Smoking BBQ Badboy

What is SmokingBBQBadBoy?

Hi, I'm Jan-Erik Paul and I'm food obsessed. Some would say I'm a BBQ addict, BBQing at least twice a week. And on the suggestion of friends, Bournemouth may get its own American BBQ popup restaurant in the summer of 2023!

My obsession with offset BBQing and using Green Egg / Kamado BBQs reached peak fever in Spring 2023 with weekly BBQ sessions with my friends where I've served up:

• 16 hrs oak smoked beef brisket
• Arron Franklin recipe espresso BBQ sauce
• Applewood smoked baby back ribs
• St Agur & apple slaw brisket rolls
• Hot smoked brown sugar & salt cured salmon
• Smoked pulled pork with Jack Daniels BBQ sauce
• Rotisserie ginger & garlic leg of lamb flatbreads   

You get the idea - some seriously good BBQ action has been happening here for the past couple of years - and now, by request of my friends, I am thinking of opening to the public.

I love food & BBQing. But a truly excellent BBQ American style is not just about the protein, it's about the sides. And I've been crafting sides for decades, perfecting things like bacon & broccoli salad, curried lentil salad, macaroni salad & egg potato salad. And my bacon broccoli salad is rather famous here in Bournemouth.

The beasts of a BBQs I use:

MY HISTORY

I love food, And I spend a lot of time experimenting with food, cooking new recipes, finding amazing places for ingredients, watching cookery programs on TV, travelling the world trying new dishes & tasting the foods created by other chefs. But recently I've become highly focused on American style BBQ / smoking using offset smokers and Green Egg / Kamado BBQs.

My obsession started in the beginning using a cheap offset BBQ I bought for £50 before progressing to a cheap LIDL mini kamado egg BBQ ... but now I use a bespoke built large offset smoker which I've customised (and had to learn some welding skills to reach that goal) + a large egg BBQ & medium egg BBQ, all situated within a tropical outdoor kitchen area with lighting & electrics.

Add into the mix WIFI temperature control units, smoking woods / pellets (apple, oak, beech, olive, hickory), smoking tubes & rotisserie systems - all essential tools in trying to achieve that perfect beef brisket or smoked ribs or pulled pork shoulder.

Before 2023 - I worked on the art of preparation

There is definitely enjoyment to be had from the preparation, especially if you take the perspective of doing it artistically.

90% of the time, I ensure that all my ingredients are prepared & arranged to look good during the cooking process. And far to often, the raw ingredients can look better on a plate ready for cooking when compared to the final meal. Many dishes end up looking 'brown' (especially when doing stews & Middle Eastern dishes), which means they go into the virtual trashcan of my laptop.

Helping you 'see' amounts

I try to photograph the whole cooking process, each day, because as well as providing a really easy way for other cooks to see the rough amounts of different ingredients, it's nice to for people to see what I experience during the cooking process & creating my recipes.

Spices, herbs, vegetable - I try to keep all these ingredients on display in my kitchen as a reminder & inspiration for new dishes. When ingredients are sitting in the fridge it's too easy to forget about them & to create unnecessary food waste.

Food is not just about ingredients

Over the years, I have seen cooking become depersonalised. As people read recipes online or in books, those sources do not have a sense of history to them that recipes passed down in the oral traditional by family members or other chefs in kitchens.
I try into include relevant historical facts or core food chemistry as part of recipes, giving the recipes further meaning and value during the cooking process. Things like 'why does confit duck last so long without refrigeration' or 'how the American Civil War inspired the Sweet Potato Pie' ...

This goes back to the original philosophy of the Sexy Cooking website which provided more than foolproof recipes - it provided a discussion point for conversation whilst eating the food.

Other stuff

I do have an 'other' life apart from food - and I try to get out to try other chef's work on as regular a basis, so I do occasional review a meal at a restaurant in Dorset or London, maybe post something about a day kitesurfing or upload a photo from some travelling I've been doing.

Most of my travels are inspired by the search of good food and these are covered more consistently on my Instagram account.