Search My Account Order Status View Cart Checkout Contact Us Our Blog Shop Online Dine In Menu Carry Out Menu Catering Directions Hours About Us Home Cooking Tips Food For Thought News Bar-B-Q and More Recipes, Cooking Tips, & Food For Thought 0 Food museum honors Moonlite by admin on April 30, 2015 News The cleaver and butcher knife that Hugh “Pappy” Bosley used to cut up an estimated 250,000 mutton carcasses at his Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn over a 40-year period are now enshrined in a permanent exhibit in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans along with a menu from 1963-65. Moonlite is the only Kentucky restaurant featured in the museum’s new “Trail of Smoke and Fire” exhibit on Southern barbecue. Patrick Bosley, spokesman for the family-owned restaurant at 2840 W. Parrish Ave., said the National Barbecue Association told him about SoFAB’s planned exhibit and suggested that he contact the museum. “They thought we represented Kentucky barbecue,” he said of the association. “We had to figure out what we had that could go into the exhibit.” Photo submitted This 1963-65 menu from Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn is featured in a permanent exhibit at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Moonlite is the only Kentucky restaurant featured on the museum’s new “Trail of Smoke and Fire” exhibit on Southern barbecue. As it turned out, the restaurant already had the perfect exhibit ready. “When Pappy died (in 2003), he left Benny (Hugh Benjamin Bosley Jr.) his cleaver and butcher knife,” Patrick Bosley said. “Before Benny died (in 2013), he gave them to me to do something with. We were thinking about a display case in the lobby. But this seemed like the ideal place for them.” The items are on permanent loan to the museum. Hugh “Pappy” Bosley would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Dec. 1, 2014. Patrick Bosley, his youngest grandson, said the exhibit also features a menu from the family’s first years of operating the restaurant. Mutton and pork sandwiches were 40 cents each. A chopped mutton or pork plate was $1. And the most expensive meal on the menu was a $2 combination barbecue plate. Burgoo was 30 cents. There was no buffet. “This was an opportunity to capture Pappy’s legacy,” Patrick Bosley said. On April 17, the family flew to New Orleans for the museum’s reopening gala. It had opened on June 7, 2008, at the Riverwalk Marketplace in New Orleans. But after six years, the museum began moving to its own building at 1504 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. “It’s a nice showroom of Southern food and beverage,” Bosley said. “They have a studio kitchen where celebrity chefs come in to cook and talk. It’s something we’re proud to be a part of. There are a lot of good people behind it.” The museum is more than exhibits, he said. It also serves meals and drinks that draw people in. Bosley said his family wants its part of the exhibit to tell the story of Kentucky barbecue and burgoo. Hugh Bosley was working two jobs, at Fleischman Distillery and Veteran Cab Co., until a layoff from the distillery in 1963 forced him and his wife, Catherine, to look at other opportunities. The couple — with no restaurant or cooking experience — sold their home and used the $5,000 profit as a down payment on the $50,000 purchase of a 14-year-old barbecue joint with 30 seats, including stools at the counter. He was 48. She was 42. And they had five children. In the early days, Catherine Bosley waited tables while her husband barbecued meat outside. At Hugh Bosley’s death, the restaurant seated 350, served more than 350,000 meals a year and had annual sales estimated at more than $5 million. It served meals to such people as President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former second lady Marilyn Quayle, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, Jim Nabors, Bill Monroe, Pam Tillis, William Shatner, Kevin Costner, Reba McIntyre and Emmylou Harris. That’s the legacy that those few items in the new exhibit represent. By Keith Lawrence 3 What is Mutton? by admin on January 28, 2012 Cooking Tips, Food For Thought BBQ Meats: What is Mutton? In other parts of the country, most people haven’t even tried mutton. They think it’s tougher and gamier than lamb, so they’ve never been introduced to the glory that is barbecued mutton. Here in Kentucky, of course, we know better. Mutton is simply mature sheep, much the way veal is young cow and beef is mature cow. The idea that mutton is “old” sheep is one of the reasons it gets a bad rap, so let’s clear that up right now: there are definitely sheep that are far too old to be tasty, just as there are cows that are far too old to be tasty. Mutton is sheep that is just old enough to be really, really tasty. We call it “lamb” if it’s less than 12 months old, and “mutton” from 1 year to 5 years. Here at Moonlite, we buy about 2-year-old female ‘ewes’ (sheep) that have just the right maturity to have a rich, meaty taste that’s more satisfying than lamb. There’s an old joke that veal is for people who can’t handle the taste of real beef; we’re of the same mind when it comes to lamb vs. mutton. Mutton is one of the best-tasting meats around, and there’s nothing like a good barbeque to bring it out. 0 What is Beef Brisket? by admin on January 28, 2012 Cooking Tips, Food For Thought BBQ Meats: What is Beef Brisket? Brisket is one of the toughest cuts of meat, which makes it perfect for barbecuing. On a cow, the brisket lies over the sternum, ribs, and the connecting cartilage. When cows lie down, they’re resting most of their body weight on this cut, which makes it extremely tough and full of connective tissues (rather than fat, which is more flavorful). So what makes it such a great barbecue cut? The slow cooking process means the meat has plenty of time to become tender. All the connective tissue would normally make this an almost inedible cut of meat if you were to cook it like a steak, but when you barbecue, all the collagen fibers in the brisket break down slowly, lubricating all the muscle fibers and making the whole cut remarkably tender and delicious. Brisket is usually cooked for longer than other meats to give the connective tissue plenty of time to break down and become tender. Some people like to leave the fat cap attached to the brisket to keep it from over-drying, while others prefer basting, but most of the tenderness of this particular cut comes from the connective tissue, which means that compromising on