Sunday, February 11, 2007

Spice Rub Confusion


Christmas of 2005 I made a bounty of homemade goodies as gifts, of which Brilliant Daughter not only helped, but designed special labels for each item. There was the 2 versions of limoncello made with my very own Meyer lemons; herbed olives from a recipe I garnered at Michael Mina’s Nob Hill restaurant in Vegas; Sweet & Spicy Pecans; Garlic & Rosemary Almonds; Poultry Rub; and Barbeque Rub.


All of these items garnered rave reviews, but the Barbeque Rub seemed to hog the glory, and people still rave about it. In fact, Son the Butcher gave some to his best friend’s sister’s boyfriend, and he can’t get enough. So Son asked if I would make some more to share. I thought it would be no problem, until I went to dig out the recipe and found, to my horror, 4 different rub recipes for barbecue meat in my files. And I could not, for the life of me, discern which was the recipe that had made it to the top of the hit parade. What’s a cook to do?

You guessed it, I made all 4. I made a jar for testing in-house and 4 little baggies to send over to the friend’s sister’s boyfriend to compare with what he has and to act as second tester. Of course, it isn’t barbeque weather, not even here in California, so we may have to wait awhile to get the results. But in the interim, if you feel a bit creative one day, and don’t want to cook up a messy batch of something, you might try out these rubs…and then give me your feedback on which you like the best.



Rub #1
2T cumin
2 T paprika
2 T granulated garlic
2 T granulated onion
2 T chili powder
2 T brown sugar
4 T kosher salt
2 t cayenne pepper
2 t black pepper
2 t white pepper

Rub #2
4 T brown sugar
4 t paprika
2 t dry mustard
2 t black pepper
2 t salt
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 t ground cuin
¼ t cayenne pepper

Rub #3
¼ c paprika
3 T chili powder
2 ½ T dry mustard
2 T coarse kosher salt
2 T sugar
2 T ground cumin
2 T granulated garlic
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T ground black pepper

Rub #4
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup paprika
1/3 cup garlic salt
2 T onion salt
2 T chili powder
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T black pepper
1 1/2 t dried oregano
1 1/2 t white pepper
1 t dried cumin

HINT: If you go to a big box store like Costco, you can buy the herbs, spices, peppers, etc. in larger quantities, making this more economical for gift giving and large batches.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the best idea! I always make salt or oatmeal scrubs for my girl friends at Xmas time, but I never know what to make for the men in my life... and here's my answer.

Thanks, Mrs. B!

Mrs. B said...

Well hey have certainly gotten the thumbs up. Althoughwhich one got the thumbs up, I am still unsure. Son's friend says 1 or 3, but when I made the 4 versions, #4 seemed familiar. Go figure!

Ellen said...

Isn't this why we blog? Truly, I started mine to record what I did because I'd go back later, like you, and couldn't remember which recipe I'd ended up using of the 3-4-5 I found.