Brisket the centerpiece of a backyard barbecue for 4th of July

By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer

The upcoming holiday weekend is an ideal time to fire up the backyard barbecue and invite friends and neighbors over for an old-fashioned Fourth of July feast.

No matter what you decide to feature on your holiday menu, just about anything cooked on the Weber (OK, cooking-with-gas is included, too) tastes better than if it was prepared on the kitchen stove.

Because we’re all looking for more bang for the buck in these rocky economic times, saving a few dollars on the main course allows us to spend a little more for something else — like lipsmacking wine, a mini-keg, a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious dessert, or, maybe a new pair of shoes for the sixth-grader.

We turned to Jesse Wall, chef and grillmeister extraordinaire at downtown Napa’s Bounty Hunter — the popular wine emporium and casual dining establishment — to help us put together the main course for your backyard barbecue.

Wall likes to slow cook a whole beef brisket for the crowd dropping into Bounty Hunter, as well as for his own backyard gatherings.

“A whole brisket usually weighs between 8 and 10 pounds, so if you order a whole one, the total cost will be less than ground beef — around $3 a pound,” Wall noted.

The byword for brisket, the chef hastily pointed out, is “slow and low. You need to cook it for about eight hours. If you start in the morning, you can be done by 5 that afternoon. Get yourself a 12-pack and enjoy the day ... it’s a great excuse to pop open a beer at 8 in the morning,” he added with a sly smile.

The reason for the low temperature method, said the savvy chef, is that slow cooking “will melt the connective tissue (in this cheaper cut of meat) and ensure that it’s nice and tender.”

Chef Wall’s suggestion is that you should cook brisket at about 220 degrees, a temperature you can control in either gas or charcoal grill with a little knowhow.

He’s sharing his recipe, plus a special rub, with Register readers today, just in time for holiday meal planning. In addition, he’s giving us a foolproof recipe for a mighty tasty potato salad.

The chef suggests you dial up Wine Country Meats (located at 1060 Kaiser Road) or Five Dot Ranch (in the Oxbow Public Market) to place an order for a whole brisket.

Wall serves his smoked brisket in a sandwich at Mark Pope’s popular First and Main Street Bounty Hunter, plated with potato salad and a piquant slaw.

The Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and Smokin’ BBQ menu also features Smoked St. Louis Ribs, a Smokin’ BBQ Platter, a whole Beer Can Chicken and a giant Cowboy Steak for both in-house dining or takeout. Pulled pork sandwiches are also a staple of the busy Bounty Hunter kitchen, along with Shredded BBQ Chicken with Chipotle BBQ Sauce.

If you don’t feel up to doing a brisket this weekend, chef Wall and his crew will gladly prepare pork, beef brisket and chicken for your gathering, sold by the pound ($15-18).

Wall has been cooking for Bounty Hunter enophiles and cowboys for nearly three years now. He’s been in food service for nearly a decade. He launched his culinary career after serving as a refueling mechanic at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, N.M.

“When I got out of the service, I had to decide if I wanted to move to a big city in order to work at an airport, or just shift gears,” Wall revealed. “So I decided to give cooking a try. I worked a couple of places in New Mexico and my chef felt I could benefit from some formal training. So I went to culinary school in Pasadena.”

Wall spent his internship at Hurley’s Restaurant and Bar in Yountville and stayed on to work with chef/owner Bob Hurley. After three years at Hurley’s, Ken Frank hired him on as meat chef at La Toque, a job that he enjoyed for a few years before joining the Bounty Hunter team.

His wife, Sarah, is also in the hospitality industry. She’s a member of the waitstaff at Cuvée in Napa. The Walls have a seven-year-old daughter, Milana.

For information about both food and wine offered at Bounty Hunter, call 226-3976 or log online at www.BountyHunterWinebar.com.

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