Ribs with Indian spices. Smoked crab Rangoon. Brisket crunchwraps.
These are just a sample of some of the unique offerings in Chicago’s already vibrant barbecue scene from a growing number of chef-driven pop-ups building buzz with their own creative spin on ’cue classics, drawing on their families and culture for inspiration.
For several local pop-up pitmasters, the pandemic was a turning point to parlay their passion for barbecue, including Shawn Smith and his wife, Leonor Quezada, who run Heffer BBQ.
Smith was a truck driver and Quezada was a sign artist for Trader Joe’s when they decided to take their stimulus checks and start cooking and giving away brisket, pulled pork and baby back ribs from their Pilsen apartment.
These days they can be found at Whiner Beer, 1400 W. 46th St., serving Central Texas-style barbecue with “a heavy Mexican influence” (a nod to Quezada’s side of the family) with a dash of the Midwest (think Italian beef).
After a slow beginning, Smith said Heffer BBQ has seen more growth in the past three weeks than the three months prior to that as people come to the brewery in search of the smoked brisket burger, by far the top seller, as well as dishes like the couple’s take on Taco Bell’s Crunchwrap. The hefty dish clocks in at a pound, with a “generous” amount of brisket, scratch-made queso and refried beans wrapped in a locally made tortilla, then grilled on the flat-top with beef tallow. It’s topped with Mexican slaw, pickled red onions and roasted tomatillo salsa verde.
“Now that barbecue is being chef-driven, it’s not just good enough to have good barbecue, you have to be creative with it as well,” Smith said.
“A lot of this stuff we do, it’s not necessarily mimicking a certain style but applying those cooking techniques to other dishes and just seeing if they translate over.”
That’s how Sheal Patel, founder of Dhuaan BBQ Company, started with his own version of barbecue, adding Indian flavors to ribs, pulled pork and more. Patel grew up in a traditional Hindu household, the son of two immigrants who came to the U.S. in the 1970s, but discovered meat in his school’s cafeteria. His parents weren’t against him eating meat but the caveat was that he had to cook it himself. He got a grill as a birthday present in high school and started experimenting.
“Pork is unheard of in India; you’re never gonna find ribs, pulled pork or something like that,” Patel said. “That got me thinking, tandoori chicken is so good, butter chicken is so good. What if we just threw these things on ribs, pork, brisket?”
It wasn’t until the pandemic that Patel, now 37 and a CFO at Chicago-based firm YouCopia, would go back to barbecue. He started selling tandoori ribs out of his garage in Bridgeport and posted photos on Instagram. People would DM him to order, and then demand took off. He’s been doing pop-ups ever since, with events at the 95th Street Farmers Market on Sept. 10 and Hopewell Brewing, 2760 N. Milwaukee Ave., on Sept. 16.
Some of his top sellers include honey tandoori smoked ribs (he takes a traditional tandoori sauce and sweetens it with honey) and an Indian-style mac and cheese with Amul cheese (the “Kraft cheese” of India, as Patel puts it).
While some traditionalists think salt and pepper barbecue is the end-all, be-all of all things barbecue, Patel doesn’t adhere to that strict mindset.
“The best things in life are pulling from all your various experiences rather than just having all these hard and fast rules,” Patel said.
That creativity, combined with a Midwestern lack of pretension, is one of the factors fueling the barbecue boom and Chicago’s culinary landscape in general, he said. Many of the pop-up pitmasters know each other and mention each other when talking about barbecue in the city.
Patel points to his friend Umamicue founder Charles Wong, who is doing a yearlong residency at Spilt Milk in Logan Square, where he offers smoked brisket egg rolls, crispy pork belly and other dishes with Chinese and Vietnamese flavors. “Only in Chicago” would you see someone putting brisket in a traditional banh mi, Patel said.
“In Chicago, we have that homegrown foodie culture, everyman’s food if you will, but then we have a very diverse [population],” Patel said. “You start combining these things, and it’s like, where else would this happen?
Wong started doing Texas-style barbecue pop-ups on the side while working his day job in finance in 2016. But it wasn’t until a trip to Austin where he staged at the food truck LeRoy and Lewis, which is known for locally driven “new school barbecue” style, typified by dishes like cauliflower burnt ends and bacon ribs, that he decided to incorporate the Chinese and Vietnamese flavors he grew up eating. He launched that concept last year.
The banh mi boasts brisket smoked for up to 12 hours and served with cucumber, jalapeno, pickled carrot, daikon, cilantro and kewpie mayo on a bun from Ba Le in Uptown. Appetizers like the brisket egg rolls with sweet chili barbecue sauce and crab rangoon with smoked cream cheese also are popular. Wong, whose parents were born in Saigon and immigrated to the U.S. when they were teenagers, hopes to reimagine a childhood favorite cơm tấm (broken rice) with barbecue.
Barbecue pop-ups like his are “an emerging part of Chicago’s culinary scene, and I hope to see it continue to grow and to have Chicago be a destination, not only for food, but for really good barbecue. I think that was missing. And I think we’re trying to change that.”
Recipe: Masala Smoked Ribs
Courtesy of Sheal Patel, Dhuaan BBQ Company
INGREDIENTS
- 1.5-2 pound rack of pork ribs
- 2.5 tablespoons garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 3.5-oz. box garam masala powder
- Mustard, optional
- Salt, to taste
- 1 bottle of your favorite tomato-based spicy BBQ sauce
- 1 pack curry leaves, thinly sliced (find at Pete’s Market)
- 2 tablespoons butter or ghee (clarified butter)
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat your oven or smoker to 225 degrees.
2. Remove the membrane under your ribs; run a butter knife and it will slide out, then pull off the membrane. The whole membrane should pull off.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the garlic powder, black pepper and 1/2 the box of garam masala to make a dry rub. You may use a binder if you would like (mustard is traditional but you do not have to use this and it will not alter the taste). You can cover the entire rib in mustard.
4. Cover the ribs (underside first) with the dry rub. Add salt to taste.
5. Put the ribs in your freezer for 10 minutes to help everything stick.
6. Place ribs in your smoker or oven.
7. Leave your ribs alone (do not touch) for about 2 hours. The ribs will be about 160-170 degrees (they will not take on any additional smoke flavor at this point).
8. Remove the ribs from the oven or smoker and wrap in heavy-duty foil. Add 2 tablespoons of butter or ghee on the ribs if desired then wrap them tight.
9. Increase the oven or smoker temp to 275 degrees. Cook until the ribs reach an internal temperature of 200 degrees.
10. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Combine the bottle of barbecue sauce, the remaining garam masala and curry leaves in a sauce pan. Gently bring it up to heat and stir for about 10-15 minutes; you should smell a fragrant curry leaf and bbq sauce smell.
11. Unwrap the foil and place the sauce on them. Close the oven/smoker and let them go for another 45 minutes.
12. Take out your ribs, cut them down to your liking and enjoy!
Chef’s Note: This is intended to be a beginner’s recipe for the average home chef. There are a myriad of extra techniques to try and what you see here is definitely not the bible. If you have different methods please use them, but we wanted this recipe to encourage people to try this out, with minimal effort, and items from their local grocer.
