Pork

Editor's note: The recipe below is adapted from Elizabeth Karmel's Web site, girlsatthegrill.com .

Editor's note: The recipe below is adapted from Elizabeth Karmel's Web site, girlsatthegrill.com .

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. It never fails to amaze me how one simple idea can give birth to so many great regional variations. Consider ribs. The pork rib is one of the most perfect morsels ever to occupy a grill. The meat is generously marbled, which keeps it moist during prolonged cooking. As the fat melts, it crisps the meat fibers and bastes the meat naturally. The bones impart a rich meaty flavor (meat next to the bone always tastes best), while literally providing a physical support—a gnawable rack on which to cook the meat. Yet depending on whether you eat ribs in Birmingham or Kansas City, or Bangkok or Paris for that matter, you'll get a completely different preparation. I've always been partial to Memphis-style ribs. Memphians don't mess around with a lot of sugary sauces. Instead, they favor dry rubs—full-flavored mixtures of paprika, black pepper, and cayenne, with just a touch of brown sugar for sweetness. The rub is massaged into the meat the night before grilling, and additional rub is sprinkled on the ribs at the end of cooking. This double application of spices creates incredible character and depth of flavor, while at the same time preserving the natural taste of the pork. Sometimes a vinegar and mustard based sauce—aptly called a mop sauce—is swabbed over the ribs (with said mop) during cooking; I've included one here, for you to use if you like. You can choose any type of rib for this recipe: baby back ribs, long ends, short ends, rib tips—you name it. Cooking times are approximate. The ribs are done when the ends of the bones protrude and the meat is tender enough to pull apart with your fingers. I like my ribs served dry, in the style of Memphis's legendary barbecue haunt, the Rendezvous. If you want to serve them with a sauce, you'll find a number to choose from in this chapter.

Here, sturdy Bibb leaves from the center of the head do the work of traditional dumpling wrappers. If that's not an easy enough sell, the dipping sauce will be.

Tradition calls for achiote-scented cochinita pibil to be roasted underground in a pit called a pib. Indirect grilling produces a terrific pibil, and because Yucatecans don't prize the flavor of wood smoke for this dish, a gas grill is ideal. The meat needs to marinate four hours.

Simmering a pork roast with milk and a generous handful of herbs results in very tender meat with rich, silky juices. Many Italians will leave the milk curds that form alongside the meat where they are, but Ferrigno strains them out for a more refined sauce.

With its warm, comforting flavors of sausage, olives, and white wine, this rustic dish will transport your guests to a farmhouse in Umbria.

You'll need a slow cooker for this recipe (a necessity for any busy cook).

Surf-and-turf like you've never had before—whole fried trout topped with crisp pieces of sweet and spicy pork. For a traditional Thai dinner, serve the mains and sides family-style with a large bowl of steamed jasmine rice.

Here, a garlic-packed vinaigrette is infused with caramelized sucs—pan drippings—from the roast pork, creating an uncanny fusion of nutty, meaty flavors.

Obviously, those who devote their lives to pork are going to have the best recipes for it, which explains why porc charcutière—named after pork butchers—is such a time-honored preparation. This version is lighter and a lot quicker than a traditional one, but its flavors are no less fine-tuned.

Smoked pork shoulder usually isn't available at supermarkets, so you will need to order it in advance from your butcher. If you use ham shanks instead, try to find the kind without artificial flavors like liquid smoke. And don't throw out the cooking liquid; it's great for making soup.

These classic pleated Chinese dumplings are delicious either steamed or fried. When fried, they're called "pot stickers." Though the dough is easy to make, if you're short on time you can use premade round gyoza wrappers (also called dumpling or pot sticker wrappers) instead. Look for them in Asian markets and the refrigerated section of many grocery stores.

Set out all of the components of this fun and delicious dish and allow guests to add their own toppings. Because the chili is meatless, the vegetarians in the crowd can also enjoy this meal by simply omitting the crispy cubed-pork topping.

This is the perfect antidote to the Sunday blues, not least because there will be enough left over to pack sandwiches for Monday's lunch. A mix of beef, pork, and bacon ensures meatiness, with Worcestershire sauce, chopped prunes, and cider vinegar added for good balance and occasional suggestions of sweetness. Because the loaf is baked without a loaf pan, there's plenty of well-browned crust to go around.

The tangy sweetness of cherry tomatoes contrasts nicely with the plump, smoky chops, while green-olive paste gives a briny edge to the white beans.

Roasting the meat for almost seven hours makes it tender and succulent. The bright, fresh salsa verde is the perfect accent for the rich meat.

Beans have sustained people—black, white, and Native American—in the South for centuries. Miss Lewis first developed this recipe as a way of jazzing up canned green beans, which she appreciated for their economy. These days, fresh green beans are available and affordable all year long, so we happily adapted the recipe. Don't rush the cooking time and the goodness of these beans will be a revelation: smoky, luxuriant, and vegetal.