March 31, 2007 - 6:51am
Can Anyone Suggest a Bread to Go With Barbecue
I am looking for a good style of bread/recipe to accompany some barbecue (shredded pork butt). Any suggestions.
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Can Anyone Suggest a Bread to Go With Barbecue
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Hi,
I've very much enjoyed ciabattas for left over grilled steak sandwiches made in a size where you cut them in half and slice lengthwise. I've used them for hamburgers, too. The crust holds in the juice, and the crumb will absorb it. A nice variation is to do them with sourdough. One easy way to do that is to take the "poolish" version in the BBA (Peter Reinhart book) and just use 100% hydration sourdough starter in place of the poolish. For size, I make 4 ciabatta loafs out of the amount in that BBA recipe. There is also a very good ciabatta recipe in Artisan Baking by Glezer. The sourdough flavor seems to go very well with my grilled steaks. I think it works very well with ham, too. I think there are several recipes posted here on the site if you were to search on ciabatta.
Bill
Corn bread would be an excellent choice, as a side (not a sandwich). The cornbread recipe in BBA is on the sweeter side, but definitely the most moist, flavorful corn bread I have had. The bacon in the recipe would also lend itself to your BBQ pork. (I might consider adding some mild jalapeno also). Give it a try..
SDbaker
I love pulled pork butt! Where we live your guests would probably not even show up. I'm sure your guests will appreciate anything bread you decide on.
I was going to stay out of this one because my thoughts on bread for pulled pork sandwich's go to traditional Southern ways. I should say up front that my other food hobby or second career is slow cooked BBQ. I have a smoker in my drive that will slow cook 90 full racks of the tastiest ribs you ever could eat. In the last 3 years I have probably smoked 5,000 pounds of pork of one variety or another. It started as a hobby and sort of fast forwarded into a business for a while. Anyway....
Now here is the hard part. The best bread for a pork rib or pulled pork or a smoked brisket sandwich is--- just plain ol white-bread. Oh that really hurt to say, but, it's true. Not that it wouldn't be good with a finely crafted Po-Boy or a nice Ciabatta. I have offered up a number of differant breads with our BBQ and it is always the cheapest buns and bread that people take. Darndest thing but it works so well to wipe the sauce that drips down your chin :0)
Eric
Oh, Eric, you are a man after my own heart! One of my fondest food memories is of a pig-pickin' on the lawn of the Governor's Mansion in Raleigh, NC. Of course, bags of white bread were on the table next to the smoker, along with cole slaw, baked beans and Brunswick stew. Mmmmm.
Susan
I would be willing to bet that every BBQ joint South of the Mason Dixon line serves white bread exclusively. Who knows why but that's the way it is. Most places use it to line the bottom of the carry out pan.
Tasteless, odorless, colorless and free from all that texture stuff, white bread, it's what's for dinner at your basic Southern style BBQ.
I also happen to like Peeps around this time of year. The Yellow ones.
Eric
Peeps rip-offs all year 'round now in an embarrassment of colors ( I dare not say flavors.) It is so wrong. Oh, a new thread! Guilty pleasures.
I agree with you, the white bread and buns are always a favorite. We live in Alabama and have visited Big Bob Gibsons, and Dreamland, and Sprayberry's in Newnan Ga., and it is always white bread. YUM-OH! When we have ribs, sometimes we make a quick rising version of yeast rolls that appeared in Southern Living magazine a few years back for Cheddar Rolls, and we butter them with melted butter and fresh minced garlic. For tru yeast "bread heads" don't snob this quick fix until you try it. Even us die hard fans get caught every so often at 4:00 wishing we had made fresh rolls or bread that night for supper. If you can't find it on their website, I'll be glad to post it. Happy eating!
Floyd's buttermilk cluster recipe.
Whatever your decision, enjoy!
Eric,
Here's my ciabatta white bread substitute. The boys loved it with burgers and left over steak and lamb sandwiches we were doing the day after a grill fest, but I don't really know what would have happened if I'd offered plain ol' white bread. I'd like to think they would have chosen the ciabatta after all that, but who knows. The trick is don't bake them quite as dark, and don't use steam and so on, since you want a relatively thin and soft crust.
