* HOST: If you like bold, in-your-face flavors and the intoxicating scent of wood smoke, you're going to love today's show.

Cured and smoked.

Hungry yet?

How about a new egg salad made with Japanese soy-cured eggs and hay-smoked Little Gem lettuce?

Sweet, salty, smoky, it's otherworldly.

Maple-cured and smoked bacon.

It's everything bacon should be and more.

And a Project Fire first, smoked corned beef.

It's salty like corned beef, but has a smoky flavor like brisket.

Today, it's cured and smoked.

From the Pearlstone Campus in Reisterstown, Maryland, I'm Steven Raichlen and this is Project Fire .

* ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following... * STEVEN: In humankind's long march to food security, two ancient preserving techniques have stood out over the millennia: curing and smoking.

The first involves preserving foods with salt, soy sauce, or sodium nitrite, ingredients that add flavor while they inhibit bacterial contamination.

The second technique involves blasting foods with flavorful clouds of woodsmoke.

This, too, retards spoilage, but even more importantly, both techniques impart distinctive and irresistible flavors.

Today, we're pushing the envelope with traditional curing and smoking.

[fire swooshes in] * The result is both familiar and otherworldly.

Get ready for an egg salad like, you've never experienced.

[fire swooshes in] When it comes to smoking and barbecue, we Americans think of hardwood.

Italians have devised an ingenious alternative method for smoking delicate foods with smoldering hay.

Get ready for an egg salad like, you've never experienced.

* First, the eggs.

I have eight peeled hard-boiled eggs.

I'll cure them in a mixture of soy sauce, for salt; mirin, sweet Japanese rice wine, for fragrance and sweetness; sugar, for additional sweetness.

Whisk these ingredients together until the sugar dissolves.

And finally, three coins of fresh ginger for spice, then add the eggs to the soy mixture.

Now, in the West, when we think of cured foods, it's meats like bacon and corned beef, but in Japan, they also cure eggs.

Ajitsuke tamago may sound exotic, but if you've eaten ramen, you've eaten these topaz-colored cured eggs.

Cure the eggs in the refrigerator for 12 hours, stirring occasionally, so the eggs cure evenly.

[fire swooshes in] And now, the salad dressing.

It starts with some of the egg marinade; then sesame oil, which will add a haunting nutty flavor; then rice vinegar, for acidity; a little sugar, for sweetness; and freshly grated lemon zest, for brightness.

Now, whisk the ingredients together.

* I'll take a taste.

Mmm!

Sweet, salty, nutty, citrusy.

That dressing is really interesting.

[fire swooshes in] Here are the eggs after 12 hours of curing.

You can see they've taken on this beautiful topaz, mahogany color.

Really pretty.

I'll cut each egg lengthwise in half.

Beautiful, right?

* Place the rack with the eggs over a pan of ice to keep the eggs cool during smoking.

And now for the really cool part.

I've set up the grill for indirect grilling.

The coals are in the side basket at the back of the grill.

Place the eggs in the front of the grill, as far away from the heat as possible.

Here's your hay for smoking.

Now, take a handful of hay, place it on the grate over the fire, then immediately cover the grill.

Make sure the vent hole is oriented toward the front; that way the smoke will be drawn over the eggs and out the vent.

It's a really interesting smoke flavor.

Lighter, more herbal than woodsmoke.

Reminds me of the smoked mozzarella, you get in central Italy.

In fact, that's where I discovered this technique.

[fire swooshes in] It's a quick smoke, three minutes or so, and you can see the eggs are nicely burnished with hay smoke.

Take the eggs off.

Place the lettuce over the ice.

A handful of hay over the fire.

Once, it starts smoking, cover the grill, again with the vent hole at the far end of the grill.

This will draw the hay smoke over the lettuce and out the grill.

Super quick smoking time.

You want the lettuce to stay cool and crisp.

And here's your smoked lettuce!

You can see the ends of the leaves are lightly browned with smoke.

* Let's put it together!

* Now, stir up the sesame dressing and drizzle it over the salad.

Then, sprinkle with shichimi togarashi, which is a Japanese pepper blend.

You could also use hot paprika.

And finally, thinly-sliced fresh chives.

And that, my friends, is an egg salad like you've probably never seen before!

* Let's see how it tastes.

So, I'll take a few lettuce leaves, and then I'll take an egg.

So first, the lettuce.

* Mmm, it's so interesting.

It's familiar, it crunches like lettuce, it has this delicate smoke flavor.

I love that sweet, salty soy dressing.

Now, the egg.

* Mmm...oh, man.

The cured egg is totally different than a hard-boiled egg.

Sweet salty, smoky, it's otherworldly.

Cured and smoked!

So that's how we roll with egg salad on Project Fire .

[fire swooshes in] So, let's just start with the right size, and let's make the size the size of the... We sometimes forget it's a food that someone had to cure and smoke.

[fire swooshes in] Bacon and eggs, BLT sandwiches!

