Meathead Christmas Special 2024
This festive episode of Barbecue Nation features host JT, along with co-host Leanne Whippen and special guest Meathead from AmazingRibs.com. The focus is on preparing a delicious prime rib for the holiday season, with valuable cooking tips and techniques shared throughout the discussion. The trio dives into the intricacies of cooking methods, emphasizing the benefits of lower temperature cooking to achieve a perfect medium-rare result while avoiding the dreaded "rainbow effect" in meat. They also touch on holiday traditions, including dishes associated with Hanukkah, such as pot roast and latkes. With engaging anecdotes and humor, JT, Leanne, and Meathead create a warm and inviting atmosphere, ideal for anyone looking to enhance their holiday cooking experience.
Takeaways:
- When preparing a prime rib, cooking it at lower temperatures prevents overcooking the outside.
- Meathead suggests searing the rib roast after cooking it sous vide for optimal flavor.
- The spinalis muscle of the rib roast is often the most flavorful part of the meat.
- Bringing meat to room temperature before cooking can help achieve more even cooking.
- Using a potato ricer can efficiently remove moisture from shredded potatoes for latkes.
- Experimenting with different rubs on prime rib can enhance the overall flavor profile.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- AmazingRibs.com
- Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Winn Dixie
- Heritage Steel
- Hammer Stahl
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
JT:Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn.
Leanne:It studios in Portland.
JT:Here's jt.
JT:Hey, everybody.
JT:Merry Christmas.
JT:Welcome to Barbecue Nation.
JT:I'm JT along with two hall of famers today, my co pilot Leanne Whippen, and hall of Famer Meathead from AmazingRibs.com.
JT:we want to thank, of course, the people at the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and Painted Hills Natural Beef.
JT:We hope they all have a great holiday season, but as normal, it's that time of year where we bring the big guy himself, not Santa Meathead.
Meathead:Back.
JT:Back on the ship.
Leanne:You can't see below my chest.
JT:Oh, yeah.
Meathead:Barbecue Santa.
JT:Our barbecue Santa.
JT:Yeah.
Leanne:I do have.
Leanne:I do have the beard.
JT:Yeah.
JT:Leanne can be your head elf, and I'll just take care of the reindeer.
JT:How's that?
Leanne:Okay.
JT:There you go.
JT:So it is Christmas, and normally.
JT:And we'll do it again this year, briefly talk about prime rib.
JT:And it's a big piece of meat for people to cook, and a lot of them try to get creative with it.
JT:And sometimes I just.
JT:When people talk to me, I just, like, slow down, cool your jets.
JT:Do it.
JT:Kind of a basic format.
JT:You don't have to go nuts on this.
JT:But I'll let.
JT:I'll let Meathead kick this off here.
JT:What are some of the things people should be looking at when they're doing a rib this year?
Leanne:Hanukkah, which is on a lunar calendar, which floats the date back and forth.
Leanne:It's often late November, early December is right before Christmas.
Leanne:So we're not just celebrating.
Meathead:Started on Christmas.
Meathead:No, I.
Meathead:I.
Leanne:You know, I don't know.
Leanne:I think it's the day before or the day of Christmas, but it's like.
Leanne:So we're celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the winter solstice, and there are any excuse.
Leanne:And the football playoffs all at once.
Leanne:Here it's just party, party, party season.
Leanne:Eat, eat, eat.
Leanne:And let's eat.
Leanne:Good.
JT:Yeah, I'm with you.
JT:I'm.
JT:Is that the.
JT:Are we done now?
JT:Can we go?
Leanne:Well, I mean, we should probably get in a word for pot roast, which is a classic Hanukkah dish, and it's usually brisket.
Leanne:And so there's no reason why you can't do your brisket outdoors, right?
JT:You know, absolutely.
JT:In fact, I found a brisket in the.
JT:The bottom of my freezer the other day.
JT:I don't know how long it's been there, but it's vacuum packed.
JT:I'm sure it'll still be fine when I break it out sometime after the first of the year.
JT:And, and we'll do that.
JT:You know when people talk to me, and I know when they talk to both you and Leanne Meathead, they like you.
JT:You can actually watch their reticence at the meat counter when they're picking up their roast.
JT:Okay.
JT:They're kind of like, man, that's a big piece of meat.
JT:Expensive, too, and very expensive these days.
Leanne:And I just bought a, a full rib primal, top choice, which is just below prime at $27 a pound.
JT:Yep.
Meathead:I gotta tell you a story about my prime rib this weekend.
Meathead:So at Sam's club, when I was doing demos, they had beautiful prime rib, 13.98 a pound.
Leanne:Wow.
Meathead:Okay.
Meathead:But as I am demoing, a guy says, you know, I'm serving a meat in one of the dishes, and he goes, this is really good meat.
Meathead:He goes, but I know where I'm buying my prime rib this year.
Meathead:And I said, where?
Meathead:He goes, winn Dixie.
Meathead:I said, that's funny.
Meathead:I buy mine at Winn Dixie every year because the price is so good.
Meathead:He goes, yep, 699.
Meathead:So my sister flew in last night.
Meathead:I looked at the flyer.
Meathead:It ended last night.
