Review - The Texas Pick-Up Que Rub
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Moses Pennell has an old Texas family rub recipe (sounds like many a story you've already heard, eh?) and as a pitmaster he serves it up on BBQ aplenty for The Texas Pick-Up, a catering and delivery business that serves a large portion of the Southern California area.
Moses has asked me to take a gander at his trademark spice seasoning, called Texas Pick-Up Que Rub, to see what my opinions are of it.
Ingredients:
Salt, Pepper and Spices
Aroma:
Smelled predominantly of cumin, with a bit of salt and Italian spices thrown in.
Taste Straight Up:
More salt than anything, with hints of paprika, cumin and garlic powder. No sweetness at all, and not really any measurable heat or spiciness. Not bad, but I would have preferred less salt and more complexity. Let's see how it fares on some meat.
The Look, the Cook and the Taste:
Early one weekend morning (yes, I rarely ever get to sleep in) I doused some chicken breasts and small pork steaks with a healthy amount of The Texas Pick-Up Que Rub. I liked how it looked on the food, with a brightly rusty-colored coating and even granular texture. The tiny, dried, frequent-encountered herbs added a beautiful contrast with the dull green tint.
Since it takes only a mere couple of hours to smoke littler cuts of meat, I refrigerated the lovely animal flesh until early afternoon. Once it was time, I sprinkled more rub on the chicken and pork and placed them on the racks of the WSM. I mopped the meat about halfway through the cooking process with one part white wine vinegar and one part apple juice. Yeah, I know you might think that the apple juice with its sweetness might modify the flavor profile of the seasoning rub. From my experience, a snappy dripping on of a mop does little to change the taste, unlike marinading or injecting. It was simply done to assure moisture was applied to the outside of the chicken and pork didn't dry out.
I don't recall how much was luck and how much was skill (hopefully more of the later but probably a lot more of the former!) but the meat turned out very moist and succulent, with a firm, bitey, and smokey exterior with a juicy interior. What about the taste of the rub, you ask?
I thought it did the chicken particularly well. The Texas Pick-Up Rub wasn't overpowering not was it faint and lackluster, so it scored good points with me for hitting the mark with a balanced approach and attack. As it tasted in the fingertip test, there was a strong performance from salt (perhaps a bit too much for my normal liking) and the bright wallops from cumin and other spices came up not too far behind. There was some detectable black pepper in the mix as well. The crisp flavors did nicely yet lacked complexity I love. All in all on poultry, Texas Pick-Up was the epitome of "good but not great".
Smoked or grilled, pork steaks are a staple of St. Louis backyard cooking, so a truly versatile rub has to perform on these in order to please me. On the pork steaks, I think this spice mix did a bit worse than it did on chicken. To my taste buds, it was simply too one-sided. Thankfully, I had on hand a good BBQ sauce with a touch of sweetness to redeem the meal.
After this experience, it was time to go back to the drawing board with this rub. I don't do many briskets, but since this California barbecue caterer has his roots in the Lone Star State it would be unfair to put this run through its paces without tackling some kind of beef. I liberally covered the sides of a flat iron steak and tossed it on the grill.
Bingo! I found a winner here. The "darker", richer bovine meat was an almost perfect pairing for The Texas Pick-Up Que Rub's strong salt and spice amalgamation. I can imagine with similar beefy applications would produce similar results.
Heat:
Almost no spiciness at all. On a scale that goes to 5, this might barely peak above a black pepper-level 0.5. Store-bought canned chilis have more zing than this cumin and paprika highlighted infusion.
Conclusion:
If I found myself in the L.A. area with some free time (granted that I had previously paid plenty of visits to In 'N Out Burger during this hypothetical trip), I would seriously consider scoping The Texas Pick-Up and grab me plenty of brisket. I may just try some ribs and hot links to see how Moses does it. If you live out there, I urge you to do the same.
The Texas Pickup has no website, but you can contact them by telephone at (323) 571-7416.
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Spicy Food Reviews - Hot Sauce Reviews, Hot Snacks, Hot Wings, Seasonings, BBQ Sauces, Condiments, and More
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2010-05-14 03:56:00
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