It's Grilling Season!

With the approach of Memorial Day the time has come to prepare for grilling season. For us that means cleaning up the old Weber, buying fresh charcoal, and mixing up a quadruple batch of Bobby Flay's New Mexico Rub. Simple to make, it keeps well in an airtight container, so we make big batches a couple times a year. The recipe:

• 3 tablespoons ancho chile powder
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon pasilla chile powder
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons chile de arbol
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons allspice

If you're like most folks (and us the first time we made it) you probably don't have all those spices on hand. Don't even bother going to you local grocery store. They'll only have 4 of the 7 items and chances are you already have those anyway.  The place to go is MySpiceSage.

The original recipe was intended for pork, but it works well on beef and chicken. Because this rub contains a good deal of brown sugar (22%) you have to be a little careful using it as the sugar will tend to burn. The best indoor approach is to let your meat of choice come to room temperature, apply the rub lightly, and carefully brown the meat on all sides. Then pop it into a 400 degree F oven to finish. Outdoors just move seared meat off direct heat. If you don't have a remote read thermometer, this is a good excuse to buy one.