Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:15 AM
Updated Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:18 AM
Food, football and fall: they belong together.
Summer is winding down and as the Dog Days of August grind on, you start to get that little growl in your belly. By Labor Day weekend it becomes a full-fledged roar.
Yep, it’s time to fire up the smoker and the grill. It’s time to cook something.
It’s no secret that food and football belong together, but a good bratwurst and killer Buffalo wings aren’t the only reason to fire up the smoker on weekends. When it comes to tailgating, the dishes you see prepared are as different and unique as the smokers and grills on which they were cooked.
A tailgate party is just that, a party, an old-time country social where strangers are simply friends you haven’t met yet. It doesn’t matter what the school affiliation might be, when you’re standing around a grill or smoker chock full of cooking meat, you join a singular fraternity where all men are brothers: Football fans.
Tailgaters take their tailgating seriously. You can find bookstore shelves packed with cookbooks and tailgating tips on the subject, but who needs books when word of mouth will do just fine?
Tailgating is not just about taking a Saturday afternoon and going to see a football game, it becomes a weekend-long event.
On Friday nights around the Lowcountry, the high school tailgating parties start gathering right about the time school lets out and continues on through kick off. Arriving early allows you to properly set up your tailgate, cook your food without having to rush, and of course, enjoy the camaraderie of other sports nuts just like you who were looking for a good excuse to take Friday off from work.
On Friday nights at high school football games, tailgating is more commonly associated with concession stand duties. Most times the school’s booster club will sponsor the tailgate party and offer anything from boiled peanuts to burgers and dogs.
At the recent Berkeley County preseason football jamboree, the fare offered was your standard burgers and dogs, nachos and boiled peanuts, but then these Gator fans offered up a unique dish not commonly seen at high school tailgate parties: Fish and Chips.
Fried whiting and fries according to the man with the ladle, Cleveland Bryan whose son plays for Goose Creek.
“I could tell you what goes into the breading,” Bryan said, “but then I’d have to kill you.”
Family recipes are more closely guarded secrets than anything produced by the CIA or the White House. Family members would rather cut off a limb than divulge a secret ingredient.
“You start with the basic ingredients and then add the secret spices,” said Alisha Howard, a football mom as well, who manned the fryer vats with Bryan. “You start with Zakaria fish fry mix and that’s all I can tell you.”
The favorite part of any tailgate is sharing. While parking lot cooks are always open-minded to new techniques and ingredients, they will gladly share anything up to a point. Anything that could get them a stern reproach from momma or grandma will snap the trap shut tighter than … well, a gator’s jaws at dinnertime.
There’s something about the taste of food that’s been cooked outdoors, especially when it comes to meat. It tastes better.
It makes you want to forget the 2000-calorie a day diet the doctor put you on and dive face first into a rack of St. Louis style barbecue ribs.
Forget the napkins and just pass the roll of paper towels. This is going to get messy.
Here are some favorite and slightly different tailgate recipes, some tried and true, some new, but all with their own unique personality and flavor. In tailgating, style is everything, from your grill, your food, your apron and even what you call your culinary creations.
So sit back, grab a good lawn chair, kick up your feet and dig in.
Wendy’s Hot Skirt Steak
Skirt steak is great on the grill. You can do just about anything to it, and it will not fail you. This recipe has a touch of Cuban flavor, a different kind of spicy than you normally get from other Latino recipes. It gives a nice zing to the dish
Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 skirt steaks, about 3 pounds total, cut in half
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 or 4 liberal shakes of either garlic salt, garlic powder or minced garlic
2 or 3 good shakes of crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons hot sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 or 2 good shakes of black pepper
Before you leave for the game, probably the night before:
Mix together the olive oil, garlic, cumin, and red pepper. Place the steaks in a zip-lock freezer bag and pour in the marinade. Give a few good shakes to make sure the steaks are completely coated. Refrigerate. The tip here is that letting the meat soak over night only enhances the flavor.
When you get there:
When your grill or smoker has been “fired up,” either by charcoal or gas, transfer the skirt steaks directly from the marinade to the grill and cook for 8 to 9 minutes, turning once, for medium-rare, 9 to 10 minutes for medium. Transfer the steaks to a cutting board and let them rest for 5 minutes. While the steaks are resting, grill the sliced onion and bell peppers until tender and then transfer with the cilantro to a serving bowl. Slice the steaks into thin strips cutting against the meat grain and at an angle, then add them to the bowl with the onion mixture. Season the steaks with the hot sauce, salt and pepper. Toss together and serve.
