Review: Pride of Szeged Rib Rub

I can not remember a time in my life when the word "paprika" was not virtually synonymous in my kitchen with the tall red-and-white tins, imported from Hungary, containing Pride of Szeged brand paprika. Both my mother and Maryanne's always had a tin of it in the kitchen - in the refrigerator door in case it "spoiled" before it could all be used - and when we got married, we kept up the tradition. Well, not the part about the refrigerator. There's never any question of our paprika going stale - we use it up far too quickly to worry about that.

Over the years, the Pride of Szeged brand has expanded to include other products, all of which are seemingly packaged in the same sort of traditional tall spice tin (for while other companies, including those in the US, have long since turned to cheap plastic bottles, Pride of Szeged continues to use lithographed spice tins with pretty much the same graphic design that they've always had.) There are rubs for beef, pork, chicken, and fish, as well as something they call "Pisa," which is a pretty damn delightful oregano-heavy Italian seasoning.

Yesterday, I found myself with three racks of ribs and no rub to season them with. Worse, I was short a few ingredients in the pantry, so I couldn't just make up a batch from scratch. Maryanne, Lynnafred, and I headed out to the supermarket to pick up what we needed, but those plans were immediately abandoned when we passed down the spice aisle and found a full selection of Pride of Szeged, including Rib Rub. The ingredients looked good and simple (Salt, Paprika, Garlic, Mustard, Sugar, Spices) and although I couldn't bust a tin open and give it a sniff, my lifelong reliance on Pride of Szeged as the House Paprika helped me decide to give it a try.

I rubbed each rack of ribs generously with the spice blend and let it sit for about an hour as I got the smokehouse preheated and ready. When the box had heated up to about 250 F and the smoke generator was pumping out a good stream of hickory smoke, I put the ribs in for the long, slow cooking time that would turn them into tender delicacies. It took about three hours.

I was very happy with the results. The Pride of Szeged Rib Rub is flavorful and enhances the pork without covering up the flavor - a nice mustard flavor, not too spicy despite the paprika, and not too sweet despite the sugar. At first taste, it does seem to be a bit heavy on the salt, but after an application of good barbecue sauce and some crisping time on a hot grill, the saltiness also blends into the overall flavor and comes into balance.

It's fairly economical as well. The five-ounce tin I bought was more than enough to liberally coat all three full racks of ribs with enough left over to do a couple more, for a little less than four dollars. I'm saving the rest to mix with some Bell's poultry seasoning and apply to a bone-in pork loin roast. I bet it will be awesome.

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Review: Oregon Dan's Original BBQ Sauce, Hawaiian Style

I enjoy a good barbecue sauce. There's nothing like chicken or pork, cooked slowly over coals and finished off with a tasty, tangy sauce.

I'm picky about the sauces I buy. For one thing, I won't even consider a sauce if it's made with high fructose corn syrup. Read the labels sometimes - you won't believe how many BBQ sauces have HFCS as their first ingredient (which means that they're often little more than tomato-flavored corn syrup.) And I'm not really interested in sauces that are basically ketchup, worcestershire sauce and brown sugar. I can make a better sauce than that at home - I want something interesting and, hopefully, unusual. And finally, I tend to pass up sauces that have "smoke flavoring" added. I'm cooking over wood already. I'll put my own smoke flavoring in, with real smoke.

Anyway, I don't remember where I was when I found Oregon Dan's Original Hawaiian Style BBQ Sauce, but when I read the label it seemed like something I might like. Real sugar, tomato sauce, pineapple juice, some vinegar, some spices...it just sounded good.  

Unfortunately, it really didn't live up to its promise. For one thing, it was as sweet as candy, and the tang of the vinegar didn't do much to moderate that. Since Oregon Dan is adding pineapple juice to the sauce, he maybe should have cut down on the sugar a little and let the pineapple do the work.

On top of that, the sauce was thin, almost watery.  When I make barbecued chicken (as shown above) I pile the coals in the center of the grill and arrange the chicken in a ring around it. It lets the coals perform their magic slowly even with the higher heat, and the chicken just takes its own sweet time cooking, slowly building up a delicious smokey flavor and crisp-but-not-charred skin. Then, just before the meat is fully cooked, I dress the pieces with barbecue sauce and begin turning them and basting them, letting the sauce thicken and caramelize as it faces the fire. The result is usually perfect barbecued chicken.

But Oregon Dan's sauce was so runny that it drooled right off the chicken as soon as I could apply it. It splattered wetly onto the coals below and started putting them out. I was very disappointed.

If I ever find Oregon Dan's sauce again, I won't be buying the Hawaiian Style. Maybe there are other flavors that are better balanced. Or thicker. This variety is off my list.

Review: Burger King's Memphis BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich

Burger King has taken a little break from slavishly copying McDonald's McCafe beverages to introduce several new BBQ specialties, one of which is the Memphis BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich.  I stopped in to the local BK yesterday to give it a try.

Here's what it looks like in the advertising:

Photo by Burger King

And here's what it looks like in real life:

Now, I've acknowledged before that comparing real fast food to advertising-agency-styled fast food is a cheap shot, but trust me - this sandwich is so completely disgusting that the way it looks is only the beginning of how shitty it is.

There was no meaty pile of pulled pork on a crusty split-top bun. It was a small - significantly smaller than the diameter of the bread - knot of crappy, low-quality meat on a squishy oversized burger bun.  Even though I actually looked at the contents of the sandwich when I took this picture, I still mustered up the courage to take a bite.

The pork was drenched in cheap, sticky BBQ sauce that tasted mostly of corn syrup and artificial smoke and it was the texture of shredded flannel. And worst of all, the entire interior was completely smothered in mayonnaise. So not only did the sandwich look like someone took a dump on a hamburger bun, it tasted like an overly-sweetened old washcloth sopped in slime.

For the first time in the history of Dave's Cupboard, I was unable to stomach so much as a single bite of a review subject. This heinous wet lump of filth was so horrendous that my first and only bite was instantly interrupted by my gag reflex and I spit the gnarly bolus back at the cardboard clamshell in which it was served.

On the other hand, the sweet potato shoestring fries that I got as a side were pretty good. So the visit wasn't a total loss.