The American Barbecue Showdown (2020) s01e01 Episode Script

1
Come on over and join us.
Eight of the boldest smokers
in America
are here to throw down
the best barbecue of their lives.
Oh, my God!
- Get smokin'!
- Look at that, baby!
Each pitmaster's talents
will be challenged like never before.
Grilling, smoking, sides,
sweets, familiar meats, and
ooh, not so familiar meats.
-Oh, raccoon! Aieee!
-Ooh!
- 90 seconds!
-Out of the way!
This is the biggest competition
I've ever been a part of.
They'll be judged
-by two award-winning pitmasters.
Let's talk about your asparagus.
-I don't know. I got a mouthful of fat.
-I don't know that I like it.
-For the next eight weeks
-Giddy up!
these cookers' smokin' skills
will be put to the test
I'm making my own herbal brush.
grilled like never before.
-You have a plan.
-A backup plan.
-There you go. A backup to the backup.
-Do your thing, girl.
Thank you.
-She's screwed.
-Five!
-At the end of each episode
-Four!
-So, are you confident?
-No.
one barbecue chef
will be named star pitmaster
That's tender
as a mother's love right there.
Three!
Who's goin' home today?
-and another will get smoked out.
- Two!
-No, no, no! No! Shh!
-What?
For all the bragging rights
-and crown of America's barbecue champion.
-Go on, girl!
-Aaah!
- One! Show me the meat!
You brought the flavor to the party.
What's second place?
First place loser.
This is the American Barbecue Showdown.
Welcome, y'all!
Come on over and join us.
All right, now. How you doing?
How's it going?
How you guys doing? Yeah!
Are y'all ready for this?
-Yeah!
-Been waitin' my whole life.
-We made it!
-We're gonna light some fires
- Mm-hm!
cook up some sweet, sweet meats,
and we're gonna find out which one of you
is the very best there is.
-All right! All right!
We can do that. We can do that.
Now, my partner in crime
to my left here
is not only a comedian
and a barbecue lover,
she's the sweet to my tea.
-Lyric Lewis.
-Aww!
-Well, hey!
- Nice to meet you!
As a New Orleans girl myself,
if there's one thing I do love,
it is flavor.
So I am so excited for this competition
and all the meat sweats that's to come
-from all of y'all's food.
-Yeah!
-I got you, girl!
-Yeah!
Now, please meet
our incredible barbecue judges.
I'm talkin' about
a sixth-generation pitmaster, okay?
Making world-class Texas-style barbecue,
all the way from LA to Australia,
straight outta Compton,
a crazy barbecuer named Bludso.
Please say hello
to Kevin "Big Kev" Bludso!
-How you been, Bludso?
-Whoo!
I am so fired up to be here with y'all.
I wanna go deep into your souls
-and see where your cooking comin' from.
-All right! Come on now!
I wanna taste the food. I wanna taste
the story at the same time.
-Good luck to all y'all, baby.
Next up, this lady right here
is a seven-time world champion
and the fiercest judge
of all things barbecue.
The Mississippi smoke queen,
Melissa Cookston.
-All right!
Hey, smoke queen!
That is the woman that I idolize.
The smoke queen!
Melissa cooks hog.
I mean, how many women do that?
That is really a man's world.
She has whooped their you-know-whats.
And it drives 'em nuts.
That's what I'm gonna try to do.
I've been standin' in your shoes
thousands of times.
I need to have perfect execution.
Because I know what I've seen
and I know what I'm talkin' about.
-Whew!
-She's intimidatin'.
-Yes!
All right, all right!
Now, listen, we know barbecue in America,
it's all about history and personal style,
and the best way to really say
all that together
is the barbecue combo plate.
-All right.
-I'm ready.
You'll need to smoke two barbecue meats,
with two succulent sides.
You'll have five and a half hours
to create your barbecue combo plate.
Five and a half hours.
- I'm used to overnight.
- Yeah.
Not five and a half hours. Okay.
-'Cause I'm a super, super low-slow cook.
-That's what make it a challenge.
-All right! Get smokin'!
- All right.
- Whoo!
-Let's go.
-Let's do it!
-All right.
-Let's get some wood.
-Got that grill, baby. Let's rock.
Kevin and I
looked all over the country
for all sets of skill levels
for this competition.
It'll be interesting to see what we get,
because sometimes,
these backyard barbecuers
are just as proficient
as some competitors on the circuit.
So, I'm expectin'
some really good 'cue today.
Whoo! That's the way you do it.
I am the number one lady pitmaster
in California.
That's the perfume of the meat gods
goin' in there.
I'm glad they got a medic on here.
Y'all gonna need it, because I tell you,
your tongue will slap you so hard
back and forth after tasting the sausage,
you know, "Help me, help me!"
