Smells like a smokey spirit

KOCHI: For Steve Sebastian, smoked cooking is an art. The youngster, who is also a vocalist and a guitarist, is a fan of the slow cooking technique which can only be mastered with a lot of time, patience and practice. His online business ‘Smoke Culture by Steve’ is his vision to make the cooking style more common in Kochi. “Smoked cooking was largely popular in India. With time we have switched to other mediums. However, western countries still eat a lot of smoked food and use it as a technique to enhance taste in many recipes,” he says.

The 22-year-old single-handedly cooks Texas-style beef briskets, Kansas-style smoked chicken, Pulled pork, Neapolitan-inspired wood-fired pizza, and artisanal sausages. The smoked cuisines are notched up by Steve’s authentic sides like Coleslaw, Mac and Cheese, baked potato salad, British yellow cheddar and corn pudding. “I experiment with flavours from around the globe. It is amusing to see how well some unexpected combinations work out. One of the most widely-accepted sauces is the ‘Kochi city sauce’, where Kanthari (Tabasco pepper) is blended with some foreign ingredients,” he says.

Briskets
From the Barbeque and smoked meat menu, the most hyped dish is the Smoked Beef Brisket. Flavoured meat from the breast or lower chest of beef is cut out and cooked to form a brisket. Having a family-run meat business has turned out to be a boon for Steve. “The taste and flavour of Briskets depend on the quality of meat. It is a huge task to pick the right quality of beef as it varies from place to place,” says Steve.

According to Steve, the meat should be cooked at a low temperature for about 16 hours. At times, it can go up to even 20 hours. While it is being cooked red wine will also be added.“Briskets will turn out stiff and chewy otherwise, so we adopt slow cooking. Through this method, the collagen tissue which firmly connects the meat will break and form gelatin, giving the meat a right tenderness,” he adds.

The meat is kept in an offset smoker, where flavoured wood, preferably tamarind, imported apple, cherry-oak wood, mango, guava are used to enhance the brisket’s flavour. One has to spend most of the day in front of the machine to check if the meat is getting smoked properly. Steve claims he takes limited orders because it is tough to cook many briskets at a time. Even slicing is a meticulous process and if done wrongly, the meat can lose its texture.

Though the process is labour-intensive, the effort is worthwhile, Steve says. The smoky tender juicy briskets are seasoned with salt and pepper. The luscious dish is available in one pound and half-pound.
 Instagram @smokeculturebysteve