Meathead:So I called the meat department last night, and there was actually someone there, and I said, it's ending.
Meathead:And I just flew in.
Meathead:Can you get me a prime rib that's under the sale?
Meathead:He goes, we're extending it all the way through Christmas.
Meathead:We have a bucket load, 6.99 a pound, and have had it.
Meathead:And it's choice.
Meathead:It is for the money.
Meathead:It's very good.
JT:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leanne:I, I, I end up splurging because my reputation is on the line.
JT:Right.
Leanne:So I, I usually buy top choice.
Leanne:People don't necessarily know.
Leanne:Can we do a little bit different grades of ME beef?
JT:Yeah.
Leanne:Okay.
Leanne:Beef is graded.
Leanne:Now, the prime rib is, comes from just below the, the rib bones attached to the spine along the back.
Leanne:And there's seven bones in your classic rib primal.
Leanne:And it's called a rib primal.
Leanne:And prime rib is just short for rib primal.
Leanne:There's different grades of beef starting with select, which is your lowest grade.
Leanne:And that's because it has very little marbling, which are those filigrees, the, like, doilies of fat that run through the meat, and that's flavor and tenderness.
Leanne:Then up from select is choice, USDA choice.
Leanne:It's graded by an inspector.
Leanne:USDA choice has more of this fat in between the muscle fibers and more flavor and more expensive.
Leanne:And then, then the next best known grade is prime, but there's actually a grade in between that most people don't know about.
Leanne:And it's called top choice and it's the best of the choice selections.
Leanne:And it's just below prime on the marbling and it's really good.
Leanne:And that's what I end up buying for 27 bucks a pound.
Leanne:Yeah, prime is even more.
Leanne:And then those are the USDA grades you can go beyond.
Leanne:Then there's Wagyu, which is a breed, which is a descendant of a Japanese breed, and it's got a lot of marbling, it's very high percentage of fat, and it's very, very expensive.
Leanne:And then of course, you can go get actual Japanese tashima or koji and that, you know, a rib primal costs about the same as a small car.
JT:Most people.
Meathead:And I think with the prime rib, if you are not kneading the whole thing and you're just going to buy like four bones, I myself, because of the spinellis, that's my favorite part.
Meathead:And that's that fat cap that is found like in the center of the roast.
Meathead:So I always don't.
Meathead:Right.
Meathead:Meathead.
Meathead:It's not like on the ends.
Meathead:So if you're gonna get like a four or five bone, you know, whatever rib roast, take it from the center because you're gonna get that wonderful spinellis in there and the butcher will cut that for you.
Leanne:Let's pinpoint it for the listeners.
Leanne:The prime rib or the rib primal, which is that roast that comes from the back with the bones on it.
Leanne:And it's also known as the standing rib roast.
Leanne:And it's called the standing rib roast because the bones allow it to kind of stand up.
Leanne:There is two muscles.
Leanne:One is the spinalis, which most people don't know about, and the other is the longissimus.
Leanne:And the longissimus is a long tube.
Leanne:And you've got it.
Leanne:It runs from your shoulder blades to your hips and it's that long tube.
Leanne:If you look at the back of somebody, you can see that long tube running right along the spine.
Leanne:And that's the longissimous dorsi muscle.
Leanne:And that's what's the core of a rib roast.
Leanne:But if you've looked at them carefully, and you'll also see this on a, on a ribeye steak, there's this little half moon shaped muscle wrapped around that long tubular muscle separated by A thick layer of fat.
Leanne:And that's the spinalis, that little half moon.
Leanne:And it is the best muscle on the animal.
Leanne:And I don't think anybody here will disagree with me.
Leanne:Nope.
Meathead:I love it.
Leanne:And you can buy USDA choice, and it tastes like wagyu.
Leanne:I mean, it's just so heavily marbled.
Leanne:The problem with it is, is when you roast it, if you don't, if you're not careful, because it's on the exterior, it overcooks while you're waiting for the center to get to the proper temperature.
Leanne:And we'll talk about cooking techniques, and there's ways to prevent that.
Leanne:But it is just a spectacular piece of meat.
Leanne:And what I do, Leanne, is I will actually remove the spinal.
Leanne:You can rip it right off with your hands because that fat layer is right in between there and it.
Leanne:And I ripped that spinalis off.
Leanne:And from the whole seven bone, it looks kind of like a salmon fillet.
Leanne:It's kind of wide at one end and narrow at the other, and it's about an inch, inch and a half thick.
Leanne:And that's a fantastic meal for two, three people.
Meathead:That's why you hide it and you don't serve it to your guests.
JT:That's right.
Leanne:I butcher it the day before.
Leanne:I peel it off, and I freeze it, and I save it for my wife and me.
JT:I'm pretty sure Leanne would put the spinellas in her pop Tarts if she could figure out how to do it.
Meathead:That's one of my most favorite things ever.
Meathead:Yeah.
Meathead:And even if it does get overcooked, it's very forgiving.
Meathead:It's still.
JT:Oh, yeah.
JT:Well, the one thing you don't see, if you, you know, meal is done, you're taking the plates back to the kitchen.
JT:Rarely, unless you've got somebody that's got dame bramage.
JT:Do you see the spinellas left?
