"Our family learned to cook barbeque from some of the best of our ancestors," says Ryan Mitchell. His great-grandfather fathered 35 children, who grew up in an environment where a day's work in the tobacco field was capped off by good barbecue. Ryan's father, Ed, left college for Vietnam. After his father passed, Ed returned home and his mother asked him to make some barbecue to ease her grief. A line formed for Ed's barbecue. At age 45, he found his calling.
Ryan is the prodigal son in this story. After going to college and pursuing a career in finance, he found his way back to North Carolina, led by the wafting smoke coming from his father's whole-hog barbecue pit. United by faith and an uncompromising work ethic, they've built a multigenerational legacy. Ryan discusses the unique flavors of each part of the animal, the apple cider vinegar that sets eastern North Carolina apart, the origin of the word "pitmaster," and the collaborative book he wrote with his father, "Ed Mitchell's Barbeque."
Pitmasters Ryan (left) and Ed Mitchell continue to practice whole hog barbecue, even as the craft wanes. Photo by Baxter Miller.
Ed’s Mouthwatering Baby Back Ribs
Serves 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes • Cooking Time: 3 hours
These are the baby back ribs I used to defeat Bobby Flay on the Food Network television show Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Let me remind you that as a cook, I can’t compete with Bobby Flay. The man is beyond talented. He just happened to challenge me on a dish I think I have mastered.
My rib technique involves smoking the racks for two hours, then steaming them with vinegar sauce for a few minutes, then drying them out again with more rub and smoke. The result is moist, fall-off-the-bone, winning ribs.
Ingredients
- 2 (12-rib) baby back rib racks
- 2 tablespoons Spanish paprika
- 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons dry mustard
- 2 tablespoons ground coriander
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- Olive oil
- 3 to 4 cups Ed’s Eastern North Carolina
- Vinegar BBQ Sauce (below)
- 1 cup True Made Foods Ed’s Kansas City Barbeque Sauce
Instructions
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The night before cooking, rinse the ribs with water and pat dry with paper towels. Remove the skinlike membrane on the bone side of the ribs by sliding a paring knife underneath it. Grab the membrane, peel it off, and discard it.
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Combine paprika, pepper, mustard, coriander, salt in a small bowl. Rub both sides of the racks with just enough olive oil to coat them, then rub them on both sides with two-thirds of the spice mixture. (Reserve the remaining spice mixture for later.) Wrap the ribs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 12 hours.
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The next day, prepare a grill for smoking the ribs. Preheat the grill to 225° to 250°F. Place the coals to one side of the grill. Once hot, place oak wood chunks on the hot, gray-white charcoal. Set the cooking grate over the fire, then place the ribs on the cooking grate on the opposite side from the coals so they cook with indirect heat. Cover the grill, adjusting the vent to keep the temperature low, and smoke the ribs until a bone releases from the rack when tugged at, about 2 hours. (If the coals burn down, add more as needed.) Transfer the ribs to a large aluminum pan.
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Mix the vinegar sauce and Barbeque sauce in a bowl. Pour enough of the mixture into the pan to come 1/4 inch up the sides; reserve the remaining mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and set back on the grill, but not directly above the coals. Cover the grill and let the ribs steam for about 15 minutes. Remove the ribs from the pan. Lightly dust them on both sides with the remaining spice mixture, then place them back on the grill, this time directly over the coals. Cover the grill and smoke until the ribs are dry on the outside but still moist inside, about 10 minutes. Serve with the remaining Barbeque sauce mixture.
Ed’s Eastern North Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce
Serves 12
Prep Time: 15 minutes • Cooking Time: 10 minutes
My mother taught me how to make our vinegar barbeque sauce. I can still remember the smell of the tangy sauce boiling on our stove when I was a child. In Eastern North Carolina, there are two styles of whole-hog barbeque: The first is the festive pig pickin’, where a barbequed pig that’s been slathered with sauce is set on a bar and people pick off what they want. The second is when the whole hog is chopped—the meat is pulled from the bones and skin, the skin is toasted into cracklin’, and the meat and cracklin’ are then chopped up and seasoned.
The same ingredients—cider vinegar, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes—are used to season both styles of whole-hog barbeque. However, for the pig pickin’, the sauce is mopped on the pig during the final hour of cooking. For the chopped barbeque, the sauce ingredients are added to the meat one at a time, just before serving. We recommend using this sauce to season whole hogs for a pig pickin’, barbequed whole turkey, or baby back ribs. It makes about 1 gallon of sauce, enough to season one 150 pound hog, three 18- to 20-pound turkeys, or 8 racks of ribs.
Ingredients
- 1 gallon apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup red pepper flakes, plus more if needed
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar, plus more if needed
- 1 cup hot sauce (True Made Foods Cayenne Hot Sauce), plus more if needed
- 1/2 cup smoked paprika
- 1/4 cup kosher salt, plus more if needed
- 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
Instructions
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Combine all the ingredients in a container and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Taste and add more salt, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, or brown sugar to suit
you. Just before applying, strain the sauce through a fine-mesh
sieve.
Father and son collaborate on recipes while sharing their family's history in "Ed Mitchell's Barbeque." Photo courtesy of Ecco.