HOST: You know about Texas brisket and Memphis-style baby back ribs.

St. Louis boasts a barbecue tradition that's perhaps less well known, but out of this world nonetheless.

Get ready for plate burying pork shoulder steaks.

That looks amazing...

Sauce slathered St. Louis cut spare ribs.

Extraordinarily tendered... And a Project Fire first grill toasted ravioli with fire charred tomato sauce.

What do you think of that St. Louis?

* From St. Louis Union Station and the home of Chuck Berry, I'm Steven Raichlen, and this is Project Fire .

ANNOUNCER: Stephen Raichlen's Project Fire was made possible by...

This is the Big Green Egg where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with a versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

Green Mountain pellet grills built for woodfired versatility.

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

Crowd Cow.

And by the following... * [Steven] Located at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, St. Louis is the quintessential melting pot and the gateway to the American West.

French fur traders settled here in 1764, naming their village after their sainted King Louis IX.

Thomas Jefferson made it American as part of the Louisiana purchase.

Subsequent centuries saw the arrival of German, Irish, Italian, and more recently Balkan immigrants each adding their unique flavors to the local melting pot.

The dawn of the 20th Century saw the opening of St. Louis's Union Station, which soon became the world's largest and busiest railroad station.

The roof span of its train shed was the largest in the world and its grand hall was and remains one of our most beautiful public lobbies.

St. Louis condiment maker, Louis Maull launched America's first bottled barbecue sauce here in 1926, while local butchers developed a unique way to trim spare ribs.

Pork steaks, turkey ribs, even barbecued pig noses, or snoots as they're known locally are a few of the barbecue specialties you find here and virtually nowhere else.

To accompany all this great food, native son, Chuck Berry added a rock and roll soundtrack.

Today, St. Louis stands as a Mecca of great music, great food, and above all great barbecue.

* When I first came to St. Louis 20 years ago, there wasn't much in the way of barbecue.

When I returned in 2008, there was a new kid on the block.

Now, an institution, Pappy's.

John Matthews is one of the founders of Pappy's.

John, welcome to the show.

[John Matthews] Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

[Steven] So, what do you have for us today?

[John] Well, what we're gonna do is some center-cut pork steaks.

[Steven] That is a real iconic dish in St. Louis, right?

[John] Yes.

Once you get up beyond say a hundred-mile radius in St. Louis, and you ask for a pork steak, a butcher may look at you like a cow looking at a new gate.

[Steven] So, how big are these guys?

[John] Uh, these are one inch thick.

I'm gonna guess these are about a pound and a half apiece.

[Steven] And they're cut from the pork shoulder.

[John] Pork shoulder.

Yes, sir.

[Steven] And you can see a bit of the shoulder blade there.

What's the first step?

[John] We're gonna put together some rub here.

So, we've got obviously salt and pepper.

We've got oregano, some thyme, garlic powder.

[Steven] Good.

[John] We got some dill.

[Steven] Dill.

[John] A little bit of margarine, parsley, and a little Rosemary.

[Steven] Rosemary.

[John] Paprika, nutmeg.

[Steven] And nutmeg.

That's interesting.

So that'll add a kind of a sweet touch.

[John] Absolutely.

Little nutty flavor and corn starch.

[Steven] You don't usually see corn starch in a rub.

What does the corn starch do?

[John] Well, we've just found that over the years, a little corn starch will give it a little more body and it definitely helps with the adhesion on the piece of meat itself.

[Steven] Okay.

To help the, uh, spices adhere to the meat.

[John] All right, we're gonna rub this out a little bit.

[Steven] I like the herbs in the rub.

[John] It puts good flavor.

[Steven] Uh-huh (affirmative).

[John] I'm gonna turn these over.

[Steven] Oh, these are beautifully marbled.

Another thing about a pork steak is it has so much fat in it, so it doesn't dry out when you grill it.

[John] This is true.

I typically go about two and a half to three hours, but the longer you leave it on, the more tender it'll get.

[Steven] Beautiful.

That's great.

[John] All righty.

Let's get these boys on the grill.