JT:You might see a little corner of.
JT:Of the regular, you know, center cut, if you will, for them, but you don't see the spinelis left on the plate because, yeah, the crew at my house, they get that au, they get that spinelis, and if there's a twice baked potato there, they don't even talk.
JT:They're just like that.
JT:So it's a.
JT:It's a very, very delicate, delicate thing.
JT:As far as to keep the oral cavity drainage off your shirt, I'll put it that way.
Leanne:I serve my rib roast to my wife's large Italian American family, and nothing stops them from talking.
JT:Oh, well, okay.
JT:As usual.
JT:And using their hands Using your hands.
JT:Little trivia.
JT:Little Christmas trivia for you guys.
JT:Okay.
JT:Are you up for it?
JT:What kind of interject this before we go to break, what is the best selling Christmas song of all time?
Leanne:Rudolph.
JT:Leanne.
Meathead:I'll agree.
Leanne:White Christmas.
JT:White Christmas.
Leanne:White Christmas.
JT:Yeah, it's White Christmas and Bing Crosby.
Leanne:Did you see that?
Leanne:They're bringing it to the big screen.
Leanne:This, this, this, this month.
Leanne:I don't know when or where, but my local theater is advertising White Christmas on the big screen.
JT:Wow, that's cool.
JT:That's a great movie.
Leanne:Oh, I love it.
Leanne:I've seen it a hundred times.
JT:Okay, and one more before we got a break here.
JT:What is the highest grossing Christmas movie ever?
Meathead:The one with Home Alone.
Leanne:Nah, Jimmy.
Leanne:It's a Wonderful Life.
JT:No, it's Home Alone.
JT:Oh, really?
JT:Yeah.
JT:Yeah.
JT:Very good.
JT:Leanne, you get a cookie.
JT:You get a Spinella cookie for that.
Meathead:Thank you.
JT:Real quick, we've got about 30 seconds here.
JT:What's your favorite side dish at Christmas, Leanne?
Meathead:Oh, that's a toughie.
Meathead:Well, our family, we do, you know, the green beans with bacon and mushrooms and onions and that is one of my favorites.
Leanne:Use those little French's onions, the crunchy ones.
Meathead:Yeah.
Meathead:So good.
Leanne:I buy those and I just drink them right from the can.
Leanne:I love those things.
Leanne:My side dish, my niece does a twice baked potato stuffed and there's chives and bacon and sour cream and oh, it's piled high and it's, she pipes it in so it looks beautiful.
JT:Oh, there you go.
JT:We're going to take a break.
JT:We're going to be back with our Christmas special with Meathead from AmazingRibs.com right after this.
JT:Stay with us.
JT:Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
JT:I want to tell you about something really cool.
JT:Heritage steel cookware.
JT:I just got mine.
JT:I do a lot of cooking and it's got five ply construction.
JT:Stay cool handles.
JT:It's titanium strengthened.
JT:It's got all the great stuff.
JT:Just go to HeritageSteel us and find out more.
JT:You'll love it.
JT:I guarantee it.
JT:Welcome back to the nation.
JT:I'm JT along with hall of famers Leanne Whippen, who happens to be my co host and meathead from AmazingRibs.com we're coming up on Christmas very shortly and this is the show every year where we try to give you a few cooking tips and little advice here and there, plus share a few stories with you.
JT:When they're actually cooking the rib roast, the standing rib roast, I mean, it's called A number of things.
JT:Okay.
JT:But most people know it as the prime rib, and you explained that in the first segment.
JT:Meathead.
JT:Some people say, oh, you gotta put it in the oven at 500 degrees for 25 minutes and then turn it off and do this.
JT:Or if you're gonna go out and you're gonna put it on your smoker, you gotta do this.
JT:If you're comfortable doing that, go ahead.
JT:But that's a very expensive piece of meat, as we determined.
JT:I recommend to people, if you're not comfortable to doing that and you have questions, why don't you just kind of cook it conventionally?
JT:You'll probably be safer and not waste any money.
JT:Your thoughts?
Leanne:You're right on there.
Leanne:Are you just look at social media or the publications and newspapers, and everybody's got.
Leanne:It's almost as bad as the turkey cooking circus.
Leanne:But you're absolutely right.
Leanne:There are a couple of concepts that are useful, though, is if you're going to cook it in an oven, if you cook it on a high temperature, this is really an important key concept.
Leanne:So let's say you put it in there at 4 or 500 degrees, as some recipes say.
Leanne:They tell you to start at that high temperature and then come back.
Leanne:And at 4 or 500 degrees, the air around the meat is very warm, very hot.
Leanne:4, 500.
Leanne:And so it starts to cook the outside of the meat, but the air cannot penetrate the meat.
Leanne:The meat is solid.
Leanne:I mean, it's protein and fat, and it's 75% water.
Leanne:So it takes a long time for the energy to cook the outside of the meat.
Leanne:But it's the outside of the meat that transmits the energy to the inside of the meat.
Leanne:So the hot air cooks the outside, the outside cooks the inside.
Leanne:And so what you get is a very, what.
Leanne:What we call a rainbow effect.
Leanne:The outside will get nice and dark and brown and crunchy, and God knows we love that.
