State Fair!!

My Favorite day of the year. The first 80 degrees, barefoot on the deck with a freshly cleaned, scrubbed and shiny grill beckoning me. Yep, it's opening day of barbecue season, complete.

For the first night we did Wisconsin State Fair Brats. Legit bratwursts simmered for about a half an hour in the cheapest-ass beer you can find,* a stick of butter, and a sliced onion. Then grilled for about 5-6 minutes till it's just sweating like it's laying on a Spanish Beach in mid-summer, then tonged onto a fresh baked then toasted roll which has melted butter and Midwestern Swedish mustard and some of those onions from the simmer.

* I prefer a 40oz Miller Genuine Draft from the back reaches of deep storage at the local KwickyMart, but my partner in Brat crimes is an Old Milwaukee fan.  Your mileage may vary, just keep to the cheapest beer you can find. save the craft beer for drinking, not cooking.


This is what summertime at the State Fair tastes like, and it will be the main offering along with some homemade coleslaw on my food truck.



Actual instructs:

1. Bring a pot of cheap-ass beer to a simmer
2. Add one onion, sliced
3. One stick of butter
4. Brats (Real bratwurst from a butcher, not corp-clone mystery meat sausage, not turkey/mango/kale sausage -  Bratwurst(s).  If you've no butcher shop handy, Johnson's from Wisconsin will do.

Keep at a low simmer for 20-30 minutes while you enjoy a few sips of a real beer and enjoy your bare feet striking the warm deck (Yay, it's Summer!!)

Fire up your grill to around 500 degrees and tong* them onto the grill
let them sit for about three minutes, then flip them. 

*Don't even think about or even look at a fork, you don't want to pierce those babies and let any of the juice fly free -  not until the first bite.

At this point you, if you're doing things correctly, 




You should have a small pack of dogs staring at you, pleadingly and pretending to be polite and patient.  

After the first flop, take some fresh rolls  (sourdough are great, but then, I'm a California boy and partial) and brush them with melted butter and a mustard of your choice.  I recommend LARS brand Swedish whole grain mustard if you can find it or any German hot mustard.  Place those on a less hot area of your grill and toast them for 2-3 minutes.  Watch them like a hawk, you want toasted, not a burnt offering.


Done and done.  Tong the now grill-marked and glazed looking Brats onto  a roll and top with more mustard and some of the onions from the simmer.  Eat em hot with a real beer.

Again, if you've done things correctly you should get a nice splat of juice right in the forehead, like I did just now, at first bite.  

Welcome, Summer, we missed you.