This is about the time when people grill more……’cause it gets too hot outside to brave these 12+ hour smokes. But this doesn’t mean we stop cooking. No, sir. We just regear into something that works with the season.

This calls for serious hot dogs and hamburgers. Controlled Burn style.

We’re gonna do these real. People think hot dogs are like bologna…..like its cheap food or something. It isn’t. As with our search for barbecue nirvana, there’s no reason why we can’t be in search of the best hot hog too.

And we’re on it.

Allen Brothers in Chicago is one of the best sources for the finest meats in America if not the world. Other than homemade, these guys make the finest hot dogs in the world. And the way they price them, they sure ought to be. Their world-famous Chicago-style hot dog was recently rated best in Chicago by the Chicago Tribune and #1 in the U.S. by Forbes Magazine. Each perfectly seasoned 6-inch all-beef Chicago-style wiener is enclosed in a natural casing. These are the fat ones. They’re bigger than most brats you see. And they go low on the nitrates. These are fresh like fresh meats. Like ground beef, they last in the fridge for just a few days. The only way you’re gonna get this anywhere else is maybe somewhere in New York from one of the many finer Jewish delicatessens…or making it in your own kitchen. I don’t know how to make hot dogs nor do I care to know….so we’ll just rely on the best source and pay their price.

But unlike most folks who pan sear them, boil them, cook them in the oven, or grill them over some half-ass charcoal grill, we’re are gonna smoke these babies over pecan wood for about an hour to an hour and a half at a low 200 degrees F right until they start to pop…..then we’ll serve them up right when they split and go from brown to black. Not blackened but dark reddish brown…to the color of the perfect hot dog…to that iamge of what YOU think is the perfect hot dog. If we do our job right, you’ll be tasting it with your eyes before you take that first bite. Just as with our ‘cue, your mouth will water before you even bite into it.

Deli bread from Bobby Donovan’s Bakery here will constitute the buns. Award winning Controlled Burn Chili and German sauerkraut cooked with sage are fixins on the side…along with fresh kosher sliced pickles a few mustard choices and whatever else you want.

The heads of state in Germany and the President of the United States don’t eat this good. No way. But some of the sausage makers around Munich, Germany and Elgin, Texas do though. Trust me.

Attached is an image of one of the pitmasters at Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Texas. You can bet this guy knows what I’m talkin’ about…..

Sometime before Labor Day, get ready.

Controlled Burn Hot Dogs are coming to a theater near you.

Amateur chefs desperate to recreate perfectly a restaurant meal they have enjoyed could use the device to record its aroma.

‘In video you just need to record shades of red, green and blue, but humans have 347 olfactory sensors so we need a lot of source chemicals.’…….”

Read all about it here.

Get ready. One of these days a bunch of people might be dialing 911 for a whiff of some Controlled Burn….

Hey, it was almost as good as ours. :)

We did not make the Mississippi State Championship this year in Ashland, but word is they had over 50 teams…with the chefs from Memphis sweeping the event, as expected. They’ve got it down and they’re hard to beat. No word as to whether Jerry Lee Lewis showed up.

The Couchwood event for St. John’s Church out on Lake Catherine was a big hit in mid May. We fixed our Controlled Burn Smoked Cheese Rellenos Stuffed With Shrimp for lunch for the crowd that was there early. Id be hard pressed to say that wasn’t as good as the pulled pork fest afterwards. Anyway, lots of money went to the church for the event, which was the whole idea. Thanks for all who attended and gave generous amounts for a good cause.

Marble Falls, Delight, Arlington, and Magnolia were all no shows for us. We passed on Memphis in May but I got to hobnob with some of the big shot chefs in late May afterward only to decide over a couple beers one night to convoy down to South Texas for the real Texas ‘cue. Lockhart, Luling, Elgin, and Taylor…these little towns in Texas. This is where the real ‘cue is, folks. These are towns within an hour’s drive from Austin. Not far from LaGrange. “Just let me know…if you wanna go…to La Grange…they got a lotta nice ‘cue there.’ Billy Gibbons says so.

But did any of these places have as good as ‘cue as ours?

Nope. We knew that before I went. But what they do have is the real ethic…the real vibe. The real Texas food genre that you find nowhere else. Over the next few months I will be sharing reviews of these places to you so to capture that vibe. I’ll convey to you the process, the aura, the whole thing…why they still do it like they do. I’m tellin’ you…for eating establishments in America, this is as good as it gets. Other than east of I-95 in Carolina, of course.

9 feet, 1 inch - 97 lbs. That’s taller than Shaquille ONeal.

I once had the pleasure of having some rattlesnake ‘cakes’ as an appetizer to a meal in Austin a year or so at Hudson’s…one of the nicer restaurants there….compliments of good friends and Austin residents John And Sabra Slais.

The attached recipe is similar….but these are straight ’steaks’ here. The ‘cakes’ are like crab cakes…just the pieces of the meat in a patty sort of like a salmon croquette.

So why not smoke ‘fried’ food?

And why not smoke fried rattlesnake?

Here goes…

Controlled Burn Smoked Rattlesnake

• 1 medium-sized rattlesnake (3-4 lbs.), cut into steaks
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup Aunt Jemima yellow cornmeal
• 1/4 cup cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon Controlled Burn Rub
• 1 teaspoon salt
• dash white pepper

Mix dry ingredients. Whisk milk into beaten egg and use to dip snake steaks. Then coat them with dry ingredients…just like catfish. Fry, uncovered, in 400 degree oil until brown. Drain on paper towels.

Then IMMEDIATELY smoke them over low heat…..around 200 F for no more than 20 minutes…with a cherry wood or alder if you can get it. Mesquite and hickory might be to harsh. The smoke will be very quickly absorbed into the already cooked snake steaks.

I must confess I’ve never tried this recipe…as far as the smoking part goes. But I know my woods. I know smoke.

So this is the first recipe that I’ve offered up that I actually haven’t tried. How ’bout that? But there’s no question that it’ll work. Rattlesnake tastes somewhat like chicken, as some of you know.. But the flesh of the snake is not a lot different than fish. It fries up the same way as fish. And I know that it’ll take the smoke the same way too.

I like offering recipes I’ve never actually tried but knowing that they’ll work.

Yeah, I like that.

Somebody go find me a rattler.