Leanne:But underneath that, you've got a layer of brown, and underneath that there's a layer of tan.
Leanne:Tan.
Leanne:And then underneath that there's a layer of pink.
Leanne:And finally, maybe half the meat in the center is perfectly medium rare, rosy.
Leanne:And that's the temperature 125 to 130, where it is absolutely most tender and most juicy.
Leanne:So the key to getting a great rib roast and not ruining your investment is.
Leanne:Is to cook it at a lower temperature.
Leanne:Knock it down to 225, 250, and that way the energy will progress slowly towards the center, but you won't overcook the outsides and so you won't get this rainbow effect.
Leanne:And then if you don't have as dark a crust as you like, then you can crank it up for like five or 10 minutes at the end just to darken or sear the crust.
Leanne:Or if you're doing it on a grill as I do, or a smoker, start at a low temperature and then sear it over a high hot flame.
Leanne:So if you're in a smoker, move it over to a gas grill or a charcoal grill and sear the snot out of it and you'll be home free.
Leanne:It'll be gorgeous.
Leanne:But avoid high temperatures at the beginning.
JT:Yeah.
Meathead:Don't you think it helps to bring it to room temperature too?
Leanne:Yeah, if you bring it to room temperature, it has less travel.
Leanne:That is to say, it doesn't have to warm as much in the oven.
Leanne:It's already partially warm.
Leanne:You've brought it from 38 in the oven to 72, so that's a 40 degree difference.
Leanne:You've brought it up.
Leanne:But bringing a rib roast to room temperature and I've done this, I've tested it can take four hours.
Leanne:I mean it's, it's 75% water.
Leanne:It takes a long time for it to change temperatures.
JT:Right.
Leanne:So you take it out, bring it at room temperature and meanwhile the bacteria are having a party on the surface.
Leanne:Now you'll kill them with high heat, but here's something else to think about.
Leanne:If you're smoking it or grilling it.
Leanne:Smoke adheres to cold surfaces better than warm surfaces.
Leanne:So I go straight from the fridge to my grill or the smoker and I don't leave it sit around and I just keep that temperature low so it doesn't get me the rainbow.
JT:What do you say to the people?
JT:And I, I'm sure we all grew up through this one.
JT:And I've told this story before.
JT:When we left and I left for school, my mom left for work and all that.
JT:She would take some meat out of the freezer and set it on the counter.
JT:It was wrapped in the white paper, the old fashioned style, all this, set it on there.
JT:And then when Everybody got home, 4:30 5:00 and unwrapped it, she cooked it.
JT:Nobody died it.
Leanne:No, no.
Leanne:But it's still an unsafe practice.
Leanne:You know, people, people say, you know, I do cold smoking, I make cold smoked sausage.
Leanne:I do, I let the meat sit around for two hours, come to room temperature and nobody died.
Leanne:Well, I've been driving a car for more than 50 years.
Leanne:And I've never been in an accident, so driving cars must be really safe.
Leanne:Tell that to the 30,000 people who died last year.
Leanne:Just because you have anecdotal information that nobody died from mom's meat sitting around a room temp, the risk goes up for young people, kids, old people, and immune compromised people.
Leanne:Somebody with cancer or somebody with a blood disease.
Leanne:So it's always safe to be safe.
Leanne:Don't take chances.
Leanne:I just say, right out of the fridge, cook it.
Leanne:You're not going to gain much in the way of cooking time.
Leanne:And remember, if you're cooking on a grill or a smoker, you want the meat cold because it attracts more smoke.
Leanne:It's called thermophoresis.
Leanne:It's a.
Leanne:It's a phenomenon.
JT:It's.
Leanne:Thermophoresis is what happens when you get out of the shower and you're.
Leanne:And your mirror is all fogged up.
Leanne:And that's because the tiny particles of moisture stick to the cold surface in the mirror.
Leanne:Same thing happens in a smoker.
Leanne:The tiny particles of smoke stick to the cold surface of the meat.
Leanne:So I don't bother.
Leanne:But, you know, my mom used to keep a tin can of bacon fat sitting next to the stovetop all the time.
Leanne:I bet yours did, too.
JT:Yep, yep, yep.
JT:I mean, and we didn't.
JT:I don't know if we had one or used one whole bottle of Wesson oil a year.
JT:As long as we had that bacon fat there, that's what things were cooked in.
Leanne:Yeah.
Leanne:And it adds flavor.
Leanne:I made a batch of butter this week.
Leanne:I don't often do it, but I made a batch of homemade butter and butter.
Leanne:I love putting butter on bread, but it's so hard to spread.
Leanne:It's right now sitting out at room temp, and my microbiologist wife and I are kind of a little nervous about this.
Leanne:What the hell, you know?
JT:Good.
JT:We got to take another break.
JT:We're back here with our Christmas special on the Nation with Leanne and Meathead right after this.
JT:Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.
JT:If you've ever looked at me, you know that.
JT:But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon and our Dungeness crab.
JT:If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon crab Commission.
JT:Check it out.
JT:Hi, I'm Allie Romero.
JT:I just published my very first cookbook called Gas Fire Heat.
Meathead:And you are listening to Jeff and Leanne on Barbecue Nation.
