Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan visits El Paso and shares his recipe for Texas-style smoked beef ribs, Adam reviews charcoal, then I share the history of self-rising flour.

And finally, Lawman makes easy blueberry cobbler.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-There's a bunch of people that are sweating, they're working hard, they're not sleeping very much.

That's really what drew me to it, is how difficult it was to do it right and how much work it takes to do it consistently.

You don't get into the barbecue business because you want to make money.

You get into it because you love cooking barbecue.

-Anyone can claim to make food with love, but when it comes to the perfect barbecue, patience and resilience are the key ingredients.

That's what I discovered during my visit to El Paso, Texas, where Richard Funk and his team at Desert Oak are serving Central Texas-style barbecue just minutes from the Mexican border.

I arrived before the sun at 5 a.m., but I was already two hours late for the morning shift.

While Richard might be the pitmaster, this isn't a one-man show.

-So this is Suzanne.

She's my wife.

It's because of her that -- that this even became an idea.

We were dating, and she asked me if I had a grill, and I said, "Yeah, I mean, I have one.

It's sitting in the garage, but I don't use it," because it was a gas grill somebody gave me.

I'm like, "I don't want to use that thing."

So she looked at it, and she goes, "Oh, that is not a grill."

So she went out and bought a little tailgate grill and a chimney and showed me how to light charcoal without lighter fluid.

-And from there, Richard never looked back.

-He wanted to stay up all day, all night working on it.

It was fun at first.

And then he just got so obsessed with it, where -- but passionate.

And he just wanted to create this masterpiece from the beginning.

And he tried over and over again.

-I tried.

I wasn't very good at first.

-Eventually, that masterpiece was born in the most unlikely corner of the state with a name to match.

-I eventually started cooking with oak because that's what I like most, of all the firewoods that I've used.

We're in the desert.

Out here, people typically use pecan, because we have orchards, or mesquite because it grows here.

And so, that's what most people cook with.

So we thought, "Why not Desert Oak?

It's like it kind of ties us to the Hill Country, because it's oak, but we're in the desert."

-So you do have other options for wood out here?

-Yeah.

-But you just choose the flavor of oak because that's what you like best.

-Because I'm stubborn and not a real businessman.

-I was just going to say, because he's stubborn.

He loves oak, the way it burns and just everything about it.

-But being stubborn can come at a price.

-Being in far West Texas, we have to get it trucked in, and it costs more money to do it that way.

-I learned that good beef ribs aren't easy on the budget, either.

-Most places serve them once a week because they are not profitable.

I love looking at them, but you're lucky to just break even when you sell all of them.

-They take a long time to cook -- about 14 hours.

Richard wraps the ribs in paper about halfway through cooking to keep them moist.

-So we want to lock them in.

We don't want the brisket to turn into pot roast.

-And when they come off the smokers, the ribs are held in warmers overnight.

In the morning, he checks the ribs, douses them with tallow, and rewraps them while they wait for hungry customers.

Despite the tough economics, Richard's beef ribs sell.

Desert Oak has become a barbecue destination.

Today, they have two locations, three 1,000-gallon smokers, and over 60 employees.

-I worked in fine dining in Los Angeles for, like, the past eight years.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

-And they're serving barbecue seven days a week.

After two days at Desert Oak, I really felt like part of the family.

And what better way to treat family than with a giant beef rib?

It's about the size of my forearm.

Good Lord.

The one thing that really stands out, besides from immense size, is that black pepper really comes through, creates a very nice bark.

It's got a definite presence, but it's also still very tender.

I love this thing.

Text my cardiologist, set up an appointment for me on Monday.

I'm going to pass out now.

-The dedication and passion that Richard puts into the craft of barbecue is truly remarkable.

I mean, it really is.

But I'm hoping this doesn't mean that you and I are going to go outside and start loading firewood.

-No, no.

I have great news for you, that we're going to be able to pull all this off in our backyard on a kettle grill.

-Okay.

-Today we're going to be working with these plate ribs.

These are cut from the belly of the cow, lower belly of the cow, in between the brisket and the flank.

-Okay.

-And you can tell you've got these plate ribs here because they tend to have these long, straight bones and a thick cap of meat on top.

-Mm-hmm.

-There's not a whole lot that we have to do as far as trimming these ribs.

Sometimes they come with a nice fat cap, which I tend to leave on there because they're going to cook for five to six hours on the grill.

