It has been beastly hot in Los Angeles these past two months, and it still
is. It’s already hit 91 degrees
today with the promise of “striking humidity.”
It’s way too hot to roast anything in the oven and yet the urge to have
a slab of cooked meat doesn’t go away.
Hence the smoker.
A smoker doesn’t need to be nearly as hot as an oven, and in any case
it sits outside the house. Since
temperatures for smoking tend to be done in the low 200s, you’re almost half
way there on a day like today. Here as they
say, is one I cooked earlier.
It’s a
smoked lamb shoulder, “mopped” with beer, vinegar,
Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, garlic, salt and pepper, and some rosemary
in with the hickory wood. Frankly it wasn’t
the greatest example of the smoker’s art.
There was too much bone and not enough fat, the latter rather surprising
in a lamb shoulder. It was good. But I
had aspired to better.
I seem
to recall seeing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall smoking something or other in the
giant fireplace of his farmhouse, using straw.
I haven’t been able to find a clip online, but this I’m pretty sure is
the fireplace in question.
I do
have a fireplace, but I don’t actually know where to get straw in LA, and you know I just can't be bothered to find out.
I
suppose the real answer to staying cool while smoking meat would be to have an
external smoke house. Something like
this (didn’t I say I aspired?):
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