St. Louis Style Pork Steaks
Of all the weird foods St. Louis, MO is most famous for, Pork Steaks seem like a more universal food. Surprisingly, if you look for pork steaks outside of the St. Louis region, you’ll have some explaining to do. So if you live in an area where pork steaks are hard to find, just grab a bone-in pork shoulder and kindly ask your butcher to slice it into 1” thick steaks. They might look at you funny but they will do it usually.
Ingredient wise this recipe is stupid easy. All you need are the pork steaks, a Budweiser (or any cheap yellow American beer), a rub (I include a spice mixture in the recipe but use what you like), a foil pan, and bbq sauce.
In St. Louis, we use Maull’s brand bbq sauce. But like the pork steaks, Maull’s is a regional product. Sweet Baby Ray’s is a good substitute as well as your favorite bbq sauce.
The best part of this recipe is that the active cooking time is minimal. The majority of the magic is done in the oven with no interaction.
Ingredients
4 bone-in pork shoulder steaks
1 tbsp Paprika
1 tbsp Granulated Garlic or Garlic Powder
1 tbsp Black Pepper
1 tbsp Cumin
1tbsp Kosher Salt
2 tsp Mustard Powder
1 12 oz Can of Budweiser
2 24 oz Bottles of Maull’s Original BBQ Sauce
1 Foil Roaster/Baking Pan
Method
Preheat your grill. If using a gas grill, use the highest setting. If using charcoal, apply the charcoal to 1/2 of the grill.
In a bowl, mix all of the spices together thoroughly
Liberally apply the spice mixture to both sides of the pork steaks
In a sealable container, add 1 24oz bottle of Maull’s Original BBQ sauce and 3/4 of the can of Budweiser
Pour the remaining 1/4 of the beer into the BBQ sauce bottle to extract the remaining sauce and pour into the BBQ sauce/beer mixture
Stir or shake the mixture to combine
Pour the mixture into a foil pan
Just before the grill is ready, preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit
Once the grill is ready, add the pork steaks over the hottest part of the grill
Cook for a few minutes until the first side is browned and flip
Brush on the BBQ sauce mixture lightly - you want to cover the entire side but it should be a thin layer of sauce
After the first application of sauce, flip the steaks and apply sauce
Once all of the steaks are completely sauced, flip and let cook for a minute or so just to thicken the sauce a bit
Transfer the steaks from the grill to the foil pan with the remaining sauce - you want the steaks to be completely submerged in the sauce. If you must, grab the second bottle of Maull’s Original BBQ Sauce and add more sauce to cover all of the steaks
Cover the foil with with foil and place into the preheated oven for 1-2 hours - it can go longer if the you want the pork steaks to fall apart…you do you
When the pork steaks are done to your desired tenderness it’s time to eat