Roast

Roasting time at 325°F: 2 hours for medium rare—internal temperature 125° to 130°F (about 15 minutes per pound).

Part of the fun of Nashville is the occasional encounter with the music community—Martina at the supermarket, Keith at the sushi bar, Kenny at the gym, Wynonna doing lunch, or Mr. Prine waiting in the school car line. Nashville is good about giving Grammy winners, hit songwriters, and all who keep the music playing plenty of space for living their regular lives. Over at Min’s, we enjoy the occasional drop-in visit by the Malo posse, the charming sons of velvet-voiced Raul Malo. We shoot the breeze about Dad’s latest album, fast cars, and food. No luck getting any Cuban secret family recipes, but the boys have kindly offered Dad’s autograph on our Mavericks and Raul Malo CDs. Listening to Raul gets us hungry for Cuban Fingers, Miami’s favorite crusty pressed sandwiches. We fill them with Ultimate Cheater Pork Loin, or sometimes leftover cheater brisket or beef round roast. Cuban bread is extra crisp on the outside and very tender on the inside, so it’s easy to flatten. Cut the sandwiches into neat fingers for parties.

We’re sweet onion junkies and whenever beef is on the grill, so are a pile of onion slices. At first, we just served them with Mexican fajita feasts, but then quickly found that their sweet, salty, smoky, soft, and crisp qualities turned plain old burgers into chopped steak and added richness and depth to all kinds of meats. Now that we’ve become cheaters, so have the onions. Charred in the oven, these smoky sweet onions are just what cheater brisket needs on the side. Days later diced leftover onions end up in all kinds of meals like a weekend fridge scramble, hash browns, baked beans, and green beans. Georgia’s Vidalia onions are a big thing in Tennessee, and we’re seeing more and more varieties of sweet onions from Texas and Washington. Take your pick, but any yellow or white onion will do the job.

R. B.’s childhood campout hobo packet memories have inspired many of our favorite side dishes. He’s put just about every vegetable combo imaginable in a foil packet on the grill. Without added water, vegetables steam in their own juices and roast beautifully over the direct high heat of the grill. Even better and easier than the grill is the even heat of a hot oven. If there were a hobo packet merit badge, R. B. would have definitely earned it.

A spirited family debate one holiday season over the merits of sweet versus white potatoes prompted this compromise—colorful root vegetables all coexisting nicely in one big happy roasting pan. Frozen pearl onions are easy to use right out of the bag and make the dish look extra fancy. You can cook the vegetables early in the day and stick them back in the oven to warm before dinner with whatever’s cooking. These are delicious sprinkled with smoked paprika.

Trout is a popular fish in a landlocked state like Tennessee. It’s fresh, easy, and quick to cook on a grill or in the oven. The presentation of a whole fish at home conjures up the rustic feel of a riverbank campout, and the burnt string used to lash together the lemon-and-dill-stuffed fish creates a real dinner-under-the-stars mood. Complete the faux angler’s mess with Oven Potatoes (page 167) and a green salad with your own smoked paprika vinaigrette.

The rump roast and the eye of round roast are two ornery beef cuts from the cow’s rear. They pack great beef flavor, but overcooked they are an embarrassingly tough chew. We prefer quick high-heat roasting to slow cooking so that the meat is just medium rare. Cut paper-thin, it makes excellent roast beef sandwiches. A mustard and dry rub paste turns good and crusty during the high-heat cooking. Allow the meat to sit tented under foil a good twenty minutes before you attempt any carving. An electric knife is ideal for thin slices that beg for a crisp sandwich roll.

Our friend Adele Franzblau doesn’t see herself as a cook, but she cooks for her family every night and even has her own family cheater brisket recipe. She got it years ago for her son’s bar mitzvah, when Adele’s mother-in-law, Nancy, in Pampa, Texas, suggested Aunt Pat’s Smoky Brisket. Adele says she doesn’t even measure. She sets the brisket on a big piece of foil and seasons it liberally with garlic salt, a half bottle of smoke, and about the same amount of Worcestershire sauce. The wrapped brisket marinates in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, the brisket goes into a 250°F oven to cook unattended all day. When she gets home, the house smells wonderful, dinner’s ready, and she’s a hero. Ultimate Cheater Brisket is similar, but with the added sweetness of a little onion and ketchup.

For years R. B. could not stop falling for the latest food magazine pitch for perfectly smoked, tender beef brisket. Finally, after a twelve-hour ordeal of tending the fire and at least six episodes of wrapping and unwrapping and mopping, Min led him from the patio and into the kitchen and showed him around. Since that breakthrough, brisket is what’s for dinner much more often. Whether you’re cooking indoors or out, the brisket’s best friend is heavy-duty aluminum foil to trap moist heat and smoke. R. B.’s reformed oven method for brisket is to wrap it once, tuck it in a warm oven, and go to bed. Who needs melatonin with the aroma of a brisket wafting through the house in the wee hours? Be prepared to wake up ravenous.

We call R. B.’s house the Cave. His pals love his Shangri-la of music, motorcycles, guitars, cold beer, and firewood, where caveman chitchat comfortably drifts into menswear sales, paint colors, and advances in toaster oven technology. Turkey drums fit the Cave scene with ease. All rubbed and sauced, Caveman Drums enable cavemen to maintain cavelike machismo while tiptoeing around the perimeter of their feelings. Bottled wing sauces are a cheater cinch, but, c’mon, be a man. Brush on a cheater interstate sauce (pages 38 to 43). You better have some stored in the fridge.