But if there is a little bit of silverskin, like these have, we want to remove some of that, because the silverskin doesn't really go away as it cooks.

-Okay.

No, no.

-So to remove the silverskin, you want to just start off at one end, peel it back a little bit, and then stick the knife underneath it and sort of cut slightly upwards towards the sky, towards the barbecue gods.

-Mm-hmm.

-And just run the knife along the silverskin... -Awesome.

-...so you can see that you get all the silverskin and none of the meat.

And I know it looks like we're only making six ribs, but these are so intensely rich and flavorful that I couldn't finish one rib by myself.

And I pride myself on my beef-eating abilities.

-Challenge accepted.

That is what they call a gauntlet that's just been thrown down.

-That's the Texas gauntlet right there.

Can you eat a whole beef rib?

That's good.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

These are going to spend a long time on the grill.

And now we're going to make our very fancy Central Texas barbecue rub here.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we have 3 tablespoons of kosher salt.

We're going to combine that with 3 tablespoons of ground black pepper.

Just going to mix that together.

And that was it.

-That's it?

-That's it.

-Yep, yep.

Well, Texas is known for being really proud of their beef... -Yeah, you know -- -...no need to mask it.

-So we can just drop these onto our baking sheet.

You know, this black pepper and really thoroughly coating the meat in the spice mixture is what helps develop that bark on the grill.

-Right.

-It may seem like a lot of rub, but there's a ton of meat to cover.

-How many pounds total are we working with here?

-Each one of these racks is about 4 to 5 pounds, so close to 10 pounds altogether.

-Awesome.

-This is not a game here.

This is for the serious barbecue enthusiast.

Okay, that's all we need to do.

The rest of the magic happens out at the grill.

-All right, let's head out.

-Okay, Bridget, so we're out here at the kettle grill, and we want to employ a technique that's going to give us that long, slow-cooked barbecue flavor from the kettle grill.

So we're going to use a charcoal snake.

So basically, that is a line of charcoal briquettes that are shingled against each other, going around the grill with an eight-inch gap.

So we'll eventually light one end of the grill and let that charcoal slow burn for a good six hours or so.

-This is instead of having to come out and feed the fire every couple hours?

-Exactly.

Exactly.

-Okay.

-So we have 60 briquettes here that are running around the perimeter of the grill.

-Okay.

-And we're going to layer another 60 briquettes.

So that's two by two.

We want to shingle them lightly so they each catch the next as they burn down.

-Gotcha.

-Okay.

And our last two coals.

Great.

So that, again, is 120 coals, two-by-two configuration all the way around the grill.

-Okay.

-And that's going to give us a nice, long six-hour burn.

So I have 15 charcoal briquettes, just a little bit to put at one end of the snake.

-Okay.

-And when I set them up in the chimney, I want to pile them to one side so they catch and form a nice little pyre to really ignite themselves.

-Okay.

-So we'll put this down here on some concrete, and we'll give it a light.

Okay, so now that that chimney is going, we can finish setting up our snake.

I have five of these three-inch wood chunks.

Now, this is hickory.

You could use apple, you could use maple, whatever you like.

But we're going to start placing them on the snake evenly spread apart, starting about four inches from the end.

And this is going to release bursts of smoke as those ribs begin to cook.

So boom, boom, boom, you're going to get little hits of smoke all the way through cooking.

There's a huge difference the way it tastes at the end when it's been fed with wood the entire time, so... -Okay, sold.

-So now we can just drop a 13x9-inch disposable aluminum pan right here in the center.

Sometimes you got to give it a little squeeze to make sure it fits in there nice and snug.

This is going to catch the fat drippings, and it's also going to hold some water for us, which is going to give us a moist cooking environment as the ribs roast away.

-Okay.

-We're going to add 4 cups of water to that pan.

And so, now we're just going to finish waiting for our chimney to be fully lit.

Our coals are ready to be put on one end of the snake there.

-All right.

-So we can start just dropping them nice and easy with a pair of tongs.

This is a little bit more precise than just dumping the whole chimney in there.

We just want to start it on one end of the snake.

-Gotcha.

-So it'll get that slow burn all the way around.

-Okay, we can put our grill grate on, and we want to just go ahead and scrape the grill, get any schmutz off of it.

And then we're going to oil the grill, little bit of vegetable oil.

And now we can put our ribs on the grill.

So we want to put them so the bones run crosswise over the water pan.

