Spice rub is any mixture of ground

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s that is made to be rubbed on raw food before the food is cooked. The spice rub forms a coating on the food. The food can be marinated in the spice rub for some time for the flavors to incorporate into the food, or it can be cooked immediately after it is coated in the rub. The spice rub can be left on or partially removed before cooking. Rubs are typically applied as a powder, aka "dry". Some "wet" rubs may have oil, water, or other liquid added to make a thick paste.

Ingredients

The spices are usually coarsely ground. In addition to spices, salt and sugar may be added to the rub for flavor and

caramelization Caramelization (or caramelisation) is a process of browning of sugar used extensively in cooking for the resulting butter-like flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: (C24H36O18), (C36H50O25), and ...

. Different salts are sometimes used for their unique qualities, such as Himalayan pink salt. The most straightforward rub is just coarsely ground

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...

as in steak au poivre. Basic dry rub or spice rub generally contain brown sugar, paprika, black pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder along with salt. Other ingredients may also be present depending upon the required flavor. Spice rubs can also add ingredients such as herbs, crushed garlic, or oil to make a paste. Less common ingredients can include coffee beans.

Foods

Spice rubs are mainly used for preparing

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

s and

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

. There are many different recipes for rubs, and most are targeted toward a specific kind of food. The exact combination of spices that makes a good rub for a particular food varies from region to region and culture to culture.

Cooking methods

Cooking with rubs is almost always done using the dry heat cooking method, where almost no water-based liquid is used. The most popular cooking method for food prepared using a spice rub is

grilling Grilling is a form of cooking that involves heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat and v ...

Baking Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but it can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot Baking stone, stones. Bread is the most commonly baked item, but many other types of food can also be baked. Heat is ...

and pan roasting are other dry-heat methods.

Sautéing Sautéing or sauteing (, ; , , 'jumped', 'bounced', in reference to tossing while cooking) is a method of cooking that uses a relatively small amount of oil or fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. Various sauté methods exist. Descr ...

is another method, especially if the spice rub includes flour or

bread crumbs Breadcrumbs are a culinary ingredient consisting of flour or crumbled bread of varying dryness, sometimes with seasonings added. They are used for a variety of purposes, including breading or crumbing foods before frying (such as breaded cut ...

. When water is used for cooking, it is usually after the food has already been partially cooked with the dry heat method.

References

External links

Tips: Making a dry spice rub
��PBS {{Herbs and spices Herb and spice mixtures

Ingredients

Foods

Cooking methods

See also

References

External links