I've cooked anything from alligator tail,
goats, a whole pig.
It's "Grubbecuing,"
'cause anyone can barbecue,
but only I can Grubbecue.
-What your grub feel like, brother?
-Ash.
-Ready to smoke?
-A real honor. Yes, sir.
Barbecue is like a religion
in North Carolina.
You've got the Baptists,
you've got the Methodists,
and you've got the Holy Smoke.
-All right, man.
-Let's go, let's go. One hundred.
-We girls gotta stick together.
-Gotta stick together.
And get these guys outta here.
I compete in about 18 contests a year.
Don't underestimate me
because I'm a woman,
because I have beat many a man
out there many times.
I'm lit over here, baby,
I'm burnin' on all three cylinders.
I consider myself to be, one out of ten,
a ten in the barbecue world.
I'm comin' full force, baby,
110 miles an hour.
Hulk smash!
I wanna show them everything
I can do and more.
I'm an IT technician.
This is my first time competing.
So it's a little bit daunting
to really grasp and take on.
Hickory is one of the things I go to
with everything I cook.
Barbecuin' is a real competitive thing
amongst the family.
Hell, my blood type might be, uh
smoky sweet barbecue sauce or somethin'.
A barbecue combo plate
is the perfect first challenge
because every barbecuer in America
has made a barbecue combo plate.
That's what we feed our families.
Now, these barbecuers have everything
you could possibly dream of.
Inside the barn
you've got a stocked pantry,
and all the barbecue tools
you could ask for.
And of course,
top-of-the-line smokers outside.
You'll also have a meat locker
stocked with the meats
that the country's best butchers dream of.
So these cookers are gonna show us
where they're comin' from
with these combo plates,
and I cannot wait to see
what they bring to the table.
I'll grab this whole shoulder
right here,
see if we can't cook barbecue
in five and a half hours.
I am a car salesman,
so we don't get a lot of free time,
but when we do, I love to barbecue.
You know, buy a car,
you get a free, uh, pork butt.
It works out good!
I'm from North Carolina,
and we are a pork state.
I'm not sayin' North Carolina's the best,
but we're the best.
I'm a little nervous about this challenge.
I wanna cook pork butt.
Pork butt is generally used
for making pulled pork
and usually takes about eight to ten hours
to fully cook.
Little known fact,
it doesn't actually come
from where the name might suggest.
It comes from the shoulder.
In late 1700s New England,
it was known as the Boston butt,
and the name stuck.
I'm gonna be makin' pulled pork,
baby back ribs
with a cherry barbecue sauce,
crackerroni and cheese,
and a country sweet slaw.
Five and a half hours is not a lot of time
to cook pork butt.
I usually do mine in ten hours.
Holy cannoli!
You're gonna do a pork butt in five?
I'm gonna try.
What I did is I took a pork butt,
and I cut it in half.
No bone in there, so hopefully,
it's gonna cook a little faster.
When I eat this meal today,
what am I gonna say about Ashley?
I wanna bring this home to North Carolina.
That's my goal.
I got a, uh I got a friend of mine
that passed away.
I'm usin' one of his recipes today.
Me and Big Worm were, uh, teammates
on our barbecue team.
Big Worm was my best friend.
Early in 2017, we find out that
he's got a brain tumor.
Six months later to the day, he passed.
All this,
we're gonna do it for him.
-Big Worm is behind you on this, right?
-He's lookin' down on us.
He's lookin' down, for sure.
-Can't let Big Worm down, man.
-No, sir.
-I know how it is, losing a homeboy.
-No, sir. That's right.
-Good luck, man, all right?
-Yes, sir. Thank you.
Everybody's already gettin' their meat
and I haven't did anything.
The fun thing
about bein' a Southern belle,
sometimes you can get by with stuff.
Like when I cook in contests,
I wear pearls, I look like a little girl,
they don't think
anything about me, but
I sneak up on you,
and you don't even know it.
I think I picked
probably the wrong choice.
Damn it.
I was thinkin' about cooking
a money muscle,
which is the prime piece
when you turn in a pork butt.
This is actually the pork butt,
which is what I normally cook
in competition,
and on this end,
there's always a particular muscle
called the money muscle,
and I've never quite seen one this small.
They're usually
about the size of my forearm.
The money muscle is
kind of like the premium part
that you turn in in a contest.
When you trim it off, it's almost like
a filet mignon of a pork butt.
As you can see, this is kind of small.
So I'm gonna regroup,
take this to the meat locker,
and figure somethin' else out,
and see what's left.
I can tell you what dish I'm not gonna do,
is there is a pig head in there.
And if it looks at me,
I just can't cook it, I just cannot
cook somethin' with the eyes
actually in it, lookin' at me.
Back to the meat locker.
Okay.
I have to make a quick decision,
cook somethin' else.