-Okay.

Bone side down.

-Bone side down, fat side up over the water pan and over the gap in the snake.

-Mind the gap.

-Mind the gap.

All right.

And then we can insert our probe into the thickest part of the meat.

That way we don't have to constantly open and close the grill to check the temperature.

-Great.

-And that's one of the biggest keys to trying to replicate barbecue on a kettle grill like this, is you don't want to open it.

-Right.

-You want trust in the thermometer, trust in the smoke.

-Because every time you open it, you're going to lower the heat.

-Exactly.

Longer grill, lower the heat.

Not good.

-Not good.

So we're going to cover our grill.

-Mmm.

-We want to make sure our lid vents are fully open and they're also over top of the meat... -Okay.

-...because we want that smoke to billow out over across the meat and out the vents.

-Fantastic.

-Okay.

So we want to let these ribs go for about six hours, or until this thermal probe tells us it's 210 degrees.

All right, Bridget, it's been about six hours.

Our internal temperature is 210 degrees.

-Check.

-And I have to warn you, there's nothing more impressive than removing this lid from this grill right now... -Oh, yeah?

-...and seeing those ribs after six hours.

You ready?

-I think so.

Hold me back.

Oh, actually, hold me back.

Look at those.

-Easy, easy, easy.

-All right, all right, all right.

-Those are amazing.

How are we going to eat them?

-I like them there's one for each of us.

Brilliant.

-So rather than using tongs to remove these from the grill, which you kind of tear up some of the bark, I like to put on a pair of the old gloves here.

I'm just going to transfer them right to our carving board.

-All right.

Got it?

-Okay, so before we can cut into our beautiful ribs here, we're going to let them rest, cover them with aluminum foil for about 30 minutes.

-Okay.

-The discussion over grilling fuel supremacy -- Do you use gas?

Do you use charcoal?

Well, that's a hot topic maybe for another day.

Today we're in Camp Charcoal, and we're discussing briquettes versus hardwood.

Are either better?

Well, we'll see, because Adam's here, and he has literally brought fuel for this fire.

-Let me tell you, Bridget, we were all about finding out what we could about the different kinds of charcoal.

There are two main types.

In front of you is that hardwood, also called lump charcoal.

And we're going to spill it out.

And there's also briquette charcoal, which are the two bags in front of me.

-Right.

-I'm going to spill that out.

Pretty obvious differences, huh?

-Yeah.

-Totally uniform, looks like wood.

-Yeah.

-Even though they look really different, they're both made by essentially the same process.

And that is that you take wood, you heat it up in an atmosphere with little to no oxygen, which is going to drive off gases and residual moisture and leave you with char, which is basically just carbon.

And the pieces of char from the lump look like the lumber that it started out as.

The uniform little pucks that are the briquettes, those start out as sawdust.

So that charred sawdust is mixed with wood fiber and some starches and other ingredients and then compressed into these pucks that you see here.

We have five really popular brands, and before we lit a single fire with these, testers emptied out the bags just to see what you get in a bag of charcoal.

The briquettes, which are these, were remarkably consistent, with very few broken pieces and could use almost all of it.

-Mm-hmm.

-Not the case with the lump hardwood.

You can see here a lot of variation in the size of the pieces.

There was one brand of the lump where there was everything from dust up to, you know, little tiny pea-sized chips to slabs that were seven inches long in the same bag.

It makes a difference, because pieces that are smaller than about an inch and a half can fall through the bottom of your chimney starter.

-That's huge.

Huge difference.

-We did a bunch of tests in terms of the heat output and the longevity of the fires.

We did our tests in grills outside using a full six-quart chimney starter of charcoal.

-Real life.

-Real-life circumstances.

And in those circumstances, the briquettes actually burned hotter for our test.

-Okay.

-That's because of density and weight.

The briquettes are denser, and they weigh more.

Also, the shape is a lot more uniform.

So when you fill a chimney starter with them, they pack down.

You get a lot more briquettes in that six-quart volume of the chimney starter than you do with the lump charcoal.

-Mm.

-In fact, six quarts of briquettes reliably weighed five to six pounds.

Six quarts of the lump charcoal, two to four pounds.

-That is a huge difference.

Huge.

-A huge difference.

And in terms of the temperatures that we got, with the briquettes, they were between 666 degrees and 729 degrees for the fire, about 100 degrees less for the lump charcoal.