JT:Welcome back to the nation.
Leanne:I'm J.T.
JT:We want to thank all of our sponsors, as usual, and we want to thank meathead from AmazingRibs.com and Leanne Whippen, my co pilot, co host, co conspirator, and all this stuff.
JT:I do hope you, both of you have and your families have a great holiday here.
JT:You brought up during the break Meat had about the other holidays, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, there's a lot of names out there because we've got such a diverse population in this country anymore from different areas of the world.
JT:So I think you have to be cognizant of that.
JT:But on, on Hanukkah, and you said it in the first segment about pot roast and being a brisket or what have you.
JT:But are there other traditions and things that maybe people should be cognizant of?
JT:On.
Leanne:Well, one of the traditions of Hanukkah is they will often do a pot roast, but it's done in a crock pot or in a Dutch oven.
Leanne:In the oven, often with Lipton.
Leanne:Can of Lipton onion soup.
Leanne:Lipton onion soup.
Leanne:Mix the powder and you pour in some wine and pretty tasty, actually.
Leanne:Lots of onions and tomatoes and stuff.
Leanne:But I've seen it with smoked and you know, smoked brisket is marvelous.
Leanne:It's not traditional, but why not?
Leanne:The other dish that is really traditional at Hanukkah is latkes.
Leanne:And latkes may be my favorite form of potato.
Leanne:And potato may be something I like as well as meat.
Leanne:In fact, I might be my middle name.
Leanne:I'm Meathead, but my middle name is potato head.
Leanne:And I absolutely adore potatoes in all forms.
Leanne:And latkes are potato pancakes.
Leanne:And they're made by shredding the potatoes and some onions, and you mix them together and, oh, here's a trick.
Leanne:If anybody out there is making potato pancakes, you know, you're supposed to squeeze the liquid out of the shredded potatoes and they tell you to wrap it in a kitchen towel or some cheesecloth.
Leanne:I have a potato ricer.
Leanne:It's called a ricer.
Leanne:It looks like a giant garlic press.
Leanne:Giant garlic press, but it's got big holes.
Leanne:And you take the raw potato and stick it in there.
Leanne:And now you can press all that juice out really easily.
Leanne:And so you what you trying to do is dry out the potatoes a bit and they're fried in olive oil and until brown and golden and the edges get really crunchy and crispy, and then it's creamy in the center.
Leanne:Oh, you mix an egg in there with.
Leanne:With it and maybe a little flour.
Leanne:I have a recipe for latkes on amazing ribs.com, my website.
Leanne:And, of course, there's a couple of different recipes for prime rib on AmazingRibs.com because there's a couple of different ways.
Leanne:And I do it sous vide, which we can talk about later.
Leanne:But latkes are traditional, and it's a fascinating story because the Hanukkah celebration surrounds the liberation of one of the synagogues in Jerusalem.
Leanne:And there's supposed to be an eternal light that boils olive oil.
Leanne:And when they got there, they said there's only enough olive oil for one day, and it lasted eight days until they got more.
Leanne:So the Hanukkah celebration lasts eight nights, but the latkes are cooked in olive oil, and that connects to the history.
Leanne:But it's like Christmas in that there's gifts.
Leanne:Sure, some families only give them on the first night, and that's the big night of the meal and everything.
Leanne:Others do it every night.
Leanne:Eight gifts.
JT:So you said something here.
JT:Not to digress, but I usually do.
JT:Folks, if you listen to this show and you're making videos of what you're doing, please stop squeezing the brisket to show how juicy it is.
JT:That just drives me absolutely batshit crazy.
JT:I'm sorry, but it does.
Leanne:You know, Mr.
Leanne:Whipple loves it.
JT:Yeah, yeah, but you can see it.
JT:I mean.
JT:Yeah, you did a good job.
JT:I got it.
JT:But they take it and they're bending it and they're squeezing it, and it's like, what are you doing?
JT:I don't know.
Leanne:Well, all right.
Leanne:What you're getting at is there's a lot of really good barbecue cooks on tv, and when they finish a brisket, they cut it in half and they pick it up and they squeeze it, and all this juice comes running out.
Leanne:But it's a bit deceptive because it's not the meat that's juicy.
Leanne:There's a layer of fat between two different muscles, and you've got the point and the flat muscle and a thick layer of fat between them.
Leanne:So when you squeeze all that melted fat is what you see running out, you don't see.
Leanne:So the meat could be bone dry for all you know.
JT:Sorry.
JT:It just makes me crazy.
JT:I mean, Leanne, what do you think about that?
JT:I've never asked you that.
JT:What do you think about that, people.
Meathead:It'S just passe anymore.
Meathead:It's just, you know.
JT:Yeah.
Meathead:I mean, who hasn't seen it?
Meathead:It's nothing new.
Meathead:I'm more impressed when they take a knife, even electric knife, and they're cutting into it and it's jiggling and wiggling.
Meathead:I like that.
Leanne:Yeah.
Leanne:I'm not going there.
Leanne:Yeah.
JT:Well, I was gonna say we could write a Christmas song.
Leanne:Yeah.
JT:The hands jiggling and wiggling.
JT:Oh, my God.
