A Recipe For You — Big Trails Natural Beef

For this week’s blog I thought I would share with you a recipe we found that makes for a delicious meal! (And if you use one of our Big Trails Natural Beef roasts I think it’s even better!)

The recipe we found comes to us from Serious Eats. I sincerely recommend you check out their site if you haven’t already. Their recipes are tested and tested again to perfection, they literally look at cooking as a science and it results in some of the best recipes I’ve found.

The recipe calls for:

2 ounces coarsely ground peppercorns (about 1/3 cup)

2 1/4 ounces Kosher salt (about 1/4 cup)

1 (4 to 5 lb) beef chuck roll

White Bread, dill pickles and yellow onion for serving

I would add that you need wood chips of some kind.

For this simple recipe we ground out peppercorns in my trusty old… coffee grinder! Perhaps not the most authentic way to grind your pepper, but it worked like a charm! We then rubbed the beef down with the kosher salt and pepper corns and wrapped it about 1 inch apart with a few pieces of twine. We then set up for the gas grill recommendations in the recipe and heated one side of our grill while trying to maintain a temp of about 275-300 degrees. We then loosely wrapped some hickory wood chips in foil and put them on the hot side of the grill while we placed our salt and pepper coated roast on the cool side. Let the smoking (and salivating) begin!

Just another view of the smoky, bark-y goodness

We smoked the beef for about four hours under these conditions until a deep, dark bark had formed on the outside and the internal temp read between 150-165 degrees. We then removed the roast from the grill, wrapped it in two layers of tough aluminum foil and returned it to the cool side of the grill for another 5- 5 1/2 hours at 225-250 degrees. We continued adding wood chips throughout the process as well, to ensure some great smoky flavor. After this time had elapsed we removed the foil and cooked for another 30 minutes while the outer bark crisped up. Then we removed our roast and tented it with foil for another 30 minutes to allow the internal temp to fall between 140 and 165 degrees.

And then we served! We chose to go with mashed potatoes, corn, and rolls instead of the sandwich style recommended in the recipe. While I’m sure either way you do it, it’s incredible! The bark is like eating delicious smoky jerky and the roast is so tender it’s almost too good to believe! While you do need to keep a close eye on this roast it doesn’t actually take too much active time and the end result is well worth the long day of cooking.

By Megan Greet