[Steven] You've set the grill up for indirect grilling, right?

[John] Correct.

[Steven] And what are you smoking with?

[John] This is Applewood.

I think, Applewood produces a milder, mellow, sweeter flavor than say some of the hardwoods Hickory Oak or Mesquite.

[Steven] How long are we gonna smoke those for?

[John] These are gonna go about two and a half hours.

[Steven] Two and a half hours.

[John] Possibly three to 2.50.

[Steven] Okay.

So first, it's a smoke and then a hot sear at the end?

[John] And a hot sear with some sauce we're gonna put together.

[Steven] So, what's in the sauce?

[John] We got a variety of ingredients, some ketchup here.

[Steven] All right.

[John] We've also got some apple juice, apple cider vinegar, a little Worcestershire.

[Steven] All right, let's start with the apple juice.

And then, apple cider... [John] Apple cider vinegar.

[Steven] ...vinegar for acidity.

And then, we have Worcestershire sauce... [John] Worcestershire.

[Steven] ...kind of for spice.

[John] Plain old ketchup.

[Steven] Okay.

[John] So this is a, just a sweet tomato-based sauce.

[Steven] All right.

[John] It should complement these pork steaks nicely.

[Steven] Beautiful.

[John] We've got white sugar and brown sugar.

We've got some salt and pepper, dry mustard.

[Steven] Dry mustard.

[John] Garlic.

[Steven] Garlic powder.

[John] Some onion powder.

[Steven] Onion powder.

[John] Cinnamon, allspice.

[Steven] Allspice.

[John] And some ginger, Chipotle powder, and some mild curry powder.

[Steven] Chipotle powder, mild Curry powder.

[John] That's it.

[Steven] Well, that certainly is quite an assortment.

And then, whisk these ingredients to a mix.

Do you boil it for a long time?

[John] Uh, just get it up to a simmer.

[Steven] All right.

So, the sauce looks well mixed.

Can we try it?

[John] Well, put together.

Let's do it a little taste.

[Steven] Mmm.

[John] That's it.

[Steven] That is really nice.

You know, I have to admit, I was a little dubious when I saw all that brown sugar, but the cider vinegar kind of gives you a little acidic edge... [John] It gets a little complexity to it with the different spices.

And now, it's time to get some sauce on these things.

[Steven] Those look pretty amazing and I can smell the Applewood smoke.

[John] Once, it hits 165, you're fine.

But I like to let 'em go a little bit longer.

It helps to tenderize 'em.

[Steven] All right.

[John] Yeah.

We're a little better than 170, so we're good to go.

I'm gonna slide this over.

[Steven] Excellent.

[John] The sugars are caramelized.

The steaks will braze a little bit and it'll create just a lovely exterior on them.

[Steven] Oh.

* [John] All right.

And now it's time to go back on.

We've kicked the temperature up to about 450 degrees.

That's gonna help with the caramelization of all the sugars.

[Steven] Oh.

[John] We're gonna put these on and you've got a hot enough grill.

This is only gonna take about four or five minutes a side.

(fire swooshes in) All right.

These have been on now for about four and a half minutes.

Let's give 'em a turn.

Oh, there we go.

[Steven] Oh boy.

That looks beautiful.

[John] There we go.

Let those go for another four or five minutes.

We should be ready to eat.

(fire swooshes in) I think they're about done.

[Steven] They look fantastic.

Great.

Amazing.

Let me do the honors here.

Take one.

[John] I'm excited to have you try this.

[Steven] Yeah, me too.

So here's for you.

[John] Thank you.

[Steven] First thing I'm noticing here.

Look at that smoke ring.

[John] That's right.

[Steven] That is amazing.

Okay.

Oh, the outside is crusty.

The pork is super smoky, super tender.

[John] Glad you enjoy it.

[Steven] Shall we dip?

John, I'm not usually a sweet sauce guy, but I gotta tell you, this sauce goes fantastic with the pork.

[John] The caramelization on the sugars when we hit it with a little four and a half past sear, it produces just a wonderful cross.

[Steven] It's, it's almost like candy, you know, for everybody that's got 'em used to pulled pork.