Leanne:So you want to hear about my latest prime rib technique?
JT:Sure.
JT:Knock it out.
JT:Okay, let's go.
Leanne:I go over to one.
Leanne:My wife has this large Italian American family.
Leanne:They live here in the western suburbs of Chicago.
Leanne:And we go to one of her niece's house for Christmas dinner.
Leanne:And I cook the prime rib.
Leanne:And of course, meathead gets the.
Leanne:The main course and I do it upright.
Leanne:But we have to go over the river and through the woods.
Leanne:Now, it's not that far, it's only about 10 miles.
Leanne:But I'm not going to take a raw prime rib over there and cook it on their grill.
Leanne:First of all, they get an old crappy grill and I've asked them if they want a new one.
Leanne:I'll get them a new one, but they don't.
Leanne:They love their old grill.
Leanne:So what I do now is I'll get my prime rib, seven bones, bone in.
Leanne:And the first thing I do is I remove the bones and you run the boat, run the knife.
Leanne:It's very easy.
Leanne:The bones come off.
Leanne:Now I have a seven bone beef back ribs, and that's a good meal for two because there's a good deal of meat in between those bones.
Leanne:A little meat on top, but mostly the meats in between.
Leanne:And so I just freeze that.
Leanne:And, you know, sometime in the next couple of weeks, I pull it out and I smoke it and it's just wonderful.
Leanne:Then I trim off all the surface fat.
Leanne:Now, a lot of people think if you leave the fat on, it's going to penetrate into the meat and flavor the meat, but it doesn't.
Leanne:The meat's 75% water.
Leanne:Fat is oil.
Leanne:Oil and water don't mix.
Leanne:That fat cannot penetrate the meat on this planet or any other.
Leanne:So if you put a rub on there, a seasoning on there, it's all on top of the fat.
Leanne:When you carve it and you put it on people's plates, the first thing they do is they cut the fat off and there goes all your rubs and seasonings and you don't have a bark on the meat.
Leanne:So I take all the fat off.
Leanne:I get right down to bare muscle.
Leanne:I want to see the muscle, maybe a little tiny bit of fat there.
Leanne:And that's where I put my rub.
Leanne:I put my rub all over the exterior so that the rub is on the muscle.
Leanne:So now it's going to brown and it's going to darken.
Leanne:I'm going to get a great crust and nobody's going to cut off that fat layer.
Leanne:Oh, and I forgot, as I said earlier, I remove the outer muscle, the spinalis, that muscle, the rib cap, and I set that aside for a meal.
Leanne:And now I have this gorgeous long tube of the longissimus dorsi, which is just a tube.
Leanne:It's just almost perfectly symmetrical.
Leanne:And that's enough for my crowd.
Leanne:And that's the eye of the rib eye.
Leanne:And everybody loves it.
Leanne:And there's.
Leanne:You don't have this big fat layer on it.
Leanne:You don't have anything.
Leanne:So it's seasoned beautifully.
Leanne:And I put it in a sous vide bath.
Leanne:Now, by now most folks out there probably know what sous vide is, but I'll give a 30 second summary in case you don't.
Leanne:In a sous vide bath, you take the meat and you put it into a plastic bag and then you submerge it in water or put it in a vacuum sealer to suck all the air out.
Leanne:And then you take that, that bath water that you've got and you put a heating element, it's called a sous vide heater, and you put it in the bath and it warms the water.
Leanne:And I set up 130, which is medium rare, and it cannot overcook under any circumstances.
Leanne:It can't go to 140 or 150.
Leanne:130 is dead center, medium rare, gorgeous.
Leanne:And you just heat it.
Leanne:And at four hours or five hours, you can leave there six, eight hours, doesn't matter.
Leanne:So I put it in about four hours in advance and it warms the meat to exactly 1:30 and just sits there.
Leanne:And when it's time to go over my niece's house, I take the bath with the meat in it and the immersion.
Leanne:Circulator the heater over to her house and plug it in and hold it at that temperature until 30 minutes before dinner time.
Leanne:At 30 minutes before dinner time.
Leanne:I've got perfectly good prime rib now, but it hasn't been seared yet.
Leanne:And that crust is so much of the flavor.
Leanne:I take that out back to their crappy gas grill, lift the lid, don't leave the Lid down because I don't want to cook the interior.
Leanne:Turn it on high and roll it around.
Leanne:Oh, I season it after.
Leanne:After it comes out of the bath, then I season it, and then I roll it around on the.
Leanne:On the gas grill until I've got a great sear on all sides.
Leanne:Takes about 15, 20 minutes, and it is just brilliant.
Leanne:It's just outstanding.
Leanne:Perfect.
Leanne:Medium rare.
Leanne:Great crust, great flavor.
Leanne:And I've got the spinalis and the ribs for two more meals at home.
JT:That is a great idea, but that took way longer than 30 seconds.
JT:It's all good.
JT:You're listening to the Christmas show here on Barbecue Nation with Meathead from Amazing Ribs and Leanne and myself.
JT:We got about 30 seconds before we have to go to break.
JT:So real quick, what is another name used for eggnog?
JT:There's another name for eggnog.
Leanne:Salmon.
JT:Salmonella.
