Articles - naturalGAScooks
Smoke & Spice
and Everything Nice
By Pamela Steel
Getting that slow, southern flavour
At 120 seats, their Ottawa St. restaurant just wasn't big enough. So at the beginning of this year Ryan and Tina Odette took their smoking hot restaurant, Smoke & Spice, to a larger location on Tecumseh Rd. E. in Windsor.
Ryan is a classically-trained chef who
decided a few years ago to apply his talent and experience to
the art of the southern-style barbecue. With Tina, his wife, he
embarked on a journey to find the secret to the ultimate 'cue.
At the time the couple owned their first restaurant, Mamo
Bistro, but Ryan felt drawn to the smoke – a style of food he
had first embraced during time spent cooking in New Orleans.
"We're going to have two smokers," said Ryan just before the new location opened.
His smokers are natural gas-fired with a burner in the firebox that keeps the logs fuming.
"It almost looks like a flamethrower," he says. Once the smoker hits the desired temperature, usually around 225 F, the natural gas flame shuts off, but when the temperature drops, it ignites again.
"The wood isn't constantly being fired, but is burned and stopped and that creates the smoke," he says. Ryan finishes the smoked meat in a natural gas salamander or broiler.
Meats that lend themselves to this kind of slow gentle cooking are ribs, wings, pulled pork from the shoulder, chicken and beef brisket. And a house specialty is smoked baloney.
The new kitchen is totally equipped with natural gas appliances including a new double door steakhouse-style broiler Ryan says will allow him to heat the smoked meats without drying anything out.
The chef always chooses natural gas appliances. "It's immediate ... with electric you're always waiting for things to heat up. And the heat is constant, clean and fast. Medium is medium; the heat's not jumping around."
Ryan did his culinary training at Niagara College and spent his early years cooking under chefs he admired in New Orleans and Niagara-on-the-Lake.
"From my training the last thing you'd think I'd do is barbecue," he said. The tough economy in Windsor was part of the inspiration for the chef to embrace a more affordable style of cooking. "The economy got crazy and we stopped seeing a lot of our regular customers as frequently. It was time to change."
He remembered a comfortable place in New Orleans where the cooks would go after work.
"The guy was from Georgia and he made really good food ... not fancy but really good."
Just as he had done with classical cuisine, Ryan's first step was to seek out a chef to learn from and volunteer his time in a master's kitchen. "I sent out emails and letters to different pit masters in the south. One sent back a reply."
So Ryan and Tina packed up and worked with Pat Martin at his barbecue joint in Nolensville, Tenn. "He opened his door to us and showed us a lot of things ... about the history and traditions of barbecue. He sent us to places in Memphis and Nashville. We found out what everyone was doing and why people love barbecue so much."
The chef says it's all about the right amount of salt, spices and smoke. "And once you start eating it, it's hard to put down."
Ryan has a few tips for making lip smacking traditional southern barbecued ribs at home. "It's the opposite of cooking a steak," he said. "Take your time. Cook it low and slow over indirect heat, not directly on a heat source." And he says new natural gas barbecues are often equipped with a side deck to smoke meat.
"I have the luxury of the beautiful smoker at the restaurant. In lieu of that you could leave out the smoke, give the meat a good dry rub and cook it low and slow in the oven, then finish it on the grill with barbecue sauce."
And barbecuing has never been easier. With a "quick connect" natural gas hookup, you can easily enjoy intense barbecue flavour in your own back yard; once it's installed you can simply attach your barbecue with a hose. This means connection, disconnection and relocation are easy.
Napoleon Appliance's David Coulson knows about backyard barbecues and when the time came to install his own, he made sure he got natural gas. "I was tired of lugging propane tanks around and running out of fuel," he said.
And he says new natural gas barbecues are often equipped with a side deck to smoke meat. "I have the luxury of the beautiful smoker at the restaurant.
In lieu of that you could leave out the smoke, give the meat a good dry rub and cook it low and slow in the oven, then finish it on the grill with barbecue sauce."
And barbecuing has never been easier. With a "quick connect" natural gas hookup, you can easily enjoy intense barbecue flavour in your own back yard; once it's installed you can simply attach your barbecue with a hose.
This means connection, disconnection and
relocation are easy. Napoleon Appliance's David Coulson knows
about backyard barbecues and when the time came to install his
own, he made sure he got natural gas. "I was tired of lugging
propane tanks around and running out of fuel," he said.
