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Business & Tech

Igniting the Fire: Tasting Tuesdays at Q

La Grange restaurant presents smokin' new dishes for National Barbecue Month, and shares some tips of the trade.

Whether it’s the neighborhood pit master or a local restauranteur, Americans are looking forward to the season of warm weather barbecuing after a long winter.

The Louisville-based National Barbecue Association designates May as National Barbecue Month. Restaurants such as La Grange’s join in the celebration by firing up some special dishes this month.

Michael LaPidus, the eatery’s owner and Brookfield resident, will be presenting free Tasting Tuesdays this month where customers can come in to sample various meats throughout the day. 

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“What makes us unique is that we’re very authentic in our smoking process,” LaPidus said. “We smoke our meats up to 22 hours and we use a dry rub which is a secret blend of spices. We also have sauces from four different regions. We don’t load your meat with sauce; we let you do it.”

Customers can choose a vinegary Carolina version, a sweet Memphis flavor, a spicy Texas number and a Carolina mustard containing 16 different spices. From his travels around the country, LaPidus explained how each region caters to a specific meat.

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“The Carolinas are basically a pork region,” he said. “Texas is home to the beef brisket and sausage. Memphis does baby back pork ribs and chicken. I traveled all the barbecue regions and brought the best here to downtown La Grange. We’re doing sliced and chopped brisket, for example, which this region hasn’t had. That’s our most popular selling item.”

Along with customer faves of beef brisket and chicken wings that are brined, smoked, rubbed with spices, fried and rubbed again, the menu has a new item. The Papa Q Platter is an assembly of meats: chopped beef brisket, pulled chicken and pork, smoked pork, wings and beef sausage, ribs, hush puppies and sides. 

While the restaurant offers prepackaged meats that can be cooked on the grill, LaPidus gave some home smoking tips.

“The key to barbecuing is to cook items really slow and to have low heat,” he said. “Be patient and take your time in cooking the meat. The definition of barbecue is putting a meat over fire and burning it. What we do here is we have our smoker at a certain temperature and the meat is being cooked by the smoke of the heat not by fire.”

He refers to this cooking method as indirect grilling, where piles of charcoal are placed on the sides of the grill. To create a smoker in the grill, he advises to place special wood boxes and water in the grill’s corners, put the meat in the middle and keep a low temperature. He said while the charcoal would be continually burning at a high temperature, the wood burns off and has to be replaced often.

“The wood is giving you low heat and the flavor of a hardwood,” he said. “We use hickory and applewood here. The wood adds the smoke from the hickory and the apple provides a sweet flavor.”

Cooks need to keep in mind the meats’ target internal temperatures. Chicken is done at 165 degrees while pork is at 180 degrees. 

“While you want to make sure that you’re constantly checking temperatures, you have to allow that meat to smoke, so keep the lid shut,” he said. 

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