Bill
Now your making me feel lowly for even bringing up white bread. And you post this "Cooks Illustrated" photo of the most beautiful bread with a big cheese burger and salsa. Makes me want to eat my words!!
Eric
Eric,
When I've been to some old bbq places, like in Atlanta I went to one not long ago, they do serve their picked pork on very plain white buns, close to a wonder bread hamburger bun. So, I know what you mean, and clearly you know way, way more about bbq than I do. However, if white bread is the right thing, then I thought this ciabatta fits, if your into baking some of your own. Thanks for the compliments on the photos. Those are "Wheat Montana" ciabattas done while skiing up there a few weeks ago.
Bill
Bill,
If I understand this Wheat Montana is a mill and the flour is from that mill, yes? Is there some particular flour that you like to use for ciabatta? Those look pretty nice.
Eric
Eric,
I think just AP flour is probably good. That's what would be in the Glezer recipe, which is very good. I used just a poolish to make the one I posted on the photo, and AP seemed to work very well there too. I mention the Wheat Montana flour as a point of interest just because it was what was locally available, seemed like very good flour, others on this site seemed to like it too, and it's available by mail order over the internet. However, any good AP flour ought to work. I've been playing with sourdough versions of ciabatta, and there I used a stronger flour, but maybe it would have been better with AP there too. I'm still trying to understand how using sourdough culture instead of yeast affects choice of flour when you convert recipes. In fact, if anyone has some great insights or rules of thumb on that, I'd be interested to know. However, maybe we should start a separate thread for that if so.
Bill
.....DROOL.......slurp! OMG, Bill, those are delicious looking! Must make those asap! I'm ashamed, as much as I adore ciabatta (and I do) I have not thought of using it this way. I'm pumped now! :o) Btw, do you cut the ciabatta lengthwise and do you slice off any of the crust or just make sure the crust is not so crunchy. I want to do this the right way. YUM!
And, ehanner, you cracked me up about the white bread especially the part about wiping your chin. Should not read this when hungry. And, FTR, I like the purple peeps!
Zolablue,
Yes, I do think this is a very good use for ciabatta. If you make 4 of them with the Glezer recipe, which I think is around the same quantity as the BBA recipes, then you'll get buns about 8-9 inches long and 6 inches wide by maybe a couple of inches tall. Then you just halve them and cut them lengthwise. I don't remove any crust, but I do stop the bake whent they are golden instead of letting them get darker, and I just do them in a dry oven. The result should be a softer, thinner crust that is very nice to bite into with meat in it. The crumb collapses somewhat with the meat juice and sauce, which only makes it better, as far as I'm concerned. These were done in Montana while skiing with some really nice Wheat Montana AP flour they had in the stores there. I had no books, but I was able to make it by just fermenting a poolish overnight in the refrigerator, and then making a very wet dough. Since it was for sandwiches, I added an ounce of olive oil to the dough.
Bill
I saw in the Boston Globe yesterday that a store there is selling 'Peeps in Puddles'-- Peeps (yellow ones) with their bottom halves dipped in chocolate. 'Scuse me gotta run.
I seem to have duplicated this post and there's nothing the ether will let me do about it. In cases such as these I remind myself that at least I don't design bridges that fall down.
Thanks for the heads up on that. Meet me at Fanneul Hall for coffee later. I'll be the guy in sugar shock on the steps.
Eric
There is a recipe under In the News on the home page - looks good!
Teresa
If you are talking sandwiches I would agree with cibatta but if you just want some bread on the side I make a mean cuban bread (recipe and pics here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2305/my-first-starter-dialup-warning-many-photosjust scroll down it's there.
I've been looking for a bread for BBQ for awhile. My last try was a modification of an older Reinhart Recipe called Mustard Seed Bread (I think). I used mustard seeds and caraway in a bun recipe and it was good.
I live down the road from Sprayberry's and have eaten at Bob Gibson's as well and agree that "light bread" is the standard in BBQ joints (just about everywhere); however, I think we can do better.
Still looking
FF