As Labor Day weekend approaches, urban meat lovers are faced with a conundrum: How do you whip up an appropriately smoky barbecue feast if you’re stuck in town?
While even the most ardent, inventive, Brooklyn-dwelling DIY-er might assume that you need a backyard and a huge outdoor smoker — or, in the very least, a well-ventilated suburban kitchen and a hulking electric appliance — to smoke your own meat, this is just not true.
There are a number of reasonably sized — and priced — gadgets that can be used in tiny NYC kitchens to impart a wonderfully rich, smoky flavor on brisket and ribs. When used properly, urban home chefs won’t even set off the smoke alarm — or the neighbors.
My fiancée, Jane, and I recently tested three gadgets currently on the market, using a recipe for Korean-style smoked beef on a bun from Richard Langer’s cookbook “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Flavor.” Here are the results. (A word of warning: Don’t try all three at once. While our apartment didn’t smell for decades, as one smoker publicist warned us, it did smell for two days.)
mgross@nypost.com
CAMERON’S MINI-STOVETOP SMOKER
HOW IT WORKS: The wood chips (included) go in the bottom of the smoker, beneath a drip pan and a rack for meat. A cover goes over the entire apparatus, and it all goes on the stove.
PROS: All the smoky flavor you could ask for and great texture to boot. The beef came out slightly dry and chewy but not tough, looking (and tasting) almost like spare ribs.
CONS: Cleanup is tough and the pan only fits a small piece of meat (though a bigger smoker is available). Be sure to cover the drip pan with foil, or you’ll have to soak it overnight to get the meat drippings off. Also, timing is key; it’s easy to overcook your meat.
RANKING: First. It was fairly easy to use, and the finished product tasted like something that has been smoking for hours in the great outdoors.
Available at target.com, cameronsmoker.com and Zabar’s (2245 Broadway); about $30.
THE SMOKING GUN BY POLYSCIENCE
HOW IT WORKS: You cook your meat however you see fit (we sauteed it) then put it in any closed container (we used a casserole dish with a lid). Then squeeze the end of the gun’s rubber tube into the container, load wood chips into the gun and light them. Smoke billows in; keep it in there for a minute or two, and you’re done.
PROS: You can impart a definite smoky flavor to practically anything you can think of — cheese, butter, veggies. We even tried smoking popcorn, and it turned out to be the best microwave popcorn we’d ever had. It’s also a fun gadget for impressing your dinner guests.
CONS: The smoky flavor wasn’t as strong as with Cameron’s gadget. Also, be careful with your chip choice. Two types are included: hickory and applewood. Jane thought the latter gave the meat a slightly chemical taste, but it grew on her as we kept eating.
RANKING: Second. You definitely get that smoky taste, and we probably would have gotten more of it had we let it go longer.
Available at cuisinetechnology.com and Williams-Sonoma; $99.95, with two sample jars of wood chips included.
EMERIL’S SMOKER BAG
HOW IT WORKS: The Emeril Lagasse-endorsed aluminium-foil smoker bag comes ready to go with a built-in layer of alder or hickory wood chips. All you do is pop your meat in, seal it and put it in the oven or on the grill (if you actually have outdoor space).
PROS: It’s dead easy. The single-use bag cooked our beef quickly and thoroughly, and we just tossed it in the recycling bin afterward. As its great Cajun endorser would say, “BAM!”
CONS: A big, wonderful hit of hickory when we first opened the bag to put the meat in left us expecting great things, but the cooked meat had little-to-no smoky flavor. The bag’s disposable nature makes cleanup a breeze, but the cost would add up for heavy smokers.
RANKING: Third. The smoky flavor was almost entirely absent.
Available at emerilstore.com and cameronsmoker.com; $12.50 for a pack of three, $19.95 for five.