Bacon is such a part of our culinary vernacular, sometimes we forget it's a food that someone had to cure and smoke.

And that someone is about to be you!

I give you maple sugar bacon, cured and smoked from scratch.

* This is a three-pound section of pork belly.

You can see the striations of meat and fat.

It comes from a heritage breed of pork called a "Mangalitsa."

It's raised on a small farm right here in Maryland.

Now, the curing mixture starts with equal parts coarse sea salt and maple sugar.

Maple sugar is a sweetener made from maple syrup.

Next, add freshly-ground black pepper, so we've got salty, sweet, and peppery.

And finally, pink curing salt, sometimes called "Prague Powder #1."

It's a curing salt made from sodium nitrite, which in large doses can be toxic.

That's why they color it pink, so you won't confuse it with table salt.

Curing salt gives bacon its rich, umami flavor and its characteristic pinkish, rosy color.

And I'll just mix the ingredients with my fingers, breaking up any lumps in the sugar.

A few years ago, there was some controversy about the safety of sodium nitrite.

Turns out it is completely safe.

In fact, it is found in many foods in nature, including celery.

You can leave it out, if you want to, but if you want your bacon to look and taste like bacon, you need it.

The next step is to paint the pork belly on all sides with maple syrup.

This will add an extra layer of flavor and help the cure adhere to the meat.

* Next, thickly sprinkle the bacon with the cure mixture, then brush the other side with maple syrup, then sprinkle the remaining cure over the top of the bacon.

Cure the bacon in the refrigerator for seven days, turning it twice a day.

[fire swooshes in] Fast-forward ten days, and here's your cured bacon.

There's a double process at work here.

You can see the salt has drawn out a lot of the liquid.

At the same time, you can see the sodium nitrite started to give it that characteristic reddish-pink color of bacon.

So, what you want to do is lift the bacon out of the cure, place it on a wire rack over a sheet pan, and let it air dry in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

[fire swooshes in] To smoke the bacon, I'm using a pellet grill.

Open the hopper and fuel it with maple wood pellets, in keeping with our maple theme.

* Latch the lid and open the smoke chamber.

Here's your bacon after two hours of drying in the refrigerator.

You can see the surface feels tacky.

That's perfect for grabbing the smoke.

Take the bacon to the grill, place it in the grill, close the lid, set the temperature for 250 degrees.

You're looking for an internal temperature of 155 degrees.

That'll take about three and a half to four hours.

[fire swooshes in] It's been four hours, and behold the bacon!

It's glistening, mahogany-colored, smoky.

It looks absolutely gorgeous.

We'll check the temperature.

We're looking for 155 degrees.

Bingo!

So now, transfer the bacon to a wire rack.

And theoretically you could eat it hot out of the smoker, but I like to let it chill, the meat firm up, and then slice it after it's cold.

[fire swooshes in] Here's the chilled bacon.

So, I'll slice it.

Oh, man!

Look at that.

Now that's bacon!

* It slices beautifully.

Then, transfer the bacon to a hot cast-iron skillet.

* You see that mouthwatering rosy color?

That's the result of the curing salt.

Just fry the bacon a couple of minutes per side, till it's crisp.

* Once, the bacon is crisp and brown on both sides, transfer it to a paper towel to drain.

To serve the bacon, a maple bacon biscuit and couple of slices of the maple sugar bacon, and why not a drizzle of maple syrup?

* Let's see how we did!

* Mmm, it's sweet, it's smoky, it's salty, it's crusty.

It's everything bacon should be and more.

Maple sugar bacon: because there's no substitute for curing and smoking it yourself!

[fire swooshes in] * Mary's rye rolls with Matt's starter!

[fire swooshes in] Corned beef starts as brisket you cure and boil.

Barbecued brisket spends half a day in the smoker.

I had the idea to bring them together in a dish you won't find in a deli or a barbecue joint.

It's a Project Fire first: smoked corned beef!

* This is a six-and-a-half pound piece of brisket flat.

Now, there are actually two muscles in a brisket: the fattier part, which is called "the point;" the lean part, which is called "the flat."

We're using the flat.

I've trimmed most of the fat off, leaving maybe a quarter of an inch.

So, how did corned beef get its name?

In olden times, large crystals of salt were called corns, just like we say a barley corn or a kernel.

The meat was salted and cured with these large crystals, and it became known as corned beef.

The next step is to make the brine.

The brine starts with boiling water, to which you will add two parts salt, one part brown sugar, and pink salt.

The curing salt is what gives corned beef its characteristic rosy pink color.

Next, comes the pickling spice.

It's a mixture of bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, coriander seed, black peppercorns, mustard seeds, and ground ginger.

Stir this mixture until the sugar dissolves.

Now, add ice water to the brine mixture.

This will cool it down.

And next, add Irish whiskey.

Corned beef seems to have originated in Ireland.

It's mentioned in a 12th century Irish poem.

Curiously, most of the Irish corned beef was destined for export to England and beyond.

