Missouri

It took us a while to decide what to eat for Missouri. I grew up near the Lake of the Ozarks, far from Kansas City and St Louis, each of which get a fair amount of attention for their food. Barbecue reigns in Kansas City and St Louis gave us toasted ravioli and some pretty tasty frozen custard. In the rural part of the state where I grew up, many people (including my family) regularly hunted. Wild rabbit, fried squirrel, dove and frog legs were not uncommon at our table. Now that I'm a city girl, these things are harder to come by.

We're always up for smoking a hunk of meat, so Kansas City barbecue it was. We had a brisket in our freezer from our favorite local grass-fed beef producer that was about 4 lbs. Marc smoked it for about 6 hours on a Saturday morning on the charcoal grill, keeping the temperature at around 225. The night before, he coated it with a blend of 2 T brown sugar, 2 T paprika, 1 T black pepper, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder and 1/2 tsp celery seed.


It turned out beautifully--the outside "bark" was nicely charred, but the inside was tender and juicy.

On the side, we served our now standard rosemary potatoes and this outstanding cole slaw from Rick Bayless:

Hickory House Sour Slaw
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1 T dry cooking sherry
1 T sugar
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt

1/2 medium head of green cabbage
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Combine the first 6 ingredients along with 2 T water in a food processor and blend well. (Or, just chop the garlic very fine and blend well with a whisk). Thinly slice the cabbage. Blend cabbage, parsley and dressing in a large bowl. Refrigerate for about an hour before serving.

Lucy and I opted to construct sandwiches, Marc and Maia ate theirs on the plate with sauce.




I deviated from our state and built a "Carolina style" sandwich, with the coleslaw and sauce right on top.


Marc and I enjoyed this meal quite a bit. The girls, less so, but they powered through! Lucy said that the flavor wasn't too bad, but she didn't like the texture. We had quite a bit of leftovers, which were excellent both as thinly sliced, cold sandwiches and cubed and heated up with sauce.

Next stop: Ohio