Get Your Grill On

Don’t worry; there’s no leftover coup taking place here… Todd recommended I add a couple of things to the Monday Leftovers series.

A couple of weekends ago, I spent some time doing a big batch o’ beautiful barbecue. As happens any time I do this, there are usually leftovers. Typically, leftovers of brisket and ribs get treated in a couple of ways. Either they get reheated normally and served as though they were just off the smoker, or they get used in chili or barbecued beans.

Last week, however, I wanted to try something other than typical for the brisket. I really enjoy black and bleu burgers, with blackened-seasoned burger and bleu cheese. I thought about it and figured that if burgers are good that way, brisket’s going to be even better! So I placed a few slices of brisket in a non-stick griddle pan to heat up. When I flipped the slices, I added some crumbled fourme d’Ambert cheese. This is a mild, creamy bleu cheese that’s been made, supposedly, since the time of the druids. I added a bit of Maille Dijon mustard and had a truly wonderful sandwich. The nice thing was that it was brisket through and through, but with a bit of a twist that made it different.

The next night, I decided to pull apart some rib ends and make a more traditional rib end sandwich. Rib ends are the part of spare ribs left when the ribs are St. Louis trimmed. There’s a lot of cartilage and fat, so pulling it allows the unwanted parts to be thrown out, leaving delicious rib meat! I simply heated the rib end meat, added some grated cheddar cheese and topped with my own Javacue Sauce. The result was another great sandwich that I’d be happy to have as firsts, let alone as leftovers!

One thing I find with barbecue is that there are more ways to eat it than what most people think of with barbecue. After all, it’s just food. Using smoked chickens in chicken soup, smoked Italian sausage in soup or smoked country sausage for biscuits and gravy take ordinary food and add a bit of smoke spice to it!