making your own spice rubs for pork

Danny and I have both taken a lot of classes in our lives. He took Banquets and Buffets in culinary school. I suffered through Modalities of Literary Criticism in college. (Don’t ask.) We are both curious and passionate about learning. (And, to tell the truth, we’re both usually the kind of students who sit in the back of the class and pass notes. I did understand my students when I taught high school.)

But neither one of us has ever taken a class so useful as the spice-rub class we took with Chris Lilly at Kingsford University.

Chris, as we have written before, is a barbeque genius. In order to create great barbeque, you have to know flavors. This man knows flavors.

When we walked into the classroom, we saw four tables with salts, sugars, spices, and herbs laid before us. (It didn’t hurt that the classroom was a lovely open room at a vineyard, the French doors open, the sunlight streaming in.) Chris told us what a shame it is that people rely on pre-packaged spice mixes and rubs. If we’re lucky, every meal is different than the last. And one takes longer to cook than the next. Why would you want to spice each one the same?

Instead of thinking in terms of specific ingredients and proportions, Chris encouraged us to think about creating our own combinations from within the four stations. Each great spice rub needs:

– a mixture of sugar and salt

– some form of heat

– transitional spices

– signature flavors

Sugar and salt. There is brown sugar, white sugar, demerara sugar, muscovado, evaporated cane juice, and molasses, among others. Kosher salt, sea salt, iodized salt, pickling salt. Just making combinations of these could last all day. For a pork dry rub, a little more sugar to salt, but not so much that the meat will start to burn from the sugars.

Heat. I’ve never appreciated white pepper before. It smells a little like old pants to me. Somehow, I assumed it was like white chocolate — a pale imitation of the real thing. But Chris encouraged me to taste it on its own. Nothing, nothing, and then pow! Right at the back of the tongue. Oh! I see. White pepper brings heat at the last. Cayenne is immediate and black pepper is somewhere in the middle. So, if you want an even heat throughout your spice rub, try a pinch of cayenne, a little black pepper and some white pepper. He changed my mind forever about white pepper.

Transitional spices. With the salt and sugar, plus heat, the dry rub already has some good balance. But to bring body, we need more spices. Transitional spices like chili powder, cumin, and paprika give a heft to the spice rub that will carry through the cooking. (I really like smoked paprika, for a really memorable flavor.)

Signature flavors. Chris explained that if we mixed the first three groups together, we’d have a solid spice rub. But to bring our own signature taste to the meat, we needed to pick a flavor, or group of flavors, that would give our spice rub its individual flavor. For example, if we wanted to do an Asian-inspired pork ribs rub, we could mix star anise, ginger, and cinnamon. If we want Indian-flavored pork chops, we could mix turmeric and cardamom into our spice mix. And if we just followed the knowledge of our tongues, and the spices we like with the meat we wanted to cook, we could create something no one else has ever eaten.

Both Danny and I were blown away by this class. It’s the kind of tutelage we needed. And if you think about these four categories when you make your next rub for barbeque or braising, you could create some truly extraordinary pork dishes.

Our Spice Rub for Slow-Braised Pork Belly

1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons turbinado (or demerara) sugar
pinch cayenne
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fennel pollen (or ground fennel seeds)
1 tablespoon garlic powder (or granulated garlic)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 star anise, ground into powder
1 teaspoon thyme, fine-chopped

Combine all the ingredients.

You have a spice rub.