So I look around
and I decide to go with pork belly,
because that's still Southern.
Unlike pork butt, pork belly
comes from the actual belly of a pig.
Think of it
as a giant slab of bacon wrapped in fat.
My barbecue plate's gonna show
Georgia, and my roots,
so I wanna do a pork belly,
and then I wanna cook pork tenderloins
wrapped with bacon,
red-eye gravy
and a big bowl of cheese grits.
We cook with pork belly, salted pork.
That's pork in the South,
so I stuck with somethin'
that I thought that I could finish
in that timeline.
Hey, look here, look here!
He's tryin' to fly away!
But he ain't going nowhere.
I got him by the wings!
It's your boy Shotgun,
Fayetteville barbecuer. What's happening?
Yeah!
I got that brine goin' on, that daddy.
Ooh-whee! Let's rock and roll, baby.
Barbecue, for me, is a party.
I cook with alcohol.
I cook better when I'm drinkin'.
I love it. My go-to drink
when I'm on the grill
is Billy Dee, baby,
Colt 45, double malt.
That's what I like. That's what I do.
I tell ya, I keep it old-school.
I got, uh,
Shotgun's famous beer can chicken today.
I love chicken like I love my life.
I eat chicken seven days a week.
Call me the chicken man.
The first thing I ever cooked on a grill
was chicken thighs.
If I don't serve the judges chicken,
that ain't Shotgun.
Anytime, anywhere, chicken,
chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken.
It's a dish that's been in my family
for a while.
My father's always known how to do it.
It's gonna, like, make you go,
"Whoo! Wow! Where'd that come from?"
I'm doin' some beer can chicken,
West-style grilled rib
with some grilled asparagus,
and I am making
some smoked potato salad.
Shotgun, what's up, baby?
Tryin' a little somethin'-somethin'.
My dish is beer can chicken. Stuff the can
right down that chute. Oh, yeah.
- The brine smells good.
-Yes, ma'am.
So you-- You don't feel like
it had to be submerged all the way?
Uh Not really, because I'm actually
puttin' the brine on the-the inside.
-I hear you. Okay.
-On the inside of the bird,
where you can actually taste
the flavor of the meat.
I haven't put any rub on it yet,
but I'm gonna wow you with a nice rub.
With the ribs, it's West-style rib.
I put a South Carolina style on it
with the base of the mustard.
Tell me temperature,
smoker temperature.
Smoker temperature, 225,
and this, I'mma pull 'em around 170.
-170 internal temperature.
-Internal temp.
Okay.
Think that's gonna be
tender enough for you?
-That's gonna be tender enough for you.
- All right.
It'll be going out in about
another-another ten minutes, probably.
-I'm really concerned about that.
- Chop that for my bird
Yeah, that' a
This is gonna be really difficult
in the time limit.
I'm gonna trim off a little more
than what I would usually trim,
'cause I don't know if this will render.
I'm not feelin' any better.
- How you doin', Miss Tina?
-Well sweatin' it.
I went in the meat locker
and there was no pork butts,
'cause I was gonna present to y'all
only money muscles.
So I regrouped.
-I love pork belly.
- Right.
I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it
'cause I-I'm not a hot-and-fast cook.
If you was at home,
-how long would you cook this?
-Probably eight hours.
You only have five and a half hours.
You thinking you can get it that rendered?
Just give me a shot, y'all.
Give me a shot.
Is that your mascot behind you?
Is that Miss Piggy? Who's that?
That's Priscilla.
-Is she, like, a good-luck charm for you?
-Yeah.
-She goes with me to every contest.
-Every contest?
She's seen plenty of pork butts
being cooked, but not today.
Party people, we got five hours left
in your cook.
Makin' the perfect combo plate
is about everything.
So you need everything to fall in line
just right.
You need everything to be timed
like you timed it.
This pork butt, as you can tell,
is super small.
I've trimmed it down,
cut the money muscle off of it,
and the money muscle
is the best part of the pork butt.
If you're not familiar
with the money muscle,
the money muscle is what we call
the part of the pork butt in competition
that gets your butt paid.
Got a little spritz made up
with some apple cider vinegar,
apple juice and some cherry cola.
My buddy Big Worm was always our rib guy.
So I'm usin' one of his recipes today.
I'm making Big Worm's
baby back ribs today.
And that's pretty intimidating
because he used to be my rib guy.
When we went to a competition,
he was our rib cook. I did the pork butt.
This is a pretty emotional cook for me.
I haven't been back
in barbecue competitions very much
since I've lost Big Worm in my life.
This is, by far, the biggest deal
that I've done since since he passed.
My ribs are in here chillin' right now.
Hopefully, Big Worm's ribs
are gonna turn out fantastic.
I truly think that I'm gonna have him
lookin' down on me today.
