Steven Raichlen

A splash of bourbon adds smoky depth to this quick-and-easy homemade sauce.

Here’s a way to infuse the evocative spice and smoke flavors of true barbecue into a conventional fast-cooking burger. It uses a smoke-scented barbecue rub. I call it The Barbecue Burger; you might call it smoky nirvana.

This fiery sweet-tart red sauce is smoky, tangy and has sufficient red pepper flakes to let you know it means business.

Sweet rather than salty, flavorful rather than fiery, this seasoning mix contains mustard in the style of a Memphis rub and chili powder in the style of Texas.

This mixture of spices makes cod- the whitest of fish-taste almost exotic.

This odd recipe makes some of the most moist, succulent, flavorful barbecued chicken I've ever tasted. The secret: an open can of beer is inserted into the cavity of the bird, which is cooked upright on the grill. Besides being incredibly tender, the bird makes a great conversation piece. The recipe was inspired by the Bryce Boar Blazers, a barbecue team from Texas I met at the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. The proper beverage? Beer, of course.

Expedite the cooking process by using red curry paste and store-bought peanut butter.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from The Barbecue! Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, by Steven Raichlen. To read more about Raichlen and barbecue, go to our feature The Best Barbecue in the U.S.A.

Barbecue means different things to different people in different parts of the country. In North Carolina it means pork, or more precisely smoked pork shoulder, that has been grilled using the indirect method until it's fall-off-the-bone tender, then pulled into meaty shreds with fingers or a fork. Doused with vinegar sauce and eaten with coleslaw on a hamburger bun, it's one of the most delicious things on the planet, and it requires only one special ingredient: patience.

My friend and barbecue buddy Elizabeth Karmel makes some of the best pork shoulder I've ever tasted. Elizabeth comes from Greensboro, North Carolina, where she grew up on pulled pork. Her secret is to cook the pork to an internal temperature of 195°F—higher than is recommended by most books. But this is the temperature needed for the pork to separate easily into the fine, moist, tender shreds characteristic of true Carolina barbecue. Elizabeth doesn't use a rub, although many of her compatriots do. (I personally like a rub, but I've made it optional in the recipe.)

A true pork shoulder includes both the Boston butt (the upper part of the leg with the shoulder blade) and the picnic ham (the actual foreleg), a cut of meat that weighs fourteen to eighteen pounds in its entirety and is used chiefly at professional barbecue competitions. The recipe here calls for Boston butt alone (five to six pounds), which, thanks to its generous marbling, gives you superb barbecue. The appropriate beverage for all this? Cold beer or Cheerwine (a sweet red soda pop).

Editor's note: The recipe below is from How to Grill, by Steven Raichlen. To read more about Raichlen and barbecue, go to our feature The Best Barbecue in the U.S.A.

Guam has a hyperactive barbecue scene, with an annual festival that gives away tens of thousands of dollars in prize money. No family or social event is complete without the firing up of a grill (often half of a 55-gallon drum). Given Guam's proximity to the Philippines and Japan, it comes as no surprise that soy sauce, ginger, and wasabi should figure prominently in the local grilling. Here's the Pacific Island version of a grilled blackened tuna from my Guamanian barbecue buddy, Steven Cruz. The tuna is crusted with Old Bay seasoning. (OK, it's a long way from Baltimore to Guam, but apparently this Maryland seafood seasoning enjoys great popularity on the island.) Ginger, wasabi, and chiles give the dipping sauce a triple blast of heat.

The temple complex at Angkor Wat is one of the archeological wonders of the world. It's not, however, the most interesting site in Siem Reap, Cambodia. That honor goes to the less-visited Bayon temple, built at the end of the twelfth century A.D. by the Buddhist king, Jayavarman VII. On its stone walls an amazing series of bas-reliefs tell the story of the victory of the Khmers over the Thais. The obligatory heroic and horrific battle scenes are portrayed, but what caught my eye are the pictures of the army supply trains, encampments, field kitchens, and yes, some of the earliest depictions of Asian barbecue. Specifically, you'll see chicken and other meats skewered on split sticks and grilled over pyramid-shaped fires. Fast forward nine hundred years to the parking lot of Angkor Wat where you'll find chicken grilled on split wooden sticks over an open fire, exactly as it was done during the height of the Khmer empire. This recipe may look complicated, but it's really just a series of simple steps.

Colombia may be the best kept barbecue secret in South America. Sure, Argentina gets the attention for its cowboy-style asado. And Brazil has enjoyed spectacular success exporting its rodizio-style restaurants—the kind where the waiters parade spits of grilled meats through the dining room. But Colombia? I doubt that most North Americans could name a single Colombian grilled dish. Well, it's time to shine the spotlight on the only country in South America to have coasts on both the Atlantic and !…

Travel the world’s barbecue trail and you’ll find meat on a stick almost everywhere. South Africa’s version goes by the Afrikaans name sosatie. Like all good Cape Malay meat dishes, fruit and curry are never far off—the former (usually apricots) interspersed with the meat on the skewers, the latter used to flavor the marinade and sauce. “Cape Malay,” by the way, refers to the descendants of Indonesian and Malaysian slaves and indentured servants brought to Cape Town to work in farming. “There is.…