[Music]
So for me, getting into barbecue was something that came very late in my culinary career, and it
was just a way to reconnect with cooking and one of the things when I started to learn
about how to make barbecue, was how to make rubs. For me starting off in a French kitchen I think
my idea of a rub back then, and I didn't call it a rub, was just salt and pepper. So I kind of
came up with this. I coined this phrase "the stereotypical expected flavors of barbecue"
and so what those mean is there's the meat... I always want the meat to be the star. I want the [trails off]...
We're going to make ribs today, and I want you to be able to taste that pork
and taste that delicious meat, and then I want the smoke, and the sauce, and the seasoning to be
supporting backdrop flavors, but I don't want it to be too assertive. I don't want it to overtake
the flavor of the meat itself, so we need to use really fresh spices. This is coriander and
you can smell it: it's very floral! Cumin, coriander, peppercorns... I will grind those fresh. And in the
commercial setting, you might think of that as a lot of work, you know? Do you want to put that
much labor into it? But I think if we're going to make our signature flavors, having really fresh
bold spices, versus faded flat seasonings. I think it makes a difference. As I started, you know,
learning how you begin to make a rub or a seasoning blend, most of them always start
with salt. So maybe just come in with a couple tablespoons of kosher salt and then we can come in
with sweetness. I like a lot of rubs that don't have any sugars in them at all. Today we're
doing ribs so let's say we're going to bring in a little sweetness. Do you want it slightly salty or
do you want it slightly sweet? It becomes this balance. Let's just say we're gonna do
one tablespoon of sugar, then it comes into spices. I've got some fresh cracked black pepper here,
so we'll come in with a couple teaspoons of fresh cracked black pepper. My wife's
not a big fan of garlic, so I think I'm going to go smaller.
We'll come in with some granulated garlic. We could come in with some granulated onion. I'm
a bigger fan of granulated garlic and granulated onion versus onion powder and garlic powder. If you
look at Texas barbecue, they'll have coarse ground black pepper on that brisket or that beef rib, and
it's just got a nice textural crunch, and so when it comes to granulated onion and granulated garlic
I like the flavor better but I also like the mouth feel. So this is some smoked paprika here: it's got,
you know, better flavor than the non-smoked paprika. It's going to bring in a really nice
color that we're going to put on these pork ribs. Do about one and a half teaspoons. Something that
I think everybody every operator should really pay attention to when they're making a spice rub
is when you go to use it, some of these spices will really clump up on you. Cayenne pepper will clump
up, paprika will clump up on you. So just shake it up really well. Load it into this little
tea bag here. If we just tap it, you see how it just flutters out like that. Here's another thing that
I learned about making rubs and it was really interesting to me. I learned that when I made
rubs, if these flavors kind of co-mingled for a period of time, versus just right now making
this rub and going right to the pork, it's not as good as if I let that rub just kind of hang out.
All those spices and ingredients hang for, you know, a few days. I will vacuum seal spices and that
really helps a lot. Anyways, we're going to let that kind of hang out a little bit. We're going to get
us some pork ribs and trim them up and season them up and get them on the smoker. All right!