Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons (21 page)

INGREDIENT FINDER: DRIED CITRUS PEEL

 

Granulated or dried orange peel isn’t as common as, say, rosemary, but many grocery stores carry it, as do specialty stores and online spice shops like Penzeys, The Spice House, or Kalustyan’s.

Or, you can make it. Use a vegetable peeler to remove strips of the very top orange layer of skin from the fruit. Trim away any white pith on the back of the peel. Lay the strips skin-side down on a plate and let them dry out at room temperature for three to four days, until the peel is shriveled and totally dry. If you’re in a hurry, you can dry the orange peel in the oven: Preheat the oven to 200°F. Lay the fresh orange peel on a baking sheet and set it in the oven. Lower the oven temperature to 125°F or its lowest setting. Dry in the oven until there is no moisture left in the peel, about four hours.

RULES
OF
THE RUB

 

• Always taste the rub before you apply it to meat. If it’s too heavy on spice or salt, bulk up the most neutral seasoning in the blend (probably the paprika), to balance the flavor.

• Apply rubs up to one hour before the meat goes on the cooker. Rubs stick to the surface of meat; they don’t sink in. Therefore, there is no need to “marinate” a piece of meat in rub overnight. Too much salt in a rub can pull moisture out of thinner cuts of meat and cause them to dry out during the cook. It’s important to make sure the rub adheres to the meat, either by using a mustard coating or by moistening the rub with oil or another liquid to make a wet rub.

• Don’t put sugar in your rub. You read that right. I don’t like sweet barbecue as a general principle, but sugar particularly has no place in a beginner’s rub because too many things can go wrong with it. Sugar becomes tacky at 300°F and acts like flypaper—making soot and ash from the charcoal stick to the meat. And sugar starts to burn at 340°F. Although the ideal low and slow temperature is well below 300°F, it’s not uncommon for the temperature in a cooker to spike, particularly when you’re still honing your technique. If you like a sweeter barbecue, save the sugar for the sauce or glaze you paint on the meat at the end of the cook.

BABY BACK RIB MARINADES

 

POTENT RUBS ARE THE CLASSIC WAY TO ACHIEVE FLAVORFUL CRUSTS
on ribs in American low and slow, but I also love the unique flavor of Asian barbecue, which comes from marinating the ribs. When ribs soak for several hours in a marinade, the acid and salt in the marinade break down the surface of the meat and the marinade works its way into the interior of the meat—unlike rubs, which rest on the surface of the meat. This is why, when you marinate ribs, it’s important to remove the thin membrane (page 125) that covers the bones. Ribs with the membrane on will not absorb as much flavor.

 

WSM AND OFFSET

 

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS

 

 

2 Asian pears, peeled, cored, and grated
1 cup soy sauce
½ cup brown sugar
⅓cup sake or dry sherry
¼ cup Asian sesame oil
12 garlic cloves (6 cloves minced,
6 cloves thinly sliced)
8 green onions, chopped, reserve 2 tablespoons
4 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds,
reserve 2 tablespoons
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

KETTLE

 

MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP

 

 

1 Asian pear, peeled, cored, and grated
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup brown sugar
2½ tablespoons sake or dry sherry
2 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
6 garlic cloves (3 cloves minced,
3 cloves thinly sliced)
4 green onions, chopped, reserve 1 tablespoon
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds,
reserve 1 tablespoon
1 (½-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

WSM AND OFFSET

 

MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS

 

 

15 garlic cloves, minced
1 (5-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
½ cup Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
½ cup hoisin sauce
½ cup sugar
⅓ cup
nam pla
(Thai fish sauce)
⅓cup soy sauce
⅓ cup Asian sesame oil
2 teaspoons five-spice powder
4 star anise seeds, crushed

KETTLE

 

MAKES ABOUT 1½ CUPS

 

 

7 garlic cloves, minced
1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
¼ cup Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
¼ cup hoisin sauce
¼ cup sugar
⅓ cup nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
2½ tablespoons soy sauce
2½ tablespoons Asian sesame oil
1 teaspoon five spice powder
2 star anise seeds, crushed

INGREDIENT FINDER: SHAOXING WINE

 

The “drunken” in popular dishes like “drunken shrimp,” Shaoxing (a.k.a. “Shao hsing”) is one of the most famous Chinese fermented rice wines. Buy the good stuff—in an Asian market, either the most expensive “cooking” Shaoxing on the shelf or the type sold for drinking. Or substitute dry sherry.

THE SAUCE PHILOSOPHY: IT’S A CONDIMENT, NOT A SIDE DISH

 

I THINK OF BARBECUE SAUCE AS THE POOR MAN’S
(or in this case, cook’s) cover-up. If you have to rely on secret award-winning sauces to make your ribs taste good, it’s probably because your ribs need a strong sauce to make up for your lack of barbecue savvy. Or, giving you the benefit of the doubt, the ribs taste just fine on their own, and you simply don’t know any better than to overuse the sauce. It never ceases to amaze me when I see people who have devoted hours upon hours to buying, prepping, and cooking a rack of ribs drown all of their efforts in a sugar, mustard, ketchup, or vinegar sauce that completely overwhelms the delicious, smoky flavor of the meat. This is why I’m a fan of the Tart Wash (page 115). The simple cranberry and olive oil blend adds a hint of moisture and color and the faintest of flavors without detracting from the overall flavor of the smoked meat.

If you’re going to get serious about barbecue, you need to start thinking of sauce as a simple condiment. It should be an ethereally light coating that gives your barbecue an easy twang and a whack of color. It should be served in a small, squeezeable condiment bottle—not ladled out of a bubbling cauldron or spackled onto every rack that leaves your cooker. If sauce is dripping down your wrists while you munch on a rib, you have to ask yourself: what am I trying to hide? As you learn more about low and slow and begin to refine your techniques and recipes, you’ll make better and better barbecue and use less and less sauce.

It’s not that I don’t like a good sauce. I do. I’m only trying to teach you what it takes most barbecue fanatics years to figure out: until you get a handle on the clean-burning fire and the perfectly cooked meat, sauce is secondary. Then again, while you’re learning the techniques of low and slow, a killer sauce can be the barbecue equivalent of a wing man: a reliable tool that can keep your dinner from crashing and burning. These are a few of my favorites.