Big Worm, this is for you, buddy.
Be good, baby.
Put 'em side by side
like Bonnie and Clyde.
I'm about to skip, and I'mma dip
When I get to my Lang,
and with my fire right,
we doin' the damn thing.
So right now I'm makin' a simple mojo.
I like to make it myself,
fresh as possible.
Fresh marinades, fresh rubs,
always taste better than anything
you can get at the store.
I grew up in Jamaica.
I was eight years old
when we came to the States,
and it was definitely a culture shock,
because it's louder, brighter
and busier than what I'm used to.
I'm currently finishin' up my jerk rub.
But in order to keep me adjusted,
my mom would still make
jerk chicken for me.
Some of my favorite meals and memories
are always tied to food.
My grandmother making
ackee and saltfish for breakfast.
Then for dinner, you know,
having real jerk chicken.
The best jerk I've ever had
is a jerk that I've made. Really good.
Lot of heat, lot of flavor.
One of the first books I ever bought
was actually Julia Child's cooking book,
and I read that thing
like it was the best-selling novel.
And I picked up so many tips and tricks
that had nothing to do with barbecue,
just cooking in general,
that I apply to barbecue.
I'm not a chef. I'm not a pitmaster.
Those are titles you have to earn.
I am a guy who just manages
not to burn the food.
-How are you doing today?
-I'm good! Okay, so, what are you making?
Today, I'm going to be making
some classic St. Louis cut smoked ribs,
pork belly, mojo chicken, jerk chicken,
fried sweet plantains and tostones.
-That's three That's four
-That--
I like to feed people how I like to eat.
I'm a big guy.
You don't get this size by skippin'
on just two meats and two sides.
-That's mini meats. Mini meats!
-Nobody else is going more than two.
-No one else is doing
-more than two.
-I don't go by the rules very much.
I'm sticking to the guidelines here,
but I want to wow you guys.
I'm not just Jamaican.
I'm recently finding out a bit more
about my family's history and culture.
My great-grandmother and grandfather
worked the Panama Canal,
and resided and lived
the majority of their lives in Colombia.
- Wow.
-So that explains my
love for Latin flavors.
I think my background
is going to be what sets me apart.
Everyone is used to eating
American barbecue made the American way.
- Right.
-I'm hoping to change that today.
I got me some whole chickens.
I'mma whip up a little thing
we call "Grandma's recipe".
Now, my-my challenge here
in five and a half hours
is to get that flavor
down in that chicken.
That's the thing, gettin' that chicken--
That flavor from that brine
in that chicken in two and a half hours.
But I got a little plan to do that.
I'll see if I can't pull it off.
'Cause you gotta have that deep flavor
for it to work right.
I'm a North Georgia grillbilly.
I live so far deep in the woods,
the ticks don't hang out there.
That's how far I live in the woods!
Ain't nothing but the real deal going on
with Grubbecuing.
I've seen things in the mountains.
You ever see a groundhog climb a tree?
You didn't know a groundhog
could climb, did you?
My dogs tree'd one before.
Fifteen foot-- A groundhog in a tree.
I'm making a Cajun sausage that I learned
many years ago, back in the day,
and, uh, we got Grandma's chicken,
I'mma do a roasted corn sauce on the side
with mine,
and what I like to call
my garlic parsley potatoes,
all together on one plate.
You know what? People like salt.
I'mma have to
twist that up a little bit.
Up until June 10th of last year,
I was a meatatarian,
eatin' porksicles
and drinkin' beer all the time.
But then I had a heart attack,
and it's like,
"I gotta change the way I'm eatin'."
Just 'cause you barbecue don't mean
you can't eat good and be healthy.
My cookin' has changed 180 degrees.
I cut back on my sodium
and I'm standing here today
50 pounds lighter.
I'm fixin' to stuff some good,
delicious Grubbecue sausage
in them hog intestines right there.
There we go. We got action now!
I've got my salmon
on cedar planks, because as they cook,
it's gonna put a cedar wood flavor
into it.
Grubbecue's homemade sausages
on a cedar plank
for a little bit more depth to the flavor.
There's no way they won't like it.
They're barbecue professionals.
This is top-notch sausage.
It don't get no fresher than this.
So many people love to smoke salmon
on a cedar plank.
I have not ever seen anyone
smoke a sausage on a cedar plank.
Weird to me,
because you're smokin' on a cedar plank
for smoke on a smoker.
So, it's like overkill.
You have to really be careful
when you're makin' sausage.
So Grubbs is puttin' it on a cedar plank.
Why is he doin' that?
Man, it's gonna be good.
You're puttin' sausage on top of wood
to go inside a wood smoker.
Man, to me, I would just put 'em
right on the grill,
get some nice grill marks on it.
To me, it works great for fish.
