little rotating carousel of pie slices from the Rustic Inn - we got apple, chocolate peanut butter, pumpkin, and North Shore Berry Crumble.

GRADE: A-

Incredibly Good Chili with Griddled Corn Muffins

Hard to beat this for ease of prep: make it at home, pack it in a Cambro, put it on a pot, heat said pot on a skillet over a healthy campfire. This particular chili was built on a base layer of bacon fat and featured both bison and beef, and had all the depth and richness you could possibly hope for for a camping-in-the-cold kind of meal. Just delicious.

We also dropped some butter on the griddle and griddled up some corn muffins to accompany the chili, and why the heck wouldn’t we?

GRADE: A

Orange Rolls, Baked Inside of Oranges

Goddamn I love Pillsbury Orange Rolls. They're just terrible for you - a straight-up injection of sugar and carbs with just a touch of orange flavor to balance the full-on assault. Worse, they're Bad for My Brain Food - I can't be trusted to make good decisions around them. Like Mint Milanos and ice cream sandwiches, they short circuit the tiny-but-critical Better Judgement part of my brain.

At any rate, my brother Dan has innovated a way to bring these suckers camping and make it work. First: You pack four large oranges. (A full grade was deducted from this recipe because it is a PAIN to pack four large oranges.)

Slice the oranges in half. Then you scoop out the fruit from all the oranges and eat it. It's delicious! Particularly in the wild!

Then you put an uncooked orange roll in each orange half, wrap the thing in foil, and cook it on a fire grate for about an hour. Result: Absolutely delicious orange rolls that you can ice. And the bottom of the rolls soak up the spare orange juice, giving them a much bigger orange kick. SO TASTY!!

GRADE: B+ (Would be an A+ if you can have someone airlift you the oranges by drone)

Mac and Cheese with Sausage

I wasn't prepared for plain old Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (well, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with spiral shapes) to be an out-of-the-park success, but consider this: it's top-flight cold weather comfort food, it eats like a meal once you slice a kielbasa into it, and if you blast the resultant mess with a few shots of decent hot sauce, it's damn near perfect. Incredibly easy to pack and prepare, too.

GRADE: B (A- with hot sauce)

Campfire Cassoulet

While not a true cassoulet (recipe: can of tomatoes, can of white beans, half a can of baked beans, two confit duck legs - shredded), this dish got at some of the brilliantly delicious aspects of that famous French dish. We ended up making this on a burner in a light rain, and it turned out tremendously well and may have been the best bite of the trip. Shredding those confit duck legs into the mix was a massive power move.

GRADE: A+

And now back to the regularly scheduled cookbook review in progress.

at your service,

James

THE SONORAN GRILL
BY MAD COYOTE JOE
NORTHLAND | 2000 | $17

We have apparently begun to enter the phase of THE COOKBOOK TEST where you, the readers, start thinking that maybe I'm for real; I've begun getting pitched review copies of books, and friends and associates have started to gift me with random volumes that seem funny or interesting or weird or just superfluous to one's own private collection.

This week's volume was snagged by a good friend at a garage sale, and author "Mad Coyote Joe's" joyful pose on the front cover helped sell the book. 

Here's the thing about Mad Coyote Joe: He's not actually very mad, either in terms of his outlook (he's quite cheerful) or his mental acuity (he seems pretty well grounded in traditional Southwestern American cooking.)

Thoughtfully Rational Coyote Joe, of course, doesn't pack the same punch from a marketing perspective.

The book itself is economically but engagingly written, with an initial tour of chili peppers [1] and grilling terms segueing into Southwestern classics including posole, chile rellenos, and smoked brisket caldillo. Sensible Coyote Joe has a business background as a spice rub entrepreneur, and when it comes to composing and utilizing Southwestern spice blends, this book is handy and reliable. Recipe intros are only a sentence or two, and more context would have been nice. HOWEVER: It is far, far, far preferable to the rack and a half of totally meaningless blather that precede many cookbook recipes and nearly everything printed on the Internet.

