Dr. Pepper Rub

1/4 c sugar
1/3 c salt
1 T granulated garlic
1 T granulated onion

1/2 t coriander seed
1 t celery seed
1 1/2 t fennel seed
1 1/2 t cumin seed

2 T black peppercorns
1 t cayenne pepper
1 t aleppo pepper
1 t cascabel pepper
2 t ancho pepper
2 t guajillo pepper

Fresh grind the seeds and peppers. Enjoy!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Steve Petrone,

AHHH AHHH AAHHHHHH CHHHHHH00000000!

Looks good. What types of meat do you use it on?

Rusty, I like cumin with beef. Fennel with pork. Celery and coriander I just like. You can customize as you like or just see if this works for you as is. If I were to target one meat type, I might choose either coriander or celery and add fennel if cooking pork or cumin for beef.
As for the peppers, I am using some of the layers of flavor suggested by Kevin. Certainly you do not have to use 6 different kinds of pepper. I added chipotle because I made some from peppers I had grown. The guajillo and cascabel are new to me...I am learning with these.

Since there was another question about how to make a rub, I laid this recipe out so you could think about it in groups of ingredients. One can adjust within each group. In the chili peppers the heat levels vary so adjust accordingly.

Chicken and pork work well with this one. Just mild to med heat. My favorite so far.

Back to my old friend, Dr. Pepper Rub. Doing a big load of butts tonight. Fresh roasting peppers and mixing up a batch with a few mod.

Cut coriander to 1/2 teaspoon
Increase fennel and cumin to 1 1/2 teaspoons
Sub aleppo for chipotle

Can't wait for some hot out of the cooler pulled pork.

Quick question Steve. What is the best way to grind the peppers and seeds?

Bob

I have an old Braun electric coffee bean grinder that's become a dedicated chile grinder. It works well. I usally try to remove most of the seeds but it will grind them up quite well if they happen in there.

The seeds are not hot of themselves, if they are hot it's because they came in contact with the hot stuff.

Bob-I do as Shawn suggests. The $20 coffee grinder gets a lot of use grinding spices in my home.

Recipe edit: changing recipe to reflect my latest tweak.

Great, thanks.

Bob

quote:

I laid this recipe out so you could think about it in groups of ingredients.

I just started doing this. I think its a good way to organize a rub. I'll make blends of groups of similar ingredients and then blend the blends.

I'm pleased to hear others grouping ingredients in a recipe. For those who do not always have a fully stocked spice supply, it gives us an obvious sub. For instance is out of one of the peppers, just add more of another no big deal. Same goes for the aromatics-don't have corriander, then add a little more celery seed.

Another advantage is the ease of manipulating a rub into your own. If you prefer an aromatic spice not in the rub you might just sub what you prefer for one of the listed spices.

I am pretty simple minded about these things and I do like to encourage others to make their own from scratch. Every now and then you may produce a gem.

Let us know what you come up with.

After reading Kirk's instructions on rub building, I tended to be reluctant about going wild with my number of rub ingredients. However, I thought about it and figured: how does just adding one dried herb (i.e. oregano) differ from making a custom blend of oregano, thyme, marjoram, and bay? Each herb on its own is mix of various flavor compounds, and some are common in the other herbs. By blending, I feel I'm creating a custom herb to my taste, creating infinite possibilities for say just the herb element of my rub and not merely limiting me to a list of herbs to pick from.

As you mentioned, the same can be done for blending chile, pepper, savory spices (cumin, coriander, celery, etc), sweet spices (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc).

I recently created a rub I initially dubbed the "4x4." I stared by making four blends each with four similar ingredients, like the herb example above, and then blended the final four. I am really excited about the result.

Even, Kirk says, "Break the rules." You are quite right about an herb or spice being a mix of flavors. So yes you can blend quite a few.

Kevin introduced me to Raz el Hanout sp? After a lot of 'development', I had what I thought was a very tasty rub. Well, I tossed the rules out and added some Raz- just a small amount. Wow! That blend of umteen many spices just kicked in a whole new level of flavor. So try what you like and enjoy the blending.

I just thought I'd update this thread with one new thing. Spice grinders.....

The magic bullet is perfect. I can grind a full batch (2.5 cups come with it), no worries about single purpose items, and it can go in the dishwasher (at least mine does). You can grind them together or you have enough cups to grind each separate (or make more than one rub).

quote:

The magic bullet is perfect.

a similar set up can be achieved with a blender and a canning jar.

be careful grinding clove. the oils in it will discolor the plastic jars.