Santa Maria Style BBQ

Linguica is the perfect appetizer for a barbecue for two reasons. First, it cooks best when the fire is at an early stage, before the coals are ready for barbecuing main dishes like tri-tip and chicken. Second, it best served in small, bite size pieces, perfect with a glass of wine or IPA.

The goal of linguica is to get the skin a little bit charred and have the inside stay moist and juicy. If the fire is too hot, the sausage will burst and lose flavor. However, when the fire is relatively new and the flames are high, linguica is cooked perfectly in about 10 minutes.

Once done, cut into 1/2 inch chunks and squeeze a lemon on top of the pile. Your barbecue crowd will be happy and appetized for the main course.

Here’s an example of some I cooked today. I put them on too late, and wasn’t able to get the results I was looking for. Not enough flame to get the outside black, and a little dry inside. Lesson learned!

Nothing puts the damper on a Friday night BBQ like Lent.

Good bbq requires smoke. That’s why propane gas grills don’t work.

Creating a bed of oak coals takes some practice to master. Squirting some lighter fluid on a few logs and throwing a match in there will only create half-charred logs that burn out after a few minutes and don’t produce the heat and smoke necessary for good bbq.

I struggled with this for a few years, trying a combination of kindling, newspaper, and other small chunks of wood in an attempt to burn the larger oak logs into usable, glowing red coals.

Last year I discovered a solution that works really well. You’ll need a chimney-style charcoal starter, some newspaper, oak logs, and a way to get the logs to sit on top of the chimney. I put the logs on top of my grill, then the chimney down into the bbq pit, and light the charcoal from underneath with just couple of pieces of newspaper.

The heat generated from the charcoal briquettes does a great job of lighting the oak logs and getting them burning hot enough so that they won’t go out. I leave it in this position for about 45 minutes, and then use cast iron tongs to grab the burning logs and then throw them into the pit.

Let the logs burn for another 45 minutes or so in the pit and use a poker to knock the coals off of the logs as they burn. Once you have a good base of coals in the pit, throw on the tri-tip and you’re good to go.