You know, you moisten that plank
and it smokes directly into that salmon,
and the smoke just travels right--
All the way through it.
Never seen it done with sausage before.
I don't know what my boy Grubb is doing.
All righty, let me get goin'.
Come check out my beer can chicken.
It's taking on
a beautiful, magnificent color.
Let's go ahead and probe her
right down near her thigh there.
That's goin' down okay, so
We-We're takin' on a good color.
So we at 98 degrees internal Fahrenheit,
right now, so we ain't nowhere near ready.
Whoo! Look at that, baby!
God the Almighty know all that, daddy!
-Oh
Man, I-- This is like meat schizophrenia.
I don't know which way he is going
right now.
Love, love his enthusiasm.
I am concerned about him.
That's too damn hot.
He is all over the place.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
We sittin' strong at about 108, 110.
I asked him
about times and temperatures.
I was getting numbers thrown at me
from some sort of playbook
at a football game.
I have no idea what's goin' on.
That thing flying like a bird, baby.
Fly! Fly! Fly away, he says!
I shot him! Bam! Come on back down there,
you ain't goin' nowhere.
- Oh--
-Bless his heart.
What I gotta do over here?
Not a thing.
I've cooked pork belly because I love it.
But usually, it's, like, eight hours.
We have five and a half,
so I'm crankin' it up,
and I'm gonna
hopefully, if I can get up to
No, no, no, don't do this.
Oh, my God, my fire is crashin'!
-What's happened-- No, no, no--
-I need to be, like, at 300.
I'm at, like, 225.
Y'all, I think somethin's going on
with Tina's fire.
It looks like there's no smoke
comin' out of that chimney.
I had a barbecue emergency, in my opinion.
We are cooking
with charcoal and wood.
So it's not like you have a knob
that you can turn down,
like you do on an oven.
Now, that should not be happenin'.
Workin' the smoker
is kinda like a dance.
You have to maintain that temperature
at a constant level,
because if you have heat fluctuations,
the pores in the meat tend to seize up,
and not allow fats to render out properly.
Come on.
It's really easy
to get spun out
-It is.
-if that fire goes out.
If we go back to Tina from the start,
when we first were introduced to her,
her first statement was an excuse,
if you think about it.
Well, she started by sayin'
everything she does is low and slow.
-Shortest is 16 hours, right?
-Yeah, that was it.
She didn't have the butt she wanted,
-so she chose a pork belly.
- Yes.
I don't know that she's ever cooked
a pork belly before.
So, now, her fire's gone out.
The thing about competing is adversity.
How you react to it,
how you recover from it.
I mean, I know I had the door open to
You know what?
I'm gonna check everything inside
and I'm just gonna say a little prayer,
me and, uh, Priscilla.
And see if that goes back up
to where I want it.
Feels like I'm back in the islands.
Everyone's, uh smoker sort of smells
a little bit of the same right now,
but I can guarantee you,
this jerk is gonna stick out.
People are gonna realize,
"Oh, he's-he's serious."
And I can't think of a dish
that has more heat and flavor
than jerk chicken.
Did y'all see what Rasheed had goin'?
Phew!
He's doin' jerk chicken,
mojo chicken, pork belly,
St. Louis cut spare rib.
-This is his first competition, I believe?
- Yeah.
Rasheed might not have
any competition experience,
but he is swinging for the fences.
He is attempting four proteins.
Go big or go home.
If he can't pull it off,
I guess he bit off
more than he could chew.
All right, guys, we've got two hours left.
I'm gonna go and check on my sides.
With their meats on the grill,
these smokers
need to get their sides goin'.
This is a barbecue combo plate.
Give me sides
that complement the proteins,
but don't give me somethin'
that has so much heat,
that blows my palate out,
so I can't taste your proteins.
Somethin' that makes
a well-rounded barbecue plate.
Tryin' to get
my baked beans started. Uh
I'm tryin' to figure out
how to operate this, uh stove.
My wife is great when it comes to sides.
If my wife was here, man,
it'd be all right.
How do I turn this thing on?
-Oh, yeah, I'll help you, no problem.
Most guys, you know,
they do the barbecuin',
the wife does the inside
She does the sides, you know?
You got a cooker,
you know what I mean,
who just does the meat,
and his wife does the sides.
He could drop the ball on the sides.
-Couldn't see that at first.
-Push down and turn it around.
Your sides have to be just as good
as the meat in a combo plate,
because, especially
in a competition like this,
with all these good cookers that we have,
somebody can lose on potato salad
or baked beans or somethin'.
I'm makin' tostones,
which is a twice-fried plantain.
Smash once, fry twice.
I'm hoping that sort of, uh
impresses the judges.
I'm makin' some slaw, man.
Some country Carolina slaw.
It's gonna be super creamy,
super sweet.