This is a really nice alternative.

You don't think of grilling a pork shoulder, but it's awesome.

[John] This is such an underutilized cut of meat.

And if you take the time to do it right, it's really remarkable and it's pretty affordable.

[Steven] That's a very good point.

A lot more affordable than a steak this size.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

[John] Pleasure to be here.

[Steven] So now, you know, the secret of grilling a pork steak, it is St. Louis barbecue at its best.

[Matt] Good, that's a cut.

* [Steven] The toasted ravioli is an iconic St. Louis delicacy invented so the story goes when a batch of stuffed pasta accidentally fell into a deep fat fryer.

That set me thinking, "What if you could toast the ravioli on the grill and while you're at it, why not smoke the ingredients for the tomato sauce?"

I give you a St. Louis first, grilled toasted ravioli.

[Steven] Heat your grill smoker box and load it with soaked wood chips.

I'm using Hickory.

To make the tomato sauce, brush the vegetables with extra Virgin olive oil.

And when you grill small vegetables like this, it's a good idea to skewer them.

A lot easier to turn one skewer than 30 individual tomatoes.

Season the tomatoes, celery, Shishito peppers, onions, and garlic with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Once seasoned, arrange your vegetables over the smoker pan.

The Hickory smoke will give the tomato sauce another worldly flavor.

Grilling time on the vegetables, three to four minutes per side.

You're looking for a little bit of char.

Meanwhile, I like to add bacon to a tomato sauce.

It gives it a meaty smokey flavor.

Once the bacon is brown, add a tablespoon of tomato paste and a pinch of hot pepper flakes.

Fry these ingredients together, too.

This makes a great base for tomato sauce.

Now back to the vegetables, once they're brown on the bottom, turn them over and smoke, and char the other side the same way.

Just imagine how much flavor these smoke charred vegetables are going to add to the tomato sauce.

Add your onion, Shishito peppers, the tomatoes, your garlic cloves, your celery, and cut it into one-inch pieces.

And finally, some fresh basil leaves.

Puree the vegetables in the food processor.

I like a fairly coarse puree.

Then, add the smoke vegetable puree to the bacon mixture.

* Then, add as always a little coarse sea salt, some freshly ground black pepper, a drizzle of extra Virgin olive oil.

Stir these ingredients together.

Mmm, great smokey aroma.

And I'll just take a taste.

Mmm, that is so much more interesting than a conventional tomato sauce.

These are classic beef ravioli.

I gave them a quick plunge in boiling water to cook the pasta.

And the breading process goes something like this.

First, we dip a ravioli in flour, shaking off the excess.

Then, in beaten egg, shaking off the excess.

And finally, in Panko breadcrumbs.

That's one.

Again, dip in flour.

Then, in beaten egg, then finally in Panko breadcrumbs.

Panko Japanese breadcrumbs, they give you an extra crispy crust.

Once, the ravioli are coated with Panko breadcrumbs, drizzle the tops liberally with extra Virgin olive.

The oil will help keep them from sticking to the grill grate.

Set up your grill for direct grilling heat to high and it's very important to start with a clean grill grate.

Then, oil it with an oiling cloth dipped in vegetable oil drawn across the bars of the grate.

Place the ravioli oil side down on the grill grate.

* Then, drizzle a little more oil on top of the ravioli.

* Once, the ravioli are toasted on the bottom, turn them over.

Nice.

* I wasn't sure this was going to work when I thought of it, but you know Raichlen's rule, if something tastes good, baked, fried, or saut ed, it probably tastes even better grilled.

What do you think of that St. Louis?

So there are your grilled toasted ravioli with smoked tomato sauce.

Let's see how we did.

Mmm, audibly crisp, nice char on the breadcrumbs, and there's not all that heavy oil flavor you get from deep fat frying.

Now, let's try it with the sauce.

* Mmm, that smoke flavor really takes the tomato sauce to another level.

So, there you have it.

Grill toasted ravioli with smoke tomato sauce.

It's a Raichlen twist on a St. Louis classic.

