Ribs and Rifles

My friend Mike is visiting. We’ve had quite a day.

We went to Core Rifle Systems to pick up some ammo he ordered, and it turned out they had Hornady ELD-M 140-grain match ammo, which was better than what he had asked for. We arranged a switch, and now he’s all set for the weekend. We plan to get his new rifle running.

We also hit Rural King, where, unbelievably, they were selling Norma match ammo at a Rural King price. He snapped up several boxes.

Before running our errand, we stuck two racks of ribs in the smoker. Mike was the first person to fix decent ribs for me, about 30 years ago, and he inspired me to get my new smoker. This week, I was only able to get baby backs and trimmed St. Louis ribs. No full racks of spare ribs. I decided to make one rack of each type and do a comparison. We also had macaroni and cheese, barbecue beans with smoked sausage, and Texas toast made with homemade bread.

This was a good opportunity for me to compare baby backs to St. Louis ribs. I’ve never been a fan of baby backs. They’re small, dry, and expensive. That’s what I believed, but I decided to give them a fresh chance anyway. Turned out I was right. They’re worthless. The St. Louis ribs were nearly perfect, but the baby backs were on the dry side and had a lot less flavor.

I don’t know why people eat baby backs. Ignorance, I guess.

I have finally produced what I think is nearly perfect macaroni and cheese. How did I do it? Predictably enough, by correcting Alton Brown. The more I know about cooking, the less I think of him.

When I created my old recipe, I used Brown’s recipe, along with at least one other, as a starting point. The dish was good, but I felt it could be better. I thought the cheese could be smoother and cheesier.

Brown says to put cheese, panko bread crumbs, and butter atop macaroni and cheese and bake it. This is a bad idea. It tends to make the cheese separate. You don’t want to overheat macaroni and cheese. Baking it is not a good move.

Here’s what I did. I made the noodles. I made the sauce using cheese, half and half, butter, starch, an egg yolk, and sodium citrate, among other things. It was silky-smooth. I did not boil it.

I put the noodles in the microwave and nuked them until they were blistering hot, and then I stirred them into the sauce. This way, I got hot macaroni and cheese without boiling. I put the crust ingredients on top and broiled them. This gave me a perfect crust without heating the rest of the dish too much.

It’s magnificent. Couldn’t be much better.

I used 12 ounces of cheese and 8 dry ounces of noodles. This doesn’t include the top crust.

It was great having Mike in the kitchen, because when I needed help with something, I didn’t have to explain it, do it for him, or do it over. And he knows good food when he tastes it. Most people don’t.

We were talking about the microwave. I said I didn’t like using it when I cooked for guests. He said he always used it to cook for guests, because they couldn’t tell the difference.

He has a point.

If we ever recover from dinner, we’ll get some guns ready for tomorrow. We plan to do a rimfire invasion in the pasture.

Yesterday we shot .22 pistols. Mike was concerned about his skills, but we set up around 50 feet from the 6″ steel targets, and he had no problems. I had to explain that most people would have a hard time hitting a 6″ target from 7 yards. Tomorrow we’ll probably start with .22 rifles and move on to .17 HMR.

I suggest never eating baby back ribs, and be careful about listening to Alton Brown. He’s entertaining, but sometimes I wonder if he can cook at all.

I don’t want to get back into cooking heavily, but when I cook things I already know how to make, I might as well do it right.

Hope your Black Friday went well.