Oak Cliff’s own Reaves brothers of State Fair of Texas-food fame demonstrate how to make fried Reese’s peanut-butter cups and their recipe for Fried Bacon Burger Dog on a Stick in this new video.
The latter was a contestant in the 2016 Big Texas Choice Awards. The Reaveses reveal that grocery-store flour tortillas are the way to go for frying candy or making a mock empanada filled with fruit or sweet potatoes.
Their dad, John Reaves, was the second Black concessionaire at the fair, and they are the second-generation owners of Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que & Home Cooking.
Their most famous fair concoction is the highly instagrammable but also delectable Big Red Chicken Bread.
The Reaves brothers, who grew up in Oak Cliff and graduated from Bishop Dunne Catholic School, have appeared on Food Network many times, competing in one-off competitions, including Guy’s Grocery Games. TV producers love them, and they’ve kicked around the idea of having their own show several times, but they told us in a recent interview, that the right project just hasn’t come along.
For now, they reach their customers on Facebook Live. By the way, they just announced “Turkey Leg Tuesday,” in honor of fair season, starting today.
They say in the demo video that their favorite indulgences from the fair are the cinnamon roll and the Scrumptious Pie Shake, which is a piece of pie blended into a milkshake.
The host of “Big Tex Cooking School,” Jennifer Schuder, who is the fair’s senior vice president of marketing, mentions that her favorite non-fried fair food is Hans Mueller’s ham sandwich, which comes on a pretzel bun. And Juan Reaves says he orders the dumplings from Sakhuu Thai’s fried stuffed chicken wings booth.