Even today in Ireland, people rarely eat corned beef on St. Patrick's Day.

Pour the brine over the brisket.

You'll brine the brisket for 10 days in the refrigerator, turning it every day, so it brines on both sides.

[fire swooshes in] So here's a corned beef, I've been pickling for 10 days.

You can see the meat has shrunk considerably, as the salt has drawn some of the water out of the brisket.

Place it on a wire rack and rinse it with cold water to rinse off some of the excess salt.

In fact, if you have the time, place it in a pan of cold water and soak it for one hour.

To smoke the corned beef, I'm using a Kamado-style ceramic cooker.

I set it up for indirect grilling by placing a heat convector plate between the coals and the grill grate.

Place the brined brisket on the grill grate.

To monitor the internal temperature of the corned beef, I will insert the meat probe deep in the center.

To monitor the temperature of the cook chamber, clip this thermocouple to the grill grate.

Now lower the lid.

To dial in a precise temperature, I'm using an airflow controller.

I set the target temperature on my smartphone.

The controller lets in more air or less air to keep a precise temperature.

[fire swooshes in] It's been about four hours, and the internal temperature of the corned beef is 165 degrees.

My ultimate destination is 200 degrees, but I want to wrap the corned beef at this point.

Take out the probe, and take your corned beef.

Lay it on the foil.

The idea here is, we're going to wrap the corned beef in foil and do the last two hours of cooking in aluminum foil.

So, I'm folding over the edges of the foil to make a hermetic seal.

In barbecue circles, this would be known as the "Texas Crutch."

The idea here is, the last two hours of cooking, I actually want to steam the corned beef and not just barbecue it.

That steaming will tenderize the meat, make it juicy and succulent.

Now, place your corned beef back on the grill.

We'll smoke it for another two hours, looking for an ultimate target temperature of 200 degrees.

* Now, we're at six hours, internal temperature of 200 degrees.

So, take out the probe.

You could eat it now, I know you want to eat it right now, but it will be so much more tender and juicy, if you rest it in an insulated cooler for 1-2 hours, just like a brisket.

* This relaxes the meat and redistributes the juices.

Meanwhile, I'll show you the Project Fire take on cabbage, because corned beef and cabbage is a timeless combination.

To cook the cabbage, I'm using a method called "cavemanning."

I'll lay the cabbage quarters directly on the embers.

* Cooking time is about 30 minutes, turning the cabbage, so it chars evenly.

What's going to happen is the outside leaves will char, even burn.

They'll drive smoke to the center of the cabbage, so you'll be smoking and ember-roasting the cabbage at the same time.

Meanwhile, a sweet-and-sour sauce for the kick!

The sauce starts with melted butter, to which you will add equal parts honey, for sweetness; balsamic vinegar, for acidity; your favorite hot sauce, for heat; and salt and pepper.

Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook until thick and richly flavored.

Turn the cabbage every five minutes or so, so it darkens and cooks evenly.

* Once, the cabbage is charred on all sides, transfer it to a metal sheet pan.

It's very important you transfer to metal, not wood, because there may be little pieces of embers stuck on the bottom.

* This looks amazing, doesn't it?

So, place the cabbage in a serving dish.

* And there's your caveman cabbage!

Now, drizzle some of that sweet and sour sauce over the cabbage.

* Next, the corned beef.

Here it is after two hours of resting.

We'll just cut off this end, and look at that!

It's juicy, tender, and I love that pink color.

You know, you could almost think of this as corned beef pastrami.

Of course, the smoke aroma is just out of this world.

* Then, I'll transfer the corned beef to the platter with the cabbage.

We'll sprinkle a little fresh dill.

* Now, it's my turn.

Oh, yeah.

* And next, a rye roll made by Mary with Matt's starter, and finally some custard mustard made by Nora.

This was a team effort.

Everyone got involved with this one.

So, let's see how we did!

Take a piece of the corned beef, little of the mustard... Mmm!

It's salty like corned beef, but it has a smoky flavor like brisket.

Tender, juicy.

Now for the cabbage.

* That is really smoky.

Still crisp.

That fiery sweet and sour sauce, it goes great with the cabbage.

So that brings our show on curing and smoking to a close.

Thanks for watching!

See you next time!

For recipes and more live-fire cooking, visit stevenraichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Steven's book, "How to Grill Vegetables," and the classic, "Project Smoke," can be ordered online at stevenraichlen.com, or call this phone number for ordering and customer service.

ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire was made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following...

When it comes to smoking mar, barbecue, we... Ah, sorry.

Italians have desied... Desied...

The sweetness of the mirin... Sweetness... Let's try that again.

Whoops.

Hard-boiled eggs.

Whoops, sorry about that.

All right, let's try it again.

Close the lid.

Close it...

It's a lid?

It's more...yeah.

It's a lid.

Yeah.

There we go.

Whoops, sorry, that was hot.

That's why I let it go, so fast.

* *