Cooking with 'Friends': Mike Huckabee's Favorite Potato Salad

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Cooking with 'Friends': Mike Huckabee's potato salad

Former Arkansas governor shares his favorite barbecue side dish

CREOLE POTATO SALAD
(as seen in Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse cookbook)

The Salad
2 lbs. red potatoes
4 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
½ c. minced red onion
1 c. diced celery
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. Creole seasoning
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. black pepper

The Dressing
1 c. mayonnaise
½ c. Creole mustard (preferably Zatarain’s) or spicy brown mustard
1 tsp. brown sugar

The Garnish
4 strips cooked bacon, crumbled (optional)

Instructions:
Drop the potatoes in a pot of well-salted boiling water. Cook until a fork pierces their tender flesh easily. Drain and cut the potatoes into 1-inch chunks, then throw them together in a large bowl with the eggs, onions, celery, garlic, Creole seasoning, salt and pepper. Make the dressing by whisking up the mayonnaise with the mustard and brown sugar. Pour over the potatoes and give everything a good stir. Taste for seasoning and add salt and Creole seasoning if it needs it. Crumble the bacon on top right before serving.

PORK BUTT
Ingredients:
1 (5-7 lbs.) bone-in pork butt

Pork Butt Seasoning:
Few teaspoons olive oil
½ c. soy sauce
2 tsp. Frank’s Hot Sauce
1 c. apple juice
Garlic powder to taste
1 tsp. Tony Cachere’s Cajun seasoning

BBQ Rub:
½ c. brown sugar
½ c. of Splenda for cooking (can use all brown sugar or Splenda as desired)
¼ c. black pepper
1½ tbsp. garlic powder
3 tbsp. onion powder
¼ c. salt
½ c. paprika
¼ c. accent

Instructions:
The night before, whisk together olive oil, soy sauce, Franks Hot Sauce, apple juice, garlic powder, and Tony Cachere’s Cajun seasoning. Using injector syringe, apply the seasoning deep into the meat throughout. Then a light coating of mustard on the butt before adding the rub and generously rubbing the outside with the rub mix. A commercial rub can be used, but I have my own rub recipe.
Cover the pork butt and place in refrigerator overnight. Ideally, the pork butt will cook for 10-12 hours, so this means for an evening meal, an EARLY start! I usually get the smoker going around 4am and set the meat out from fridge to get it room temperature before cooking.
The pork butt will be placed on middle rack of smoker at 225°F with fat side UP. Let it cook unwrapped for first for 8-9 hours; then take it out, wrap tightly in foil and put back in smoker for an additional 2-3 hours or until internal temperature is between 160-180°F, but not more than
200°F.
Remove from smoker, allow to rest for 15 minutes. Then using insulated gloves, remove the bone and pull the pork apart. You can use BBQ sauce, but before you do, taste it! This recipe is SO GOOD you may not want sauce!

SMOKED CORN ON COB
Instructions:
Soak as many ears of corn as desired in heavily salted water for at least 4 hours, ideally even more. Put them in an ice chest and cover with water and liberally sprinkle with salt (only time I’m EVER liberal!) with corn in shuck, do NOTHING but soak them!
An hour before pork is to be ready, simply remove the corn in shucks and place on lower rack of smoker under the pork butt. At 30 minutes turn
over. After an hour, remove and if not ready to eat immediately, place back in ice chest to keep them hot.
When ready to eat, simply pull back the shucks and either pull off completely or use the pulled back shucks as a ‘handle’ to hold while
eating.
Use salt, butter or other seasoning as desired, but I find the corn so juicy and already salted that I don’t use anything else on it. It’s THAT good!
Serve with the Creole Potato Salad and maybe some cole slaw, and have your family and friends begging for more!