Leanne:No.
Leanne:Well, we don't have time to talk about uncooked eggs, okay?
JT:It's called milk punch.
JT:That was actually the original name in England.
Leanne:Really?
JT:Milk punch.
JT:Yeah.
JT:We're gonna take a break.
JT:We're gonna be back.
JT:Don't go away.
JT:Hey, everybody, it's JT.
JT:You know, I talk about painted hills all the time, and we always say beef the way nature intended.
JT:But it's more than that, because each bite of painted hills will make your taste buds explode.
JT:Put a big, bright smile on your face, and whoever's at your dinner table will have a big, bright smile on their face.
JT:And you can thank me for that later.
JT:Just go to paintedhillsbeef.com and find out more.
JT:You won't regret it.
JT:Hey, everybody, J.T.
JT:here.
JT:I want to tell you about the Hammerstahl knives.
JT:Hammer Stahl combines German steel with beautiful and functioning designs.
JT:They're part of the Heritage steel group, which also does their pots and pans.
JT:So go to heritagesteel US.
JT:Check out the Hammer Stahl knives.
JT:If you're really into cooking.
JT:I think you're really gonna like them foreign.
JT:Welcome back to the nation to our Christmas special with Meathead from Amazing Ribs, and, of course, Leanne and myself, we hope you all have a great, great Christmas.
JT:That's all I can say.
JT:It's just a very cool thing.
JT:So, Meathead, you we talked about a little earlier, and I know you're one of your favorite things, especially at Thanksgiving, but I think it applies to Christmas, too, is pies.
JT:You're a big pie guy, and I know that because I'm a big pie guy, and we seem to talk about that a lot.
JT:Through the course of the year.
JT:And Leanne makes exquisite pies like that, but a side dish.
JT:We talked about green beans and stuff.
JT:I will tell you how we do twice baked potatoes at our house.
JT:And your niece probably does it a lot more eloquently and elegantly than I do, but I'll get a big number one baker, wash it off, cut it in half, put it meat side down on a cookie sheet, and I cook a bunch of them.
JT:And I cook them at just, at 400 degrees.
JT:And it takes about 25 minutes.
JT:That's it.
JT:You put it off, let them cool, scoop it out, and then I start adding the stuff, the good stuff in there.
JT:And of course, some salt and pepper.
JT:I put some sour cream in there.
JT:I actually put a little half and half in there.
JT:I used green onions and a lot of cheese and bacon bits.
JT:You can't have twice baked potatoes without bacon bits.
JT:And.
JT:And I just do that and I hand mash it all up and then I'll restuff the potato, put lots more cheese on it.
JT:And I actually make those the night before and put them in storage, so to speak, and where it's cool in the fridge or even outside, like Chicago, it's cool enough here in the wintertime.
JT:You can stick them outside, put some tin foil on them.
JT:And then when you go in, because the oven's always in premium on holidays, you know, they're the next to the last thing, except for the.
JT:The rolls are the last thing to get taken care of.
JT:But then I put it in there with the tin foil still on top.
JT:Not tight.
JT:It's just kind of a loose tent.
JT:And I'll.
JT:And then I'll reheat them again at 375 to 400.
JT:Takes about 25 minutes.
JT:And they're all melted and very warm inside.
JT:And yeah, they're.
JT:They're great.
Leanne:That's how I, I've never heard of starting.
Leanne:Splitting a half, starting a meat side down.
Leanne:That's very clever.
JT:Yeah.
JT:And it just, it cuts the cooking time and it's easier.
JT:And when you're making your boat, as they call it, it's easier just to get.
JT:I just take a little paring knife and just kind of go along the edge of the skin on the interior, make a little incision around there.
JT:Then I can take an ice cream scoop or big spoon or whatever you had, and it just scoops right out.
JT:And then you've got a clean boat and you've got all your potato meat to work with.
JT:Tubers on the half shell Tubers on the half shell.
JT:And you gotta have lots of onion, green onion and bacon and sour cream in there and lots.
JT:And butter.
JT:I forgot to tell you about butter and cheese, of course.
JT: ur cholesterol go up to about: JT:And out of everything on Christmas, I can tell you this at our house, everything at Christmas and you're sending stuff home with people, blah, blah, blah.
JT:They want twice baked potatoes, they want to take home at least, you know, two to four of those twice bakers and enjoy them that night, the next day, two days from now.
JT:Because they keep for a while if you keep them cold.
JT:But that's the biggest ticket item.
JT:I mean, they all want to take some prime rib home and they all want to take some green beans or whatever, but they line up at the twice baked potato tray and try to load stuff up.
Leanne:So anyway, I'll bet, I'll bet Leanne makes some mighty good biscuits.
Leanne:Do you?
Meathead:Biscuits are kind of a chore.
Meathead:Yeah, it's a, you know, a technique that's involved.
Meathead:But I actually, we do popovers and those are kind of tough, but we do that.
Leanne:That's classic British.
Leanne:Sure.
Leanne:Popovers with the roast beef.
Leanne:Absolutely.
Leanne:Never thought of that.
Meathead:Soft butter and add a little honey to it and we put it on our popovers.
JT:It's so good.