SONORAN BEEF BRISKET

The approach I took was relatively simple: I marinated the brisket overnight (as per the book's recipe, below), I rubbed it down with spices (ditto), and then smoked it for about three hours with chunks of mesquite wood before bringing it indoors and finishing it in the oven.

On this last point, I diverge from strictly traditional smoking a bit. I've been smoking pork shoulders and whole turkeys for years, and for years, I kept feeding the smoker and cooked them outside for about 8-10 hours (or 3-4 hours in the case of the turkeys). 

I've evolved my practice a little bit: now I let the meat take a full, serious smokey initial blast (usually 2-4 hours) and then I finish it in the oven at 200 degrees for however long it takes. It's a lot simpler to manage, and I find I get all the good results I'm looking for (a real smoke ring, assertive but not overwhelming smokey flavor) without needing to go the full duration on the smoker. Feel free to yell at me in the comments if you must, I can take the heat.

Now, as to this specific recipe: It's Quite Delicious. Between the marinade, the paprika and garlic powder, the ground up chili and the mesquite chunks, it's got a woodsy, aggressive, comforting kick. I ended up slicing my brisket up into strips and briefly searing them in a skillet with some Show-Me BBQ Sauce, but it also would've stood on its own. I like everything about this recipe: It's no-nonsense, it's classic, and it works. It creates a beautifully crafted and delicious piece of meat.

SONORAN BRISKET MARINADE

1/4 cup basic vinaigrette (½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, 3 Tbsp wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard, 1 Tbsp maple syrup, 1/4 tsp fine salt, 1/4 ground pepper, whisked to combine)
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dark beer (Mexican preferred)
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp brown sugar [2]
1/2 diced white onion

Whisk ingredients together and combine with brisket in Ziploc or covered container. Refrigerate for 4-12 hours, turning once or twice. 

SONORAN BRISKET RUB

1/4 cup paprika [3]
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 ground chipotle chile, with seeds
2 Tbsp black pepper
2 Tbsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp chili powder (New Mexican if you can find it)
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano (Mexican if you can get it)

Pat brisket dry, rub brisket thoroughly with rub before smoking.

Get your smoker to somewhere between 190-220 F and add a handful of mesquite chunks. Put on your brisket, and either keep it on the smoker for 8-10 hours (turning every 2-3) or move it to a 200 degree oven, wrapped in foil, after the first 3 hours on the smoker. Total cook time will remain about 8-10 hours - the beef should be tender, slice easily, and chew delicately, but it shouldn't fall apart.

I dig it on sandwiches, personally, but it’s also great in ramen.

THE SONORAN GRILL
(***BUY IT / BORROW IT*** / SKIP IT / SCRAP IT)

The buy/borrow straddling for this book must be resolved by your own interest in Southwestern cuisine. If it's your jam, there's a lot to like about this volume: sturdy, classic recipes, some unexpected twists, and a lot of nicely composed spice rubs and sauces. I'm going to keep my copy for the long haul - there are some very promising meals hidden between the pages of this book.

FOOTNOTES

[1] WRITER'S NOTE: At some point when I was the food editor for the Growler magazine, I did a pretty deep dive into "chili" vs. "chile" vs. "chili pepper" vs. "chile pepper" and after a good hour or so of research, I concluded that I did not care. I can, however, be counted upon to spell the South American country correctly.

[2] WRITER'S NOTE: I have tried to care about light versus dark brown sugar, but, on balance, I do not. I've used them interchangeably in just about everything with no bad results. I tend to err toward dark because it has more flavor and character.

[3] WRITER'S NOTE: See above, except re: paprika. Oh, I know there are paprika heads out there, and I once loved an Austro-Hungarian restaurant in Minneapolis that grew and freshly ground its own paprika several times a week. But for myself: I'll grab whatever the hell Costco sold me and mix it into whatever, and I'll get great results for all manner of rubs and spice blends.