One night last year I was desperately looking for something new to slather on a few quarter chicken legs that I intended to barbecue.
Something I had read on the internet or seen on television (I can no longer remember which, though I vaguely recall Alton Brown) prompted me to attempt to create my own signature dry rub. I swear I saw Alton talking about it on one of his shows, and how it was important to label said spice rubs with dates and ingredients, lest you open up your cupboard 6 months later and have no clue what the heck that jar full of brown was.
Two guesses about what I didn’t remember to do…
I have this glorious little 4 ounce tin of a spice blend I made that is absolutely transcendent; hot, tangy and pungent – but I have no recollection of what exactly is in it. For a while I thought I had written my recipe down somewhere, but at this point if I did, I put it somewhere so safe that even I can’t find it.
I know you’re thinking how hard could it possibly be to recreate, right? Well, blending it took me the better part of a half hour because I put in about 20 different herbs and spices. I think at the time my intent was to come up with my own kind of ras al hanout-type blend, something that would have many layers of flavours throughout. Based on visual cues alone I can identify a handful of its contents (celery seed, epazote, pimenton), but not nearly enough to properly duplicate it’s majesty.
Fuck.