(fire swooshes in) * There are many fine pitmasters here in St. Louis.

I only know of one who dropped out of theology school to become a dishwasher, work his way up to fine dining chef, then barbecue mogul.

His name is David Sandusky.

David, welcome to Project Fire .

[David Sandusky] Welcome to St. Louis.

[Steven] Well, thank you.

You're going to prepare an iconic dish for us today, the St. Louis rib.

[David] Yes, sir.

And it's the spare rib.

I actually prefer the spares to the baby backs.

[Steven] Why is that?

[David] This cut actually comes off of the belly, so it's essentially bacon wrapped around the bone.

You get the extra marbling, the extra flavor there.

And what you'll see here is the actual, uh, rib bones.

But then, we have the rib tip along this edge.

[Steven] All right.

[David] So, we wanna do to make this a St. Louis cut, turn it over.

[Steven] Mm-hmm (affirmative).

[David] We're gonna remove this skirt first.

[Steven] All right.

[David] This is a great cut of meat for a skewer.

Takes to marinades really well.

From here, we wanna find the longest bone and we wanna find the knuckle because there's actually a joint here.

We'll insert the tip of our knife right in the joint and then we're just gonna come down, and complete the cut.

[Steven] Yep.

[David] I'm gonna turn this around, keeping our edge straight start where we left off and just come straight down.

And now, we have separated... [Steven] Beautiful tips.

Yep.

[David] What we'd like to do is actually take this tip-off, though.

It may burn in the smoking process.

[Steven] Great.

[David] There we go.

But then, we wanna address the membrane.

Take my knife and insert it at the top of the bone, kind of come back a little bit.

Careful not to cut yourself.

Take a towel, grab it, and just pull straight down.

[Steven] And off comes the membrane.

[David] And off comes the membrane.

[Steven] I also, find the membrane impedes the absorption of the smoke flavor.

[David] Agreed.

The next step is to dry brine.

[Steven] All right.

[David] So, I want to use a little salt and pepper, and just let it rest overnight.

And it will start to draw some of that water out and form almost like a pellicle on the outside that will help the smoke attach even better.

[Steven] Beautiful.

[David] And we could go a lot lighter on the pepper than we did on the salt.

We do the same thing bottom.

[Steven] Now, how long are we gonna let this brine?

[David] I like to let it brine overnight minimum 12 hours, but we can go up to 48 hours.

I don't like to go longer than that.

[Steven] Here is one that has dry brined already.

So what's the next step?

[David] We gotta make a rub.

[Steven] All right.

[David] I love coffee and a rub.

I love some ancho chilies.

[Steven] All right.

So let's add coffee, ancho chili.

[David] Brown sugar, of course.

Garlic.

[Steven] Granulated garlic.

[David] Onion.

[Steven] Okay.

Granulated onion.

[David] Paprika.

[Steven] Paprika, of course, for color.

[David] And a little celery seed to just make it pop a little bit.

[Steven] How about like that?

[David] Sure.

[Steven] Excellent.

[David] Salt and pepper to finish it off.

[Steven] Now, when I make a rub, I like to mix the ingredients with my fingers to break up any lumps that may be in the brown sugar.

Okay.

So, there you go, sir.

[David] So, all we wanna do is just kind of liberally season that rack.

* We're ready to go.

[Steven] Great.

To smoke the ribs, we're using a pellet grill.

And what is your preferred fuel?

[David] I think that a cherry wood goes really well with cuts from the belly.

I love to be at about 250 degrees.

[Steven] We're set there.

How long a smoke are we doing on that?

[David] It'll be about four hours.

[Steven] Four hours in 250 degrees.

Okay.

To go with your St. Louis ribs, I thought we could smoke roast some brussel sprouts.

So, I cut the Brussels sprouts in half.

And then, you kindly brought some smoked pork belly.

[David] I did.

[Steven] So, would you cut that into, uh, lardons for me?

[David] I'd love to.

[Steven] Oh, that looks beautiful.

So the, the main difference between this and bacon is the bacon would be cured first, whereas this is simply seasoned and smoked.