-Really?

-Also, in terms of the longevity of the heat output, the briquettes gave us a cooking temperature of 300 degrees or higher for two and a half to three and a half hours.

That timing was only 40 minutes to 2 hours for the lump charcoal.

-That's enough to affect a recipe.

-Absolutely.

Now, we did a ton of cooking, of course.

There were three tests -- flank steaks, which cook hot and fast, chicken thighs, which cook for about 40 minutes, and chuck eye roasts, which are low and slow.

-Sure.

-They go for about two and a half hours.

We had a lot of people tasting, a big tasting panel.

And you know what?

They could not reliably pick out differences, either between the two types of charcoal or the brands.

All the food tasted good to them.

It was all pleasantly smoky, mildly smoky, and they just couldn't tell the difference.

-Well, that's usually a big selling point for the hardwood devotees.

They always say that you can tell a difference.

-And in our test, that didn't turn out to be true.

So really, there was no standout winner in our tests.

The briquettes can be easier to find.

-Right.

-They're a little more widely available.

They're also a little less expensive, at about 62 to 91 cents per pound.

And they did great.

There was a lot of heat, a lot of heat for a long time.

So they're good for whatever you want to grill, be it burgers, which are, you know, quick to grill, or low-and-slow barbecue.

If you are a fan of the lump charcoal, a little more expensive at $1 to $1.43 a pound.

And a lot of people still think it tastes better, even though we couldn't find that in our tests.

-Interesting.

Well, you can win in this situation, too.

Go out and find the charcoal that works for you and start grilling.

-Bridget, take a look at these ribs.

They look gorgeous, don't they?

They've been chilling for about a half-hour and they rested, and we're ready to cut into them.

-I've been chilling.

They've been resting.

-They were tired, so they needed it.

All right, so we're going to lift this up.

-Oh, gosh.

-I'm just going to slowly, gently go in between the bones here.

-That bone is practically coming out.

-Yeah.

-That's gorgeous.

-Those look good.

-Those look Jurassic.

-Yeah, it's a little bit ridiculous.

-Fantastic.

-Okay, so we have a knife and a fork, but I'd feel sort of silly using that.

-Same.

Yes, my hands come with two forks.

-I think we should just Flintstone this and just pick it up and go for it.

-All right.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

Clink.

-[ Laughs ] -Come on, now.

-Wow.

I mean, to be able to get this quality of barbecue off a simple kettle grill I think is pretty amazing.

-But the thing is about this is that you taste the meat first.

It just tastes like gorgeous cooked beef, really well-seasoned, and then you get that lovely smoke behind it.

-Yeah, the beef is king here.

-Yes.

-You can see this gorgeous smoke ring that we have.

-Yes.

-And although that rub is just very simple... -Right.

-...salt and pepper only, it's all about letting the beef speak up and be the star of the show.

-This is some of the best barbecue I've ever had.

-You're just saying that.

-And thanks to West Texas.

And thank you, Richard.

-Mr. Funk.

-Mr. Funk, and we want you to make these ribs at home.

Create a charcoal snake for low-and-slow cooking, space out wood chunks for constant, even smoke, and cook the ribs to 210 degrees.

So from "Cook's Country," the legendary "I can't believe these are real" Texas-style smoked beef ribs.

Well done.

-Thank you.

Going back in.

Cheers one more time.

-Hey.

Clink.

-Clink.

-Clunk.

-In the mid 1840s, the only bread that sailors in Her Majesty, Queen Victoria's, Navy ate was an ultra-thick cracker-like product known as hardtack.

That is until Henry Jones, a baker in Bristol, England, invented self-raising flour.

His creation made freshly-baked soft tack available to every sailor.

Self-rising flour is all-purpose flour mixed with baking powder and salt.

And while Henry Jones was the first to create the blend, his invention built on the work of another early baking innovator named Alfred Bird.

In 1843, Bird invented a baking powder with cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda, which he packaged with cornstarch to prevent the mixture from reacting before you used it.

Later, Henry Jones added Bird's baking powder to flour, patented it, and began selling his proprietary blend to the British Navy.

Jones was a business-minded guy and got patents in various countries for his, quote, prepared flour.

Fast-forward 100 years, and shelf-stable leaveners, like baking powder and self-rising flour, paved the way for baking mixes, which were heavily marketed to housewives as baking aids.