Really, really good compliment
to barbecue.
You're gonna find it anywhere you go
in North Carolina,
if you go to a barbecue restaurant.
This is what brings it all together, man.
If I'm puttin' me on a plate,
it's definitely gotta be on there.
My red-eye gravy is over here,
in my paw-paw's skillet
that I brought with me.
That's what I would have eaten
with my paw-paw and my mom
and all of us at the table.
Now, red-eye gravy is a Southern thing.
Melissa, she's a Southern girl, too,
so that's what we do.
I want her approval.
You usually use country ham.
You use coffee from, like, yesterday
or early this mornin'.
And my paw-paw drank coffee,
so he would drink it
and the rest of it went in the gravy.
My paw-paw, mom, my whole family.
We'd have peach jam or preserves
put it inside a biscuit,
and we'd dip it in this red-eye gravy
you can see right here I'm makin'.
Gettin' ready to check
my smoked grilled asparagus here.
And it's like that,
and that's the way it is.
Nice little salt and pepper rub on that,
kinda keep a nice stiffness to 'em.
What I'm noticin' about Shotgun,
you have three smokers over there
and look like
he has everything on the one.
That low and slow reverse flow
is his comfort zone.
For me, cooking asparagus
is best done hot and fast on a grill.
It's very hard to cook asparagus
low and slow.
And Shotgun,
I'm afraid that his asparagus,
puttin' it in that reverse flow smoker,
is not gonna hold up well.
We'll see.
Shotgun barbecue.
Can y'all come on over for a minute?
- Oh, my God.
- What do these guys want?
-We-We still got time.
Our time is not up.
Ah!
Y'all seem to be off to a good start.
How about a little mid-smoke challenge?
- Uh
-A what?
-What you got?
-There's one thing
that we haven't seen
on your combo plates yet.
It's one thing that could turn
a barbecue combo plate
from good to great.
-Speak on it.
-That's bread and it ain't easy.
-Right now?
- Yeah, baby!
You guys have the rest of your time
to make your very own bread from scratch.
-Oooh!
-Oh, my God.
There's all kinds of bread
that a competitor could make
to go with his barbecue combo,
but picking the right bread
that's the important choice.
All right, y'all. There's not that much
time left. Y'all get to cookin'.
-All right!
- Let's do it!
- Oh, Lord.
- I was kind of dreadin' that.
Oh, God, what am I gonna do?
And I had stuff on the smoker
and stuff on the stove.
I didn't know what to do,
so I went right back
to where I began when I was a kid.
Biscuits.
Ooh-kay.
I usually use lard,
and the lard was room temperature.
Anybody worth their weight
in a biscuit knows
you don't cook biscuits
without cold lard.
So I winged it and I used butter.
Well we'll see.
Find out I've got 90 minutes
to make a quick bread. Uh
I only know maybe one or two things
that I can bake,
and I don't do it often.
So I'm going with a simple butter biscuit.
It's three ingredients.
Self-rising flour, uh
cold butter, milk.
I may sprinkle cheese
and some salt in there,
but I'm not trying to ruin it.
It's somethin' simple and direct,
but I just gotta get it on the plate.
Oh, this bread
I'm preparing today
is going to be smoked
in this cast iron skillet.
It's a flapjack. My grandmother
used to make it all the time.
This bread involves one egg,
baking soda,
lemon juice, buttermilk, flour,
and butter.
And baking soda.
Flapjack cornbread, baby.
Simple butter biscuit.
We've got a little over a hour left
by this time.
I gotta make sure that I'm, uh
I'm prepared in case it doesn't work out
the way I want it to.
So, while these are going,
I'mma start the mix
for my dumplings,
get 'em boiled and fried
in some of that pork belly fat.
To be safe, I'm making sure
I have two types of bread.
The biscuits, and on top of that,
some fried dumplings.
I'm doin' backups, you know?
This type-- This type of competition,
I'm not really willing to risk anything.
All right, so,
we gonna make some cornbread.
Holy cow!
I've got a lot on my plate right now.
I got three different meats goin',
two sides, uh now cornbread.
I'm I'm a little stressed,
I got 90 minutes to pull this off.
I have all of my sides done.
I got about ten more minutes on my bread.
Needs to sit.
Whew.
Oh, no! Son of a
The dumplings
are getting overcooked.
I'd be lying if I said
I wasn't a little upset.
I already have to make sure
that my ribs are not overcooking,
I gotta make sure
my pork belly is gettin' nice and tight.
Tending to all of this,
then havin' to worry
about prepping and baking
and making sure
everything rises and doesn't burn,
and trying to avoid as many of that--
Those things going wrong as possible.
Slightly longer than I wanted.
- There we go.
-Whoo! Look at that, baby!
Fifty-eight minutes!
