Dairy Free

These beans have a deep, broodin’ flavor—sweet and spicy at the same time. We add crumbled hot Italian sausage to make ‘em truly special.

Coleslaw is an absolute essential in a barbecue joint. We make ours fresh twice a day so the crispness and integrity of the cabbage always contrasts with the tangy, creamy dressing. What I’m saying is, it don’t get better with age.

This recipe was inspired by an Italian recipe handed down by my partner Mike’s grandmother. Like all good Italian cooks, she insisted that the raw ingredients in any dish be ripe and flavorful. She never cheaped out and neither do we. When we started the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, it was one of our original sides, and it has stayed on our menu ever since. It’s best made in the morning, or at least several hours before serving.

We make this salad every Sunday at the restaurant. I like to cook the potatoes til they’re soft so the dressing can penetrate deeply. But the true secret to our potato salad is the Zatarain’s mustard we have shipped up from New Orleans (see Resources, page 175). Sure, you can use another coarse-grain mustard, but once you’ve had a real Creole mustard, nothing else will give you satisfaction.

When spring hits and the asparagus comes into season, I can’t wait to eat this simple potato salad. Because it’s made without mayonnaise, it can be held at room temperature where the flavors can really develop. It’s perfect picnic food. Once the asparagus goes out of season, try making it with a pound of green beans instead.

“How ‘bout a nice sausage sandwich?” From 1983 to 1988 my partner, Mike, and I belted that line out thousands of times at fairs and festivals up and down the East Coast. Those were the days of Dinosaur Concessions, when we made our living slingin’ sausage and charbroilin’ steak for sandwiches. We pretty much retired from the fair business in 1988 when we opened the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. But ten years later we were back at it again. In 1998 we joined forces with Steve Davis from Gianelli Sausage, whose family stand has been a mainstay at the New York State Fair for as long as I can remember. Gianelli (see Resources, page 175) makes a great sausage—lean, yet packed with flavor— just great for our State Fair Sausage & Pepper Sandwich and all our other sausage specialties.

This dish has some serious garlic happenin’. We developed it as one of a whole bunch of recipes for a Dinosaur garlic festival. It marked the birth of the Custom-Que at the restaurant, a special menu that’s broadened our repertoire and given our customers a taste of some unique dishes influenced by the world of wood-fired cookin’.

Pulled pork is one of the wonders of true blue barbecue. It starts with a pork butt, also called a Boston butt, which is the meat surrounding the shoulder blade of the pig. This is a tough, fatty piece that’s magically transformed with spices, smoke, and slow cookin’ into something lean and melt-in-your-mouth tender.

It doesn’t get much easier than this—or tastier. That wonderful Zatarain’s Creole Mustard (see Resources, page 175) is hard at work for you, makin’ an easy sweet and savory sauce that brings out the best in pork.

Here’s an interesting technique. We cut (counter to logic) the pork tenderloins into long steaks along the grain of the meat, forming steaks approximately 10 inches long by 2 inches wide. Whip up the jerk paste the night before or that morning, and get the tenderloins marinating early. That way you can grill and eat in minutes after getting jerked around at work all day.

Because our weather in Central New York is less than tropical, we have to figure out ways of keepin’ those warm weather flavors coming even when poundin’ rain or three-foot drifts make it hard to get to your backyard grill. So here’s a way to make ribs in your oven and bring on all the flavors of places with better weather. Our method for makin’ ribs in the oven can also be applied to the recipe for Dinosaur-Style Ribs (page 93). All you’ll be missin’ is the taste of the smoke and the smell of the outdoors, but the ribs will still be fallin’-off-the-bone tender.

This is our reason for being. If you’re a rib joint, you’d better have great ribs. What we strive for every day is a perfect balance of spice, smoke, sauce, and pull-off-the-bone tender pork. Here’s the blueprint and some tips to achieve some beautiful barbecue. All you need are a few hours and a dedicated pit boss spirit. A couple of beers won’t hurt either.

I’m a big fan of anything braised, and these lamb shanks fit the bill. The fall-off-the-bone tenderness of the meat and the richness of the stock really turn me on. Served on a pile of grits, it’s outstanding.

The tickle factor in this dish comes from the wasabi—Japanese horseradish. You can find it in the Asian section of your supermarket. And since we’re cookin’ in an Asian mode, we like the tuna served nice and rare, almost like sushi.

This dish was created for a local fiery food show. It happened to be Lent at the time, so we figured fish would be a good seasonal choice. Then someone reminded us that the bacon was an unholy partner. With apologies to the Pope, we served it anyway because it was that sinfully good.

Cooter, our chef in Rochester, concocted this tongue-tinglin’ booster sauce. Its flavor dances all around in your mouth with every tender bite of the sweetly smoked salmon.

This one-skillet dinner is loaded with flavor and easy to prepare. Serve over some steamin’ Perfect Rice or your favorite macaroni. You can also substitute boneless, skinless chicken thighs for some real concentrated chicken flavor—love that dark meat!

The last time I was in Chi-Town, I got the history of my favorite Chicago dish. It seems that the Italian immigrants who grew up in the shadow of Mount Vesuvio and then came to settle in Chicago developed this chicken and potato dish to celebrate the abundance of meat available in their new country, as well as their Neapolitan roots. We’ve given it a Dinosaur twist to get Vesuvio really smokin’.

Home cooking doesn’t get any easier than this. So if you’re serious about getting maximum flavor for a minimum amount of effort, this Cuban way of preparing chicken is for you. The onions and Mojito Marinade melt together into a tasty sauce that mingles well with some of our Perfect Rice.

This dish perfectly combines the bright, bold flavors of Asian spices, fresh lemon, and BBQ sauce. All you’ve gotta do is fry up some chicken thighs and dress them in a tart, clingy sauce. The result is some powerfully provocative flavors. This sauce also works well with grilled chicken.