Smoke 'em if you got 'em

On the ever-growing list of locally owned dining places offering unique menus in Havre, add the deli at Gary& Leo's Fresh Foods, which installed a commercial-sized smoker and has become the go-to source for flavorful smoked ribs, chicken and special order meats.

"As part of our remodel – which the deli area finished in August of 2016 - we wanted to do ribs," deli manager John Malisani said. "We do a good job on (broasted and roasted) chicken, and we thought what's the logical thing that we can do that people need that we aren't duplicating something that's already done in town."

The natural gas-fueled smoker holds up to 400 pounds of meat, Malisani said, and, surprisingly, only needs one relatively small wedge of hickory to make enough smoke to leave a thick smoke ring on the meat.

Though the deli has filled some big orders for smoked meats, like the one for pork butts to make 200 pounds of pulled pork, and their smoked chicken sells consistently, it's the baby back ribs that are popular with customers.

"They're not the fall-off-the-bone type of ribs where you grab it and it falls apart. They're not meant to be," Malisani said. "They're a true smoked rib that's still holding onto the bone a bit. We've had great success with them."

At 7 a.m. each day, deli staff starts the prep work for the ribs so they'll be done by early afternoon.

The ribs are rinsed and the tough membrane is pulled off. This membrane is a layer of connective tissue on the underside of the ribs, like the girdle or spanx of membranes. Unlike other connective tissues, this membrane does not break down.

"If you don't do that the smoke won't penetrate, it won't get tender. You'll cook it, and yes, it will be cooked ... by definition," Malisani said. But the ribs won't be as tender or flavorful as they would otherwise.

The good news is that removing the membrane is easy.

Malisani said he uses the thick, rounded and smooth tip of a spoon handle and pushes that tip between the membrane and the meat at a rib bone. He then pries up on the membrane to loosen it enough to slip his fingers into the gap and grab hold of the membrane and pull it free of the ribs.

The ribs are rinsed one more time and then, importantly, patted dry so the dry rub spices will stick, he said.

The deli uses a combination of pre-mixed spices with a few touches of their own, he said. The ribs, up to 48 racks, are coated liberally with spice and between 8 and 9 a.m. placed on the pre-heated trays to cook at 230 degrees for four hours.

The whole chickens are added 30 minutes later so all the meat is done cooking at the same time.

Larger cuts and types of meat, such as the pork butts, turkeys and briskets, are cooked separately from the ribs and chicken. They can take 10 to 12 hours of cooking time because of their larger size and their need for a lower heat setting.

"Low and slow is the key," he said, to getting the meats saturated with smoke and cooked thoroughly in a way that breaks down the fibers and retains the moisture.

The wedge of hickory log used is a food-grade wood shipped in by the pallet load from Seattle, Malisani said. They chose this particular smoker because it didn't use compressed-wood pellets, some of which have additives to help them hold their shape. The hickory is a split log that has been heat treated to remove any pests, making it a good clean source of smoke, he said.

The smoker takes up a significant chunk of space in the deli, so it was part of the remodel plan from the beginning.

"We figured that now is the only time that we could do it," he said, adding that new store deli is easily twice the size of the old one and the smoker had to be incorporated into that design or it would never be retrofitted in.

Even with all the planning, the remodel work went like most remodels and they made adjustments as they went, he said with a laugh, including discovering well into the project that the smoker needed its own ventilation system to meet building code.

The smoked ribs are packaged and kept in a warmer. If any are left over, they are refrigerated and sold cold the next day, re-tagged at a discount. The cold ones seem to be popular for packing in lunches, Malisani said.

One year into the experience, he added, he usually has a pretty good handle on the days when the ribs are going to sell big, though he gets surprised on occasion.

For some reason they sold out of all their ribs on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he said, so had to cook extra the next day.

"I'm never brokenhearted about cooking extra," he said. "It will be put to use."