Leanne:I have a great recipe for biscuits on AmazingRibs.com and the secret is you freeze the butter and grate it on a box grater so it distributes more evenly and you get more little pockets.
Leanne:But, you know, since I'm busy with the meat, I don't do that for Christmas.
Leanne:One of my nieces brings that tube with the biscuits in it.
JT:Yeah.
Leanne:Oh, God, I like those things.
Leanne:Oh, yeah.
Leanne:No, I like those things.
JT:We have a bakery in the next town north of us there that they do these pull aparts and because I used to make biscuits and.
JT:And then I got into using Rhodes, which is a frozen dough ball that you can set out that morning in a raisin.
JT:And they're quite good.
JT:But these pull aparts, I'm not sure exactly how they make them, but each roll is enough for two people.
Meathead:So if you take those tubed rolls, get the flaky biscuits and you open it, keep it as a whole entity and put it in a baking dish and melt a full stick of butter and pour the butter over the top and then take dill and parmesan and bake it, you'll have your own little pull aparts.
Meathead:With all that butter to dip in.
Meathead:It's so good.
Leanne:Oh, my God.
Meathead:Yeah.
JT:Listen to her.
Leanne:Listen.
Meathead:I'm getting hungry.
JT:Yeah, I'm sorry, Leanne, at the close of the last segment, I didn't give you your.
JT:Your pig powder pitch time.
Meathead:Oh, yes, pig powder.
Meathead:It's.
Meathead:I don't know if it's too late or not, but still, you can have it for after the holidays.
Meathead:Www.pigpowder.com My dad's infamous pig powder rub.
Meathead:Very versatile, can be used on.
Meathead:I love it on pork and chicken, but people like it on french fries.
Meathead:And it's good chili and spicy.
Meathead:Pig powder will be out in January.
Meathead:Labor just finished.
JT:Oh, there you go.
Leanne:I.
Leanne:I use some during the summer.
Leanne:I forgot to tell you this.
Leanne:On smoked salmon.
Meathead:Oh, delicious.
Leanne:It's wonderful on smoked salmon.
Leanne:Yeah.
Leanne:So, you know, it's.
Leanne:It's a pig powder, but it's a really versatile product.
JT:Yeah, it is.
JT:Yeah, it is.
JT:Like I've said before here, I've used it on green beans, I've used it on potatoes besides pork, and I've used it on chicken, etc.
JT:Etc.
Meathead:Yeah.
JT:But it is so versatile, and it sits right there on my.
JT:On my stovetop.
JT:And you've been to my house, Leanne, and if I'm looking at something, I decided I'm going to cook X, but how am I going to season it?
JT:Pig powder wins out, like 8 out of 10 times.
Meathead:And you can get a 10% discount if you nation save.
Meathead:There you go.
Leanne:Hey, are either of you going to be at the National Barbecue association conference?
Meathead:I haven't done the calendar yet.
JT:I haven't either.
Leanne:Coming up on January this year.
JT:Oh, well, then I won't be there with the.
JT:You know, I got the new hinge coming in, so I won't be hoofing it around.
Leanne:Oh, yeah.
Leanne:Jeff's.
Meathead:Are you going?
Leanne:Pardon?
Meathead:Are you going?
Leanne:Yeah, I'm in.
Leanne:I'm running a panel on the future of barbecue.
JT:Oh.
Leanne:What I was getting at there when I was asking is I'd love to have one of you on my panel.
Meathead:Oh, shoot.
Leanne:No, if you decide to go, let me know.
Leanne:Leanne, I'd love to have you on the panel.
JT:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
JT:We got to get out of here.
JT:But one last quick question, and then we're going to do After Hours.
JT:After Hours is going to be a lot of Christmas trivia today.
JT:Who invented Christmas lights?
Leanne:Commonwealth Edison.
Meathead:That makes sense.
JT:It actually was Thomas Edison.
Meathead:Oh, there you go.
Leanne:Oh, I was saying Commonwealth.
JT:Commonwealth.
JT:Yeah, I know, but it was Thomas Edison, anyway.
JT:Yeah.
JT:How about that?
Leanne:Well, that's, you know, I mean, you got a product on the market, find a use for it.
JT:What did he do, make a thousand or ten thousand prototypes that didn't work?
JT:And then he finally found one that worked, and there you.
JT:There you go.
JT:Now we all use them.
JT:So, anyway, we got to get out of here.
JT:Meathead and Leanne, I want to wish you both a lovely and merry Christmas with your family and friends, and I hope you all enjoy it a lot.
Leanne:And I want to wish all of your listeners happy holidays, whichever holiday you're celebrating, and I hope your team wins.
JT:Yeah.
JT:There you go.
JT:There you go.
Leanne:Love it.
JT:There you go.
Meathead:Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
JT:Happy ho, ho.
JT:We'll be back after the first year.
JT:I'm going to take a couple of weeks off.
JT:Leanne's got some things to do, so you'll be getting some best of shows for two or three weeks, and then we'll be back firing up again in the new year.
JT:I'm jt.
JT:This is Barbecue Nation.
JT:Thanks for listening and happy holidays.
JT:Barbecue Nation is produced by jtsd, LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.
JT:All rights reserved.