We're runnin' out of time.
Oh, it's gonna be tight.
I'm gonna need every last second.
-Whew!
-What you got goin' on there, pearl girl?
I'm smokin' myself out, actually.
I'm trying to, uh
get this meat where it need to be.
Chicken's done, sauce is done.
A matter of puttin' it all together
and please them eyeballs of them judges.
That's what I got to do right now.
Ain't got no time to play around.
Whoo!
Oh, my God!
Oh!
Son of a
Not what I wanted to do.
A lot of smoke comin' over there.
Hey, man.
Damn foil was burnt and everything.
Shotgun has smoke billowing everywhere,
which means his food
is going to taste oily,
oversmoked, and it'll ruin the protein
that's in there.
Huh.
He's gotta get that fire under control
or I don't know if he can salvage it.
Damn it.
How much time we got?
How much time we got?
You guys got ten minutes left.
Out of the way!
I'm feelin' the pressure. Whoo!
Oh, my God!
We're gonna have pulled pork.
It's not much.
I grabbed a pork belly,
which I was not sure it would be done.
So, we'll see.
God, I'm on time, I'm on time
Ten, nine, eight
seven, six, five
four, three, two, one.
-Show me the meat!
- Whoo!
-Here we go, baby!
-Whew!
- Congratulations, y'all.
-All right! Thank you.
-What a challenge that was.
- Oh, yeah. Indeed.
-Phew!
-Ooh-whee.
-Yes. sir!
-Here we are!
-Hope you guys are hungry.
- Yes.
- Perfect.
- Yeah!
Wow, guys.
Where's y'all's?
I expect flavor that I can taste
from the tip of my tongue
to the back of my throat.
Little sweet, little heat,
a little acidic,
and give me just a little kick
in the back,
because I am a full-flavor judge.
All right.
Rasheed, tell us about your combo plate.
It's just a dish
that explains my heritage.
I was born and raised in Jamaica.
My Latin side of my family
is represented there
within the mojo and the tostones.
You've got yourself some St. Louis ribs,
pork belly, jerk chicken
along with some mojo chicken,
some fried sweet plantains
and butter biscuits.
Now, what kind of rub
did you use on the ribs?
Some smoked salt,
some coarse black pepper,
a little bit of paprika, garlic.
Let me tell you, Rasheed.
-You did all that and then some.
-Oh, bro. Thank you. Thank you.
-This biscuit
- Mm-hm.
- Come on.
-So good.
Come on!
Your pork belly
was real good to me, your ribs.
And your sides
compliment your proteins so well.
Good job, honey.
Thank you, guys.
Georgia.
Cooking for me,
it's the lifeblood of my family,
starting with my baby backs.
I will tell you, your sides are fantastic.
Black-eyed peas, Hoppin' John.
That reminds me of New Year's Eve.
-That's what we do in our house.
-Yes! It's what we do.
- I love it.
-Yes!
Boatright.
We have rib tips, chicken wings,
macaroni and cheese,
and bourbon baked beans.
At the house, are you a sides dude?
-Is somebody else cooking sides?
-I am not a sides dude.
-I tell anybody in a heartbeat. My wife--
-Who cooks your sides? The wife?
She's-- She is the one.
Your baked beans could have just been
a bit longer. It was a little undercooked.
Sylvie.
I did an Asian inspired salmon,
and I have the greens with ham hocks,
and the macaroni and cheese.
Your salmon is spot on.
I mean, when it can pull away like this
from the skin,
that mean you cooked the perfect salmon,
you know?
Your greens taste like my greens.
I feel like we even cooked
in the same kitchen before.
Thank you.
Ashley.
I call it
"Carolina 'cue on a platter".
It is everything about Carolina, my home.
The ribs, the pulled pork,
the mac and cheese,
the coleslaw you're gonna find
at any barbecue restaurant
in North Carolina.
You did that pulled pork in five hours?
Five and a half hours. I've never done
pulled pork in five and a half hours.
I was stressin' it.
Come and get into these ribs.
Pardon me.
Right off the bat, he messing 'em up,
-but he cuttin' 'em with a butter knife--
-Yeah!
-so that's big props, baby.
- Yeah. Hey!
-That's big props.
- Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
These ribs
are fantastic.
Thank you.
That's Big Worm's ribs right there.
Well, we gotta give Big Worm
a clap, baby,
-'cause them ribs is off the chain.
-Thank you.
-I'm lovin' everything on your plate.
-Thank you.
Tina.
I have made some pork belly,
pork tenderloin,
cheese grits with red-eye gravy,
and then biscuits.
I call it "pig and pearls",
because there's a little bit of pearls
of wisdom from all of my family in it.
And of course, it's my thing.
I like to wear mine.
Somethin' happened here.
At one point, it looked like
your smoker had gone completely out.