the length of time it spends cooking isn’t really an option. How to Find a Good Beef Brisket You’re looking for a whole, untrimmed brisket that includes the flat, the point, and plenty of fat. A brisket that comes this way is sometimes called a “packer”. Just like with all meat, you’re looking for a nice dark pink color with no grey edges. If your only option has some grey in it, be sure to trim it all off before cooking. The fat cap should be about 1/3-1/4 of an inch thick, and it should be white, not yellow (yellow indicates that the brisket has been frozen and thawed, which is not good for flavor). Some stores won’t have a “packer” – you’re most likely to find a brisket that’s just the flat cut, which is to say the leaner and thinner cut of the brisket. It’s also called the “first cut”. The point cut is thicker and has more internal fat, and many stores don’t carry it simply because it looks too fatty, and isn’t as popular. When it comes to brisket, though, more fat is a good thing – it’ll keep the meat moist. Barbecuing Beef Brisket Brisket is often prepared in a slow cooker or simmered in the oven, but we’re here to talk barbecue. Barbecued brisket should be slow smoked on low coals for half a day – it won’t get done fast, but it’s well worth the wait. Try it with our original BBQ sauce for the best combination of perfectly tender meat and delicious sweet sauce. Of course, if you’d rather trust to the experts for a perfect beef brisket, you can always order a whole one from our store and let us do all the work for you! 0 What is Boston Butt? by admin on January 27, 2012 Cooking Tips, Food For Thought BBQ Meats: What is Boston Butt? If you’re just starting out in your barbecue career, Boston butt is one of the best choices you can make for an impressive cut of meat that tastes amazing and is easy to manage on the grill. It’s cut from the hog’s shoulder (if you’re looking at a hog wondering what on earth could be called its “shoulders”, we’re talking about the front of the leg). The Boston butt comes from the top half of the shoulder, and it’s perfect for pulled-pork sandwiches. Boston butt is good for beginners because it’s very hard to go so far astray that you can’t save it. For one thing, it has a high fat content, which means if you accidentally cook on too low or too high a temperature, you won’t completely destroy the tenderness of the meat. It won’t dry out easily and it also won’t burn easily. If you’ve been in the South for any period of time, you’ll know that Boston butt is a Southern tradition that’s often sold at fundraisers or given as a housewarming gift to new neighbors. Where does the name “Boston butt” come from? Barbecue used to be broken down by the best cuts of meat, which went to the wealthiest people, and the less valued cuts of meat, which went to the poor folks. That’s where we get the expression “eating high on the hog”. Interesting fact: many of the cuts of meat that were considered “low” on the hog are now considered the most delicious cuts for barbecue – like Boston butt. The low-valued cuts were packed into “butts”, or barrels. The folks in Boston used to cut their shoulders in a certain way that became the common way to cut up a hog, and we now call it “Boston butt”. How to Find a Good Boston Butt With a Boston Butt, you’re looking for most of the fat to be already trimmed. Once you get it home, you want to trim the fat to about 1/8 of an inch, so if you can get the store to do the work for you, you can save yourself a little time and trouble. You’re looking for fresh meat, of course, and you’ll generally get the best results from a local butcher when it comes to Boston butt. Remember that you’ll be cooking a Boston butt for quite awhile. Often your butcher will sell them standard at 7-10 pounds, but that size can take anywhere from 12-14 hours to cook. Your best internal temperature should be about 190 degrees for a Boston butt, which can take quite awhile to achieve, so if you’re not prepared to devote a day to the project, you’ll want to find a smaller cut. In our store, we sell a 3-lb Boston butt that takes much less time. Barbecuing Boston Butt A full-on recipe for barbecuing Boston butt is a subject for a whole new post, but here are a few tips to start you out: you’ll want the connective tissue and fat to break down while you smoke, so you’re looking for an internal temperature of 190. Usually Boston butt will “plateau” at around the half-way cooking mark, which means it will stop rising in temperature and hold steady at 160 degrees or so. This is completely normal and it will start rising again, so don’t try to increase the heat or you’ll burn your meat. Expect to cook for about 2 hours per pound of meat. A good way to tell if your Boston butt has been cooked all the way through is if the bone pulls out easily. If you struggle to get the bone out or if meat is still clinging to it, you’ll want to let it cook longer. After all, a pulled pork sandwich doesn’t work very well without pork tender enough to pull apart, does it? 0 What are 2-¾ Fryer Chickens? by admin on January 27, 2012 Cooking Tips, Food For Thought BBQ Meats: What are 2-¾ Fryer Chickens? Fryer chickens, sometimes called broiler chickens, don’t have to be fried – or broiled, for that matter. This might shock you, but we actually recommend barbecuing them. A fryer chicken is any chicken between 7-13 weeks old. That’s young for a chicken, which means fryer chickens are especially tender and juicy. They barbecue more easily without getting tough, and the meat falls off the bone just the way it should. Generally, fryer chickens weigh between 1-½ and 4 pounds, but we personally recommend 2-¾ fryer chickens for barbecuing. That’s just the right size to let the smoking process do its work without risking the meat drying out. Search Site Search Blog RSS Twitter Mail The blog! Our blog is under construction -- feel free to use it while we work Guestbook All Jason: Mutton was excellent on Thursday thank you Ron Hiott: Didn,t like mutton till I ate yours! Love it now. admin: This it! our new guestbook and website...There is a little more work to do, but we couldn't wait for you to see it...so stayed tuned [...] » Please sign our book. Categories Cooking Tips Food For Thought News Learn About Us Get Help Join In Find It About Us FAQs Read Our Blog Site Map Jobs Contact Us Review Our Products XML Site Map Media Kit Get The E-newsletter Search Sign Our Guestbook Copyright © 1996-2009. Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn., Inc. All rights reserved.