[David] Right.

[Steven] Nice.

Now for brightness and to cut through all the fat, these are preserved lemons, super salty, super tart.

They just brighten any dish up.

I'll cut them in half and then scrape out any seeds, and then I'll just dice the preserve lemons.

And then, I'd like to toss this and just mix these ingredients together.

[David] It's a great combo.

[Steven] Yeah.

This is gonna be amazing.

A little coarse sea salt, freshly ground black pepper.

And just for a little extra richness, replace a few pats of butter on top.

Beautiful.

All right.

So what do you have for barbecue sauce?

[David] I wanted to bring to the table something that was very St. Louis.

This is what we do in the backyard.

This is what we grew up on.

And the first thing that we wanna do, I dunno is add a pat of butter and throw in some onions.

We wanna saut these until they become translucent.

Let's deglaze with that St. Louis beer.

[Steven] Mmm, smells delicious.

[David] We're gonna reduce that beer down a little bit, cook the alcohol off.

I'm gonna grab our brown sugar.

[Steven] All right.

[David] I'm gonna sweeten it up a little bit.

About some salt and pepper for good measure.

[Steven] All right.

[David] Finally, our St. Louis style barbecue sauce.

[Steven] This is what I would call a doctor sauce.

You start with a commercial sauce, you doctor it.

[David] It's all about simplicity.

You don't want to overcomplicate things.

You just want some great flavors.

The purpose of this sauce is to baste it on the grill.

[Steven] Oh, those are looking beautiful.

[David] Yeah, it looks really great.

[Steven] So, you're applying yet another layer of flavor?

[David] Correct.

Introducing some new sugars to the exposed surface area.

We're wanting to caramelize those sugars.

[Steven] Nice.

How much longer?

[David] Uh, I would say they probably have another 20 minutes like that.

[Steven] Twenty minutes.

It's gonna be a very long 20 minutes (laughs).

(fire swooshes in) Oh, those look great.

And the Brussels sprouts look done too.

[David] They look amazing.

[Steven] Good.

Oh, wow.

My tell-tales test for ribs being done shrinkage at the end of the bone, you got between half an inch and an inch.

* I've been waiting for this.

Mmm, these are incredibly tender, incredibly porky, nice smoke flavor.

And I love how the tomato and sugar, and the sauce have caramelized into the meat.

[David] That is a St. Louis style spare rib.

Sweet.

You get that char, you get those caramelized sugars.

It's absolutely perfect.

How about some sprouts?

[Steven] You bet.

Thank you.

* [David] You know; some people are scared of Brussels sprouts.

They have a natural bitterness to them, but when you pair them with something acidic, in this case, that preserved lemon.

It just completes that flavor profile, that pork belly, the smokiness from that, the char from the roast.

I mean, I'm not sure that there's a more perfect combination.

[Steven] Well, thank you, David.

And that pork belly, that's pretty darn tasty stuff.

Well, that's our show on grilling St. Louis, pork steaks, St. Louis ribs.

We even grilled toasted ravioli.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.

ANNOUNCER: For recipes and more live fire cooking, visit stevenraichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

"Project Fire" and the Classic "Barbecue Bible" can be ordered online at stevenraichlen.com or call this phone number for ordering and customer service.

Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is the Big Green Egg where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with a versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

Green Mountain pellet grills built for woodfired versatility.

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

Crowd Cow.

And by the following... [Steven] Now, how would you describe the St. Louis style of barbecue?

I mean, what constitutes St. Louis barbecue?

[John] It's typically a sweet aspect to it.

[Steven] Mm-hmm (affirmative).

[John] You know, growing up pork steaks, that was... [Steven] Everybody made pork steaks.

[John] Everybody made pork steaks, spare ribs, chicken, but St. Louis barbecue to me is pork steaks.

[Steven] I adore preserve lemons.

Do you use them a lot?

[David] I use them a lot.

Yeah.

My wife loves them.

We like to cook with them at home for sure.

We have some in the fridge.

[Steven] Yep.

We just, you know, for me, I just, I like to eat 'em out of hand like pickles.

* *