Blackjack’s Baby Back Ribs
These ribs aren’t the type that requires 20 hours of slow smoking. This is just a weekend tailgate, not a weeklong vacation. You can actually cook these ribs to a tender and juicy state in just about an hour. Some folks boil their ribs first, others bake; this recipe involves the baking method.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon onion flakes
1 tablespoon salt
? cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper (or more depending on how much bite you want)
3 racks baby back ribs, about 5 pounds
The sauce:
1 bottle of ketchup
? half bottle of Worcestershire sauce
1 cup of vinegar, or add to taste, more for tartness and zing, less for sweetness
1 cup of this morning’s black coffee
2 cups of brown sugar
1 three-second pour of molasses
1 squirt of hot sauce, about a quarter sized splotch in the pot
You know the sauce is ready when you sample taste after cooking and you cough because of the vinegar’s backwash up your sinus cavity.
Before you leave:
In a small bowl, mix together the garlic, onion flakes, brown sugar, paprika, salt, and black pepper. Rub the spice mixture over both sides of the ribs. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Place ribs in oven-tempered cooking bags or wrap securely in aluminum foil (both work), and place on oven racks. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Remove the foil and let the ribs cool. Refrigerate them, wrapped in plastic, until you are ready to leave. You can prepare these the morning of or the night before.
Cut the racks into individual ribs or leave them whole, but place them in a large, plastic container with attachable lid and smother in the heated barbecue sauce mixture so all the ribs are adequately coated.
When you get there:
Fire up grill for a medium fire. Grill the ribs for 10 minutes turning frequently and basting with extra barbecue sauce until the sauce is caramelized on the ribs, they can even be slightly charred just as long as they’re heated through, turning them several times before serving. Serve the ribs hot, accompanied by more sauce.
Uncle Dan’s Cincinnati Chili
This is strictly a Yankee dish, and more specifically, a unique Cincinnati dish, and some of y’all may have trouble with the concept of eating chili over spaghetti. Don’t worry, some of y’all probably never used chocolate or cinnamon in your chili either, but if you look back into ancient Mexican history, the Mayan civilizations, purveyors of chocolate and chili, both ingredients were intermingled liberally in their cuisine. Have faith. This recipe is awesome.
Ingredients
3 lbs ground beef
2 whole onions chopped
2 16 oz cans of dark kidney beans
1 clove garlic minced
3 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon red (cayenne) pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa or 1 ounce grated unsweetened chocolate
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 (16-ounce) package uncooked dried spaghetti
Before you leave:
This is all done the night before, as letting the chili sit in the refrigerator overnight does as much to bring out this unique chili flavor as the ingredients. In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, saute onion, ground beef, garlic, and chili powder until ground beef is slightly cooked. Add allspice, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, unsweetened cocoa or chocolate, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cider vinegar, and water. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, 1 1/2 hours. Remove from heat and store overnight in the fridge.
Or you can dump everything into a large crock-pot and let it cook for a day and a half. You take your time as much with this chili as you would with say, a whole hog or side of beef, the slower the better.
When you get there:
Reheat your chili
Cook spaghetti according to package directions and transfer onto individual serving plates (small oval plates are traditional and paper plates won’t cut it here).
Ladle chili over spaghetti and serve with toppings of your choice.
Ways to Serve
Two-Way: Chili served on spaghetti (if this is all you can do, why bother)
Three-Way: Additionally topped with shredded Cheddar cheese (if you’ve come this far, go ahead, be adventurous)
Four-Way: Additionally topped with chopped onions (you can’t leave out the beans)
Five-Way: Additionally topped with kidney beans (now this is chili done right)
Everything But The Kitchen Sink Grilled Wings
They’re not buffalo wings and neither are they hot wings or even barbecue, but instead kind of a mutation of all three. The idea for this came two days before payday, nothing in the house, the cupboards bare, and only enough cash in the pockets to buy about 50 wings.
What you do is basically empty the refrigerator dumping every applicable sauce and spice into the mix as you can. If the bottle was half full, it got emptied. Spices included anything applicable in the spice rack. The result is a grilled wing, different from traditionally fried wings that is neither Buffalo or barbecued, but gives you a nice slow burn to remind you what you’re eating.
Ingredients
Enough wings to fill your appetite
Half stick of butter
(Get these containers off the spice rack)
Crushed red pepper
Cayenne pepper
Minced garlic
(Get these out of the fridge)
Chipotle paste or sauce
Barbecue sauce (it’s okay to use store brands here, and whatever’s leftover)
Texas Pete’s Hot Sauce
Before you leave:
Melt the butter and in a large mixing bowl drench the wings while adding the dried spices, shaking to desired taste. Store in freezer bags or plastic container until you’re ready to cook.
In a separate bowl, add any and everything you can find in the fridge. Mix and store as well.
When you get there:
Fire up the grill and cook the wings until golden brown. Then take the wings off the grill and mix them with the hot sauce concoction. You can either put them in a large mixing bowl, or the freezer bag if it’s large enough. Coat thoroughly. Put back on grill and cook until sauce is caramelized.