Warming up the food cooked yesterday

Hoi all,

usually when I cook on my Q's - whatever the number of friends i invite - I always have some remainders.
a quarter of a brisket, half a chicken or even a cup or two of pulled pork (already pulled).

The day after I don't have a clear idea on how to proceed in warming up these remainders.
I tried with the microwave oven but the best results I get is when I warm them up in the (normal) oven, at 225F, individually foiled with aluminum sheets. Before folding I put in the foil a tablespoon of a 50-50% mix of apple winegar and apple juice.
after 30 mins in the oven the food is ready (but time depends on the remainder size)

I would like to here from you which methods you use, and if there's any which is better than the one I use.

thanks in advance,
ciao ciao

Zino

Hi Zino,

Personally I never just warm up leftovers as there are much better things to do with them.

Pulled Pork and Brisket (cube the brisket) are great in chilli, burritos, baked beans and pies, they are also great on top of pizzas or in calzones - yum!!!!

I quite often do a few good quality sausages along with my main food which I then slice and freeze ready to be stirred through pasta for a quick weekday meal.

One of my favorites is a special variation on Mac 'n' Cheese that I created specifically for leftovers - you can find the recipe HERE. You could quite easily put brisket in there instead of pp.

With poultry I never heat it up because I think that it is better cold the following day when the smokey flavour has had time to develop.

The approach I always take is to use leftover smoked meat as an ingredient.

Hope you have fun with your leftovers.

Steve

hey Steve that's a nice advice

I used only once the leftovers (it was a brisket) to cook a rice first dish (i don't know how you say it), a "risotto".
I put the brisket cubes in the rice pot and, at the end of the cooking time, I add to the rice some butter and some smoked cheese ("scamorza" cheese).

yum, very sweet and smoked!

But I was also wondering how is that possible that every hour it's possible to find hot bbcued smoked food at the bbq joints!
How do they heat up or keep warm the food?
Is there any technique to do it?

thanks for your quick reaction steve,

ciao ciao
zino

I'm not a restauranteur so I can only guess about how they do it but you can hold large cuts of meat for up to threee hours easily so if you have a food place and you know roughly what you will sell throughout the day you can cook the right amounts with a reasonable margin for error through holding.

Also you can speed up cooking with commercial grade smokers, I've seen several hours knocked off the cooking times of ribs, brisket and pork butt using just Traeger's with the results being acceptable for vending (i.e. the meat gets smothered in Sauce anyway )

mmm never heard about speeding up cooking.

I know you can win something by keeping the meat some hours more in acid marinades (the acids brakes the chemical links which is actually a sort of cooking process) but how can you speed up on equipment level?
for a pulled pork you need 1,5 hours per pound at 225 and that's it! there ain't shortages!
or not?

thanks,
zino

You can run hotter easily with some types of smoker. A pro q for example is designed for cooking in the 200 - 300 range so it will hold these temps under normal operation. If you take a pellet pooper like a Traeger or a Fast Eddy then these can be set to run at higher temps so you can start off low to smoke then ramp up at the flick of a switch to run higher and cook faster. The results may not be as good but if you're doing it for money I guess you balance costs against quality of end product.

However I have 2 catering gigs this year and I'll be cooking on My Excels, Frontier and weber kettle as I'm ok with longer cook times.

I've found some nice info about the leftovers at the end of this article

http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/porkbuttselect.html

ciao