Dairy Free

This classic ingredient comes in handy. Double or triple the recipe and keep some in the fridge at all times for seasonin’ bread, sauce, or your best friend.

Makin’ your own stock is a bit time-consuming, but the reward is in the depth of flavor it brings to any dish. There’s nothing hard about the preparation, and it makes your house smell delicious.

Homemade stock is the foundation of all truly great soups and stews. Not everyone has the time to make it, but if you do you’ll find it really makes a difference in your cooking.

This is the lusty cousin of our All-Purpose Red Rub (see page 167). It’ll make whatever you rub it into earthy, spicy, and complex. But don’t use it only on meat destined for barbecue; sprinkle it on anything you’re grillin’, including veggies. Mix it into bread crumbs before coating food, or stir it into a casserole. It’s a great flavor-boostin’ agent.

Just like the name says, this is the basis—the true mother of all the sauces we have in this book. It is a balanced blend of sweet, savory, spicy, and smoky flavors that acts as our leapin’ off point for creating a world of barbecue sensations. It can even stand alone as a traditional slatherin’ sauce for ribs and chicken. Now being the shameless promoter that I am, I gotta inform you that there’s a fine line of Dinosaur barbecue sauces. So if you don’t feel like jerkin’ around cookin’ the Mutha Sauce, just check out Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Sensuous Slathering Sauce (page 174).

Rubbin’ spices into meat is the essential first step of great barbecue. This is a good starter rub, but feel free to personalize it. Add some of your favorite herbs or pulverized dried smoked chiles. Just make sure you keep the sweet, savory, and spicy flavors in balance.

To mop or not to mop, that is the question. There seem to be two schools of thought about moppin’ ribs while they’re cookin’. Personally, I think that if the ribs look dry and thirsty you should mop ‘em. Mop sauce should never contain sugars that would burn before the ribs are cooked through. A good mop sauce is based on the spicy flavors of the rub.

For years I carted cases of this citrus-flavored Cuban marinade back from Miami, til we started making it in the restaurant. The real thing is all tarted up with the juice of bitter oranges—nearly impossible to find. So we add a touch of lime juice to freshly squeezed orange juice to give it the right kick. It’s one of the most versatile pantry ingredients you can make. Use it as a marinade for pork and chicken, pour it over cooked veggies or potatoes, or toss it with salad greens.

This is the ultimate “anything goes” dish. All you need is some sausage and any kind of raw or cooked meat you might have on hand. We use a tasty mix of sausage, chicken, pulled pork, and ham. The only thing you can’t skip are the chicken livers. That’s what makes Dirty Rice dirty and gives it its deep, rich flavor. We’ve been servin’ it every Wednesday as a featured side, and we’ve found that Central New Yorkers really appreciate this frugal New Orleans specialty. It’s also good as a stuffing for Cornish hens, pork chops, or turkey.

Here’s a stew that comes and goes on our menu, rotating with a couple of other meat stews. It’s lighter than the others and is simmered with ten different vegetables. It’s healthy food for your meat-lovin’ soul.

Back in the early days of the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, I made a pilgrimage to New Orleans, and it seemed natural to bring some of the wonders of the Big Easy back up north. The thing that really grabbed me was jambalaya, a dish with infinite possibilities. There’s no one recipe for jambalaya because its whole reason for bein’ is to let the cook get personal and real creative with the bits of meat or fish hangin’ around in the fridge. You can give it your personal touch any way the spirit moves you. Try makin’ it with other veggies, throwin’ in some shellfish, messin’ with the seasoning—this is your chance to be a link in the evolution of one truly great leftover dish.

I was eating at my favorite deli in the world—the Second Avenue Deli in New York City—when the pickle tray came out and inspiration hit. Why were we buyin’ pickles when we could make our own to go with our sandwiches? So we came up with our own brand of Garlic Dill Pickles spiced up with slices of fresh jalapeño peppers. They’re appetizing and guaranteed to get your taste buds tinglin’. Folks are always asking us to bottle ‘em, but til we do you can make up your own batch. Keep ‘em in a crock with a tight-fittin’ lid in the fridge. They keep for weeks and weeks.

Mean Money Greens are one of our special daily sides. We make ‘em in the good old Southern manner—boiled with salt pork for hours til they melt in your mouth. Realizin’ that this technique might not fit the time constraints of the modern cook, we’ve revisited this dish and can now give you an updated, healthier version that preserves most of the B vitamins found in collards and brings out their natural peppery flavor.

This recipe from our Rochester restaurant brings together the lively flavors of fresh garlic and ginger. It makes for a refreshin’ salad that goes with all sorts of grilled and roasted meats and poultry.

This recipe is so simple it’s downright hard. We’re talking about only three ingredients here—potatoes, oil, and salt. But you’ve got to pay close attention to those ingredients and their handling to come out with crispy, erect french fries. Make sure you read Fry Obsession (see below) before you start.

Serve up these deeply flavored Cuban-style beans with a pile of perfectly cooked white rice. Add a salad or some veggies and you’ve got the Dinosaur vegetarian platter.

Rice acts as a base for many a saucy dish, so you should never take it for granted. It’s gotta be every bit as good as the food you serve it with. Rinsing the rice before cooking gets rid of the floury starch that clings to the grains and makes cooked rice sticky and lumpy, and adding some garlic boosts the flavor.

Here’s a classic side dish if there ever was one. There’s a thousand ways to make it, and I think you’ll find ours to be a keeper—Creole mustard, fresh diced tomato, and a touch of green pepper all tossed with freshly cooked pasta shells. We like the way shells hold the dressing better than elbows. It’s still Macaroni Salad to us.