Gus versus The Glove plus Redneck Recipe # 7 - Barbecued Beef Brisket
Gus vs. The Glove
For folks who like funny country stories and great country food all on the same plate
This is a tale about how Gus gave in to temptation, resulting in a wet hat, wet pants, and lots of loud laughing.
It came about at a place called Fort Sam Houston, a big army base in San Antonio, Texas.
This was back a few years when Gus was still a pink cheeked young redneck, fresh into military service.
As he is now, Gus was not then one to doodle around with protocol.
The platoon sergeant (we all called him "The Glove") marched us into the mess hall for our noon meal. As usual, he stomped on up to the front of the line to get his food before any of his troops could have theirs.
As was his custom, The Glove folded his fatigue cap and jammed it down into his back pocket so that the bill of the cap stuck out, sort of like a funnel.
Gus did not like The Glove and he didn’t like the way he treated his men in the mess hall. He spotted that cap in The Glove’s back pocket and thought, "Opportunity."
Picking up one of the big metal pitchers of ice water on the table nearby, Gus slid down the line of men until he was right behind The Glove. The pitcher tilted and the fatigue cap brim filled with a good slug of ice water. Putting the pitcher down onto the nearest table, Gus then scooted back to his place at the end of the line.
It took just a few moments for that ice water to leak through the cap and down The Glove’s pant leg. He screamed and everyone now laughed at their platoon sergeant who, it seemed, had peed down his leg.
Surprisingly, no one told on Gus; that is, no one told on him that day. Next day came reprisal. The Glove and his friends, other platoon sergeants, had their turn.
That wet hat deal, even after Gus was punished for it, is still a pleasant memory of "You’re in the Army Now."
Barbecued Beef Brisket
Let’s get something really straight. There is beef and there is brisket. Beef is beef, for certain, and brisket is also beef. But other kinds of beef are simply not brisket.
Confused? Don’t let that worry you. Things will become clear quickly enough.
It is said that in the days of the cattle drives, the cowboys would get the worst part of the cow as food on the trail. The cattle owners thought they were putting something over on the cowboys by handing them that tough piece of cow meat for their suppers.
The cowboys tipped the deal back over on the owners however. They learned how to cook that tough hunk of cow protein so that it became a real delicacy.
Here is how to do it with brisket – and, believe it or not, the same method works well with almost any other kind of beef. Save your money. Buy the cheap, tough kind of beef. Be smart. Do as do cowboys.
The night before cooking the brisket, cut out the two plugs of hard fat from the sides of the brisket. Some folks like to thin out the fat layer atop the brisket to a quarter of an inch. Some folks leave all the fat right there.
Trim the fat or leave it alone. Next, coat the brisket with prepared (wet) mustard and then shake brisket rub or steak rub all over the meat, fat side included.
Wrap the meat in plastic or butcher paper or the like, and refrigerate it until you are ready to cook it.
Set your oven or barbecue smoker temperature to 220 degrees. Unwrap the meat and place it on the cooking rack, fat side up.
Check your time. Allow 1 hour per pound as cooking time. Usually we work with a whole brisket and do not exactly go for 1 hour per pound. Instead we simply cook a whole brisket for a flat 16 to 18 hours.
In the outdoor smoker we use lots of good charcoal and make smoke in quantity using either hickory or mesquite wood chunks.
In the kitchen oven it is doubtful that you will want to do that, but who knows?
After cooking, let the meat sit for 15 or 20 minutes and then slice it against the grain of the meat.
Have some good BBQ sauce sitting on the table and enjoy your beef (ordinary) or your beef brisket (extraordinary). [A recipe for great BBQ sauce is on another of my Hubs right here on Hubpages and in the cookbook mentioned below.]
More of Gus’s Redneck Recipes are here on Hubpages, and you can get a free download of one version of his "Redneck Rub(R) Cookbook" at www.sampsonafb.com
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