At "Cook's Country," our recipe for easy blueberry cobbler uses self-rising flour to create a quick and delicious dessert that's deceptively simple to make.

-Traditional blueberry cobblers feature juicy berries in a sweet sauce topped with either little biscuits or dumplings so it looks like a cobblestone street.

But today, Lawman's going to turn a blueberry cobbler on its head.

-That's right, Julia.

Easy blueberry cobbler is unique because the fruit is on the top and the cake is on the bottom.

-Huh.

But we still call it a cobbler?

-Yes.

-Okay.

-This "cobbler," if you bring it to a party, your friends will love you for it.

-Okay, but do you have to do the air quotes -- "cobbler"?

-I'm going to say "cobbler."

So let's get started.

-All right.

-To make this as easy as possible, we're replacing some of the standard ingredients, like all-purpose flour, salt, some of the sugar, and baking soda with 1/4 cup of self-rising flour, 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk.

-Aha.

So the flour has the salt, the leavener, obviously the flour, and the sweetened condensed milk, you have the milk, you have some liquid, you have the sugar, so you just saved yourself a ton of ingredients right there.

-Exactly.

And to that, we're going to add 1/2 cup of whole milk and 8 tablespoons of melted butter.

-Okay.

Wow!

I like to call this a dump and stir.

I mean, there's very little to do here.

-It can't get any easier than this.

Just going to stir this up.

Want to make sure it's nicely incorporated.

-There's no worry about over stirring or anything or leaving some lumps?

-Not at all.

I'm just going to add it to a 13x9 baking dish that's been already greased.

Smooth it out a little bit.

Now I'm going to add some fresh blueberries -- this is 10 ounces -- right on the top.

So it looks like a lot of blueberries, but we want every bite to have some fruit in it.

-I'm kind of overwhelmed at how simple this is.

I mean, can something this simple really be that good?

-Spoiler alert -- It's going to be great.

-Really?

Okay.

I'm trusting you here.

-And lastly, 1/4 cup of granulated sugar right on the top.

-Hmm.

All right.

So the cobbler part of this is actually the blueberries.

-Yes.

Now, this is going to go into a 350-degree oven on the middle rack for 35 minutes until it's nice and golden brown -And that's it?

-That's it.

-Okay.

Ooh!

-Look at that.

-That looks great!

-It's nice and golden brown.

Smells amazing.

So first we want to check to see if it's actually done.

The best way to do that, I'm going to stick a toothpick in there.

Should go in and come out cleanly.

-Baked through.

-We can't eat it yet because it's ripping hot, so we want to let it cool for about 10 minutes.

-Okay.

-Now it's time to eat.

So I'm just going to use a spoon to scoop it out.

This is a rustic dish, so it's fine to do that.

-Mm-hmm.

Thank you, sir.

-One of the reasons why we let it cool a bit and now it's pleasantly warm... -Mm-hmm?

-...so that we can top it with some ice cream.

-[ Laughs ] Ohh!

-So it's just warm enough that the ice cream is going to melt a little bit, soak into the cake.

What's not to like about that?

-I'm really excited to try this.

Mmm.

It has a really rich flavor.

-You get that fresh blueberry, cake.

-Yeah!

-A little crunch from the sugar on top.

-Well, I love the flavor of the cake.

It has this richness, this almost sort of caramelly notes.

I think it's from the sweetened condensed milk.

And the fresh blueberries, they're still intact, but they burst in your mouth.

If I hadn't seen you make this, I would have thought this required a little more effort on your part.

-That's what I'm saying.

You make this, you bring it to a party, you're going to be invited to a lot more parties.

-Is that your trick?

Lawman, this is awesome.

Thank you.

-Thank you.

-If you want to make this incredibly simple dessert, make a simple batter with self-rising flour and sweetened condensed milk and top with a bunch of fresh blueberries.

From "Cook's Country," a delicious recipe for easy blueberry cobbler.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and our product reviews, at our website, CooksCountry.com/tv.

This is incredibly good.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for fail-proof recipes, full episodes, ingredient advice, and equipment reviews.

CooksCountry.com/tv.

"The Complete Cook's Country TV Show Cookbook" includes every recipe, tasting, and testing from all 16 TV seasons.

With over 600 recipes, it's our most comprehensive collection of "Cook's Country" TV recipes ever.

The cost is $24.99, $15 off the cover price of $40.

To order, scan the QR code on your screen or order online at CooksCountry.com/tv.