Learning curve: Warren Small and family experimented their way to making good barbecue, pizza
Ethan Small gives the pizza dough a toss in the kitchen of his family's restaurant, Smulligan's, in Royal City. Ethan's dad Warren wanted to learn to cook good barbecue, and learning to make pizza was a side benefit.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald
Warren Small said he couldn't find good barbecue around Royal City, so he learned to make his own.
Ethan Small works the pizza dough in the kitchen at Smulligan's, the Small family restaurant in Royal City. Ethan's dad Warren said his original motivation was to learn to make good barbecue, and learning to make good pizza was an unexpected benefit.
Warren Small said originally he just wanted some good barbecue, and learned to make it himself.
Ethan Small prepares to toss a pizza crust at Smulligan's the Small family restaurant in Royal City. Learning to make pizza was an unexpected benefit of the quest by Ethan's dad Warren to make some good barbecue.
ROYAL CITY — Back in the beginning, Warren Small just wanted some good barbecue.
The pizza was a later innovation.
“Nobody had good barbecue,” he said. “I just liked barbecue and nothing was around here. I just started playing with it, and ruined a lot of meat at first.”
“Threw out a lot of meat,” said his wife Cynthia.
Well, the meat wasn’t ruined, really, but not up to the Small standard.
“I just didn’t know what I was doing,” he said.
It took a while to reach the standard that satisfied Warren Small.
“Ten years, probably,” he said. “In the beginning it (cooking barbecue) was once in a while, once every month.”
He tried different smokers, including one or two he built himself, using his skills as a fabricator.
The second was built on the lessons he learned with the first.
“As with anything, once you have one and understand what it’s not doing right, you need to build another one,” he said.
He switched to a commercial smoker for his catering business, and to supply Smulligan’s Pizza & BBQ, 112 Evergreen Ave. NW, his Royal City restaurant.
“I’ve been doing it for 15 years,” he said.
And what makes good barbecue, at least in Small’s experience, is temperature and how the meat is handled.
“Long, low and slow,” as in, a low temperature and long cooking times, he said. “And quality of meat, I guess. It’s mostly in how you prepare it. You’ve got to trim the brisket right, and season it.”
“Our pork and brisket, we typically smoke it 14 to 16 hours,” he added.
He started with wood, but cooking professionally now, he’s switched to wood pellets.
“You’ve got to understand your fire, and how much (fuel) to put in. Because you want to keep your temperature in the right – zone, I guess. With wood, it takes a lot more attention to keep it where you want it,” he said.
The commercial smoker makes controlling the temperature easier.
“It’ll run all night without me being here,” he said.
The menu at Smulligan’s features pulled pork and beef brisket, he said. After 15 years, he’s confident in his skills.
“I’ve got it pretty dialed in. I suppose if I’m doing other cuts of meat that I’m not used to, it might take a little time. But I pretty well know what I’m doing,” he said.
Opening Smulligan’s got him and his family into cooking pizza – their son Ethan really knows how to toss a pizza skin. Pizza toppings include some smoked pork and beef.
“The opportunity came to lease this restaurant, and the guy that owns it wanted to do pizza, so I learned how to do pizza,” Small said.
Learning included a trip to New York with the building’s owner to get a feel for that Big Apple taste.
“That took a little while too, but not years,” he said.
Small and his family make their own dough.
“It took a while to figure out the dough recipe, and the flour to use. We probably tried 10 or 12 different flours to find the one we wanted. There are some secrets there we’re not going to divulge,” Small said.
The sauce is made fresh also, and it is a combination of different tomatoes and spices.
Small said one of the keys to good cooking is experimentation.
“For me, usually whatever I do is not good enough, so I do it again. And again,” he said.
Cynthia Small said they had a few experimental get-togethers while they were getting the pizza down, where people tried the different combinations of dough, cheese and sauce to get just exactly what they wanted.
The Small family will open a new Smulligan’s in Moses Lake, across from the Paul Lauzier Athletic Complex on Central Drive, likely sometime this spring.
