Which brings us to what might be the last dish you’d expect to cook in a smoker, but a dessert so compelling, once you taste it, you’ll instantly add it to your repertory. And that, my friends, is cheesecake.
Smoked Cheesecake
I’ve often said that smoke is the umami of barbecue, making foods taste like themselves, only more so and better. You’ve probably eaten cheesecake a thousand times. But smoke it, and you’ll feel like you’re tasting this rich, silky, mostly sweet, but a little sour dessert for the very first time.
Cheesecakes have been made since the time of the ancient Greeks, but the deli-style cheesecake dates from the American 20th century. Cream cheese (as epitomized by Philadelphia) was invented in 1872. But it took a Jewish delicatessen owner named Arnold Reuben to whip it with sugar, lemon, and eggs and bake it on a graham cracker crust to make the dense creamy cheesecake for which New York is still famous today.
If Arnold Reuben sounds familiar to you, you’re probably thinking of another New York deli classic: the Reuben sandwich—a glorious combination of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing sandwiched between two slices of rye bread and toasted on a griddle. Yes, Mr. Reuben invented that one too. Click here for the Raichlen version, which uses pastrami instead of the traditional corned beef.
But back to cheesecake. You usually bake it in a water bath (pan of simmering water), which cooks the filling without causing it to crack or curdle. In other words, low, slow, and moist. Sounds like a session in a water smoker to me. The smoke gives the cheesecake a haunting flavor—familiar yet exotic. This may just be the most interesting cheesecake you’ll ever set fork to.
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