I didn't know what else to do, so I just
threw wood and charcoal and just
And then, all of a sudden,
it was really smokin' up a storm.
Whatever smoke
that you put to this,
for me
is a little harsh.
All right, Mr. Shotgun.
Check it out.
That's Shotgun's
famous backyard barbecue platter.
I got ribs, beer can chicken,
smoked potato salad and grilled asparagus.
So,
let's talk about your asparagus.
-How did you cook it?
-Salt, pepper, a little olive oil,
and I-- And I smoked them on the grill.
Interesting.
Did you have some smoker issues?
Well, yeah.
The ribs, luckily, did not char
like I thought they would.
Come up here for a sec.
Take a bite and tell me, is that where
you was trying to go with it?
-That where I was trying to go.
-Okay.
To me, that's a bite-through.
It's tender, don't get me wrong,
but if then it gets oversmoked,
it can almost even have,
like, a lighter fluid taste
-from the dirty smoke hittin' it.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, I got you.
-You're not tastin' that?
A little bit. I-I do--
I do now you put it like that.
I'm totally cool with the chicken.
It has flavor in it.
Well, I will tell you
that your chicken ended up very moist.
Thank you.
All right, Grubbs.
I like to call that plate
"the grillbilly special."
We got Grandma's chicken,
we got homemade sausage,
we got a roasted corn salsa,
garlic parsley potatoes,
a quick bread made with bacon
and cheddar and chives.
I wanted so much to like them links,
that sausage, you know what I mean?
But it tastes a little bland to me, baby,
just a little bland.
I had a health issue
a year and a half ago, a heart attack.
I've really changed the way I cook,
and one of the main things
is a reduction of sodium in my diet.
That may be a little more reflected
in my cooking
than it was two or three years ago.
Did you have any issues at all
with the cooking of the sausage?
-I'm pickin' up an odd flavor.
-I cooked it on a cedar plank.
That's the flavor that I'm pickin' up
that I don't care for.
I see where you was goin'
with the chicken,
and it probably needed
a little bit more time in the brine.
'Cause that's usually
a 12- to 24-hour soak.
I only had about two,
two and a half hours
to get that--
Try to get that flavor into the meat.
And I think it showed up well
on the outside,
but not as well on the inside.
Maybe could've used
a little bit more spice to it.
Maybe a little bit more heat to it.
For me, the chicken
was just a little bit dry.
-Grubbs, thank you very much.
-All right. Thank you.
Thank y'all so much
for your delicious food.
We're gonna have a little chitty-chat
real quick, and we'll be back.
All righty!
After they tasted my dish,
Melissa did pick up
that my fire got away from me.
I can tell you, a lot of people
wouldn't be able to tell that.
She picked that right away.
It was humbling. I don't wanna
go home from this first challenge
because of how I season my food
just to please my palate.
If I make another challenge,
I'm cookin' for the judges.
For us, one dish really stood out.
Spoke of who you were,
the taste was on point,
and told us an amazin' story.
Today's best barbecue plate
was smoked by
Rasheed.
- All right!
Good job, buddy.
Good job, man. Good job.
You brought the flavor to the party.
Thank you so much.
Rasheed, I thought your dish
was just incredible.
For this to be your first time
involved in somethin' like this,
and you take a shot and do four proteins,
and knock 'em all out the park, pardner?
You trying to become OG overnight, man.
-You know?
It means the world.
It truly means the world.
-Congratulations.
- Thank you.
As much as we loved
all of your barbecue dishes today,
unfortunately, somebody's gotta go home.
Judges, who do you feel like
missed the mark?
Shotgun
and
Grubbs, we're sorry to say
we think you had a hard time
with the challenge today.
Grubb, Louisiana guy.
I love your spirit, man.
I respect that you had a heart attack,
but you seemed like
you was more one to cook for yourself
than to try to please us.
All right.
Shotgun,
for me, the flavor of those ribs,
that suet
I can't handle that
in competition barbecue.
I understand.
So, judges,
who is goin' home today?
Shotgun.
Your barbecue combo plate
was our least favorite dish.
It was a pleasure.
-Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.
I appreciate it.
I'm feeling pretty good about myself.
You know, this was a great experience.
I learned a lot.
-Give me some
-It was a pleasure, big dog.
I came here
wantin' to show the judges
a Shotgun barbecue style.
I just missed my mark.
Even though I'm leavin'
this barbecue competition tonight,
I'm still gonna go home
and get on the grill
and do what I gotta do
in my backyard.
Shotgun out, baby! Hulk smash!
-Shotgun!
- Shotgun!
Honor to meet you.
Honor to meet you and cook with you.
Honor to meet everybody.
On the next challenge,
it's a celebration
of the biggest barbecue day of the year,
4th of July.