I Dream of Ribs...

This post is about ribs.  No sides, no nonsense, just ribs.  Sorry vegetarians, but there is no substitute.  Unfortunately we do not have a smoker, so we had to make do with the oven.  As I write this post, the ribs are still cooking, so I don't even know whether they will be any good, or fully cooked before midnight.  But however they turn out, we will pretend that everything went according to plan.

We got two racks of fresh babybacks from Fairway.  Went for two different styles: one rack chipotle barbeque, the other rack we experimented with a tangy orange-honey glaze.

The first step to good rack of ribs is a solid dry rub.  For best results be sure to rub the ribs the night before, at least 10-12 hours before cooking.  Rather than my normal approach of throwing in seven different kinds of heat and calling it a day,  I went for two distinct, simple rubs.

Brown sugar, garlic, mustard powder, and cumin formed the basis of both rubs.  For the barbeque, also added chipotle powder, paprika, and black pepper.  For the sweet-spicy rub, added cloves, ginger, and Chimayo, a New Mexican chile that I found in my box of spices.  It's sweet, smoky, spicy, and a little bit tangy, which was perfect for our purposes.  If you can get your hands on some, I would highly recommend it.





I can't say for certain what the proportions for each rub were, not because it is a closely guarded secret, but because I did it 100% by taste.  I can say go light on the mustard powder and heavy on the brown sugar.  Bout equal parts cumin and garlic.  For the BBQ, add quite a bit of chipotle, depending on heat tolerance; and for the sweet-spicy, go light on the cloves and heavy on the brown sugar and chimayo.  Run of the mill chili powder and cayenne might make a good substitute for the chimayo.

Sorry for the long-winded description.  The basic idea is you want the sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the pork, and the spice because who wants to eat bland ribs?  Once you have your rub composed, it's time to prep the ribs.  Use a small knife to separate and peel the membrane from the backside of the ribs, then sprinkle each side lightly with salt.

Plant eaters look away now.

Personally not a big fan of overly salty foods, but it is necessary whenever cooking meat as it helps break down the texture, making it more tender and juicy.  Give the salt 5-10 minutes to soak in, then coat each side liberally with your dry rub.

Be sure to get those exposed edges too.

Wrap 'em up in foil and let them sit overnight.

Now, I started this post the day of cooking, while the ribs were in the oven.  However, time flies, and here I am a week later finishing this post.  The point being, I don't remember exactly the cooking times or temperatures we used, but you should allow at least 6 hours to ensure properly tender slide-off-the-bones ribs. 

The original plan was for me to start the ribs cooking early in the day since I had the day off.  However, I ended up going to a Mets game (they lost) and the ribs went in the oven around 6:00pm, at about 200 F.  While the oven preheated, we pulled the ribs out of the fridge, then stuck them in the oven still wrapped in foil.  Then we hit the sauce.

Hittin' the sauce with an IPA.

Cooking Sauce: an action shot.

First we grabbed the ingredients for both sauces:

Oranges, orange zest, honey, beer, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, bourbon, mustard (didn't use any), chipotles, chopped red chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic, butter, and habaneros. 

I think we finally figured out a good BBQ sauce.  We started with the same approach as the May 5th salsa:  blacken a few onions and tomatoes in a skillet. 

Once those were done we threw them in a food processor with chipotles and a few garlic cloves. For the honey glaze, we fried the chiles in a skillet with some roughly chopped garlic, then added that to a blender with a few oranges.

 

Meanwhile, we heated up half a stick of butter and a plash of apple cider vinegar in a medium pot, one for each sauce.  Once the butter was melted we added the processed and blended mixtures, along with a tablespoon or so of their respective dryrubs, and a healthy shot of bourbon, and a dash of beer.  Also added some Worcestershire to the bbq and some honey to the honey sauce.  We let each simmer on the stovetop for a while to thicken.

Barbeque

Honey Glaze

Quick note:  The bbq sauce came out great, smoky, spicy, and hearty.  We didn't add the orange zest or the habanero to the honey glaze, but in retrospect we should have.  It came out a bit sweet, while not very spice and lacking in that orange flavor which would have really given it some character.

After about two hours we pulled the ribs out of the oven, drowned them in sauce, and covered them back up to cook for another 30-45 minutes.

We then cooked them for about half an our uncovered, after re-saucing.  

After just over three hours of cooking time, they were looking great:

Getting a little impatient. 

By this point it was well after 9:30pm, and we were getting pretty hungry.  So we cranked up the heat to blast them for another 45 minutes or so.  They came out plenty juicy, but not quite slide-off-the-bones tender.  At any rate, it was late, and it was time to eat, so we slathered on some more sauce and ate like kings. 

Hallie joined us for the eating portion of this excursion, and can testify that they were indeed tasty.

There you go, ribs in ~30 easy steps.  What will we cook next?  Who Knows?!  Seriously, send us some suggestions.  

P. S. On a personal note, I got a new phone and still need a lot of people's numbers, so text me: 682 559 0670