Mmmm… Black Pepper.  Or Maybe Not So Much…

I recently experimented with a dry rub on some boneless pork chops and it came out amazing.  The only problem was the chops were upwards of an inch thick and hard to get cooked, so I’d have been better to butterfly them.  I cooked three, and Deb could only eat half of one, they were that big.  Four like them are in the freezer, awaiting my next experiment.

I forget exactly what I used, but I believe it included, with brown sugar for a base/carrier, red pepper, dry mustard, garlic, ginger, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, and onion powder.  I put a little cilantro in the butter I put in the pan, but all else was in the rub.  I did them in a non-stick pan, and ended up propping the self-basting cast iron cover over them in an effort to help them cook faster.  The drips from that seemed to make it come out better.  They tasted like barbecue.  That is, my rub cooked into them and tasted like a slightly spicy, tomato-based barbecue sauce, despite there being nothing tomato in there.  I meant to blog it right after, when I still remembered what I did.  Deb also hasn’t blogged about her black bean triumph I raved about.

Anyway, that led me to look for chicken rub recipes on the idea I might do something different wth last night’s chick.  I came across this tropical poultry rub recipe and was intrigued.

Yes!  We had an orange in the fridge.

Since I wasn’t doing a whole chicken or wanting to make the stuff for future reference, I needed to cut the components some.  Oh boy, did I get all disproportionate…

I had probably a tablespoon and a half or orange zest.  I used over a tablespoon of brown sugar, and most of a tablespoon of ginger.  Not having cloves, I broke out the pumpkin pie spice and used about 3/8 teaspoon of that.

For some reason, I used just about a whole tablespoon of black paper.  It may be, looking back, that I was thinking that called for two and I was cutting it the way I did the other stuff.  Now, you don’t think of black pepper as strong, right?  People who don’t eat spices will sprinkle pepper on some of their food.

So.  It’s a keeper, in principle.  We cannot wait for me to experiment again and get the proportions ideal.  However is was the spiciest thing I have ever made!  I drank two glasses of milk and ate most of it with rice on the same fork.  Deb got acclimated, but wasn’t sure she could finish it, at first.  Sadie, who’d already eaten one meal, was horrified.  Valerie loved it, though she didn’t get much of the outside.

It also may have mattered how I cooked it.  They were large breasts, so to use cast iron like I wanted, I cut them into chunks as I usually do, and just used less olive oil than usual.  Still, the oil and the pan make a difference as to how the flavors spread and penetrate.

Anyway, the basic concept, with something like the proportions in the original recipe, is fantastic.  To the degree that the orange and so forth came through along with and even as an after taste to the pepper, it was wonderful.  Who knew.  It’ll be nice to have the alternative to my usual variations centered on varying proportions sage, savory, rosemary, thyme, red pepper and garlic.

Posted by on 09/14 at 11:29 AM

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