Baking pork

Cafe Society
1

I have some leftover barbecue sauce in my fridge. And boneless pork ribs (which I realize is an oxymoron) were on sale at the supermarket. So I decided to bring the two together.

I don’t normally cook pork in the oven. So I wasn’t sure what would be a good temperature and cooking time.

I googled “baking boneless pork in oven” to get an approximate idea. I checked the first few recipes. Here’s what I found:

*Boil them first (seriously?). Then 60-90 minutes in a 325 degree oven.

*325 degrees for 75 minutes. Then add the sauce and 15 more minutes.

*One hour at 350 degrees. Add sauce. Then another hour at 350 degrees.

*300 degrees for two hours. Then add sauce and another hour at 275 degrees.

*350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

*Sear them in a frying pan first. Then add sauce and 15 minutes at 375 degrees.

*425 degrees for 30 minutes.

*400 degrees for an hour and a half.

*250 degrees for 90 minutes. Add sauce. Then 90 more minutes at 350 degrees. Then broil it for a couple of minutes.

*300 degrees for two and a half hours.

*90 minutes at 325 degrees or 60 minutes at 375 degrees or three to four hours at 300 degrees. And use beef.

*350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

So apparently I should cook pork at a temperature ranging from 250 to 425 degrees for a period ranging from twenty minutes to four hours. And fry, boil, and/or broil it. And maybe not use pork. I know I said I wanted an approximate idea but I was hoping for something a little more precise.

Okay, I understand the idea of a recipe for things like marinades or sauces. But shouldn’t there be some general consensus on the basic cooking? Even taking into account the principle that higher temperature equals less cooking time, these recipes are all over the place.

2

I’d narrow the search to ‘pork ribs.’ Just searching boneless pork could mean a deboned suckling pig, a 25 lb ham, a shoulder, loin roast, all larger items which would take longer cooking times. I’d personally use about 350 and pull from the oven based on internal temp at the thickest ‘rib.’

3

It’s not that sensitive a process. Don’t pre-boil the ribs, or post-broil them. Just put them in a baking dish, or in a sheet pan lined with foil. Pour the sauce over the ribs and bake them at 350 F for an hour or two, depending on how tender you want them. For moister ribs, cover them for all or part of the cooking time.

4

Not sure what the internal temp should be, but that’s what you should shoot for. Look online at what USDA says the temp should be.
Or, I would (YMMV) cook them for an hour, unsauced, pull them out and cut into the middle, thickest part. It should be whitish in the center. No pink for pork. If they are done, or nearly done, then sauce them, cover and put back in the oven til the sauce is very hot.

5

Your “boneless pork ribs” are almost certainly just cut sections of pork shoulder. As such, it’s a remarkably forgiving piece of meat.

Place them in a foil lined baking pan, cover with foil and bake for 90 minutes at 275 degrees.
Remove the foil and drain the cooking liquid that has been pushed out of the meat into a saucepan. Return the meat to the oven, uncovered, for another 45 minutes.
If you can, run the drippings through a fat separator cup so you can discard the grease.
Mix the drippings, bbq sauce, hot sauce and whatever spices you feel like adding and boil gently in the saucepan until thickened. Stir constantly, with all the sugar in the bbq sauce, it can burn in a heartbeat.
Pour the sauce over the ribs and cook under the broiler for a few minutes just to get a little char on them.

6

I just looked on the USDA site. Internal temp should be 145°, to be safe.

7

I like Alpha Twit’s recipe. My only caveat would be to modify cook time depending on the weight.

This:

actually works remarkably well for ribs. I’d finish them in the BBQ myself, instead of the oven, but the boiling results in a really tender meat.

8

IMHO, tenderness is over rated. By boiling first, you lose flavor and collagen. That collagen is crucial for that wonderfully sticky, luscious, lip smacking goodness. I’d rather deal with a bit of gnarly toughness and bark to keep that in the mix.

9

One bakes bread, not pork. One roasts pork. If the food is initially formless/malleable, like cookies or dough, it’s baking. If it’s already got an intrinsic structure, like a piece of meat or a potato, it’s roasting.

10

IDK, about that. A baked ham is an example. It’s all semantics, anyway.

11

Follow Alpha Twit’s recipe. As for additional spices for the sauce: red pepper flake, black pepper, bourbon and maybe a splash of apple juice are all good.

12

Those are all good and honestly, it’s hard to go too far wrong. Taste, try and experiment, you’ll figure out what works for your tastes. It sounds odd but if I want something sweeter, I’d add in a couple of fat spoonfuls of apple butter. For a tangy zing, pour in some of the brine from my bread-and-butter pickled jalapenos.

I should add to the OP, when saucing the ribs before placing under the broiler, use a light touch. You’re much better off brushing on a thin coating and reserving some of the thickened sauce for dipping later.

13

I agree with the comments about pre-boiling. I’d only do that if I wanted spongy, tasteless meat.

Using a thermometer seems unnecessary for ribs. For a big piece of lean meat, like a loin roast, it’s important to get the meat to within a narrow temperature range. Ribs have enough fat and collagen that it’s hard to overcook them, and the individual pieces are small enough that the danger of undercooking is very low. What you want to do is cook the pork long enough that the collagen turns to gelatin, which takes time.

There is no one oven temperature that’s right. If you want your meat to be very tender, use a lower temperature and cook longer. If you prefer it to have some chew, use a higher temperature and cook for less time.

14

Yeah, but you were wrong about pink pork. Pink pork is perfectly fine. White pork is overdone dry garbage. There’s a lot of people out there whose mothers taught them to cook pork to 160 degrees F. Those people are terrible cooks, and may have other flaws as well.

15

Pork shoulder, ribs, and other braising cuts are routinely cooked far beyond 160F. I’m sure you know that, but I’m just saying it to remind readers that “white pork is overdone dry garbage” is incorrect as a blanket assertion. If you’re doing loin or tenderloin, sure, don’t cook it that far (unless that’s what you like.) If you’re doing shoulder, you’ve got a choice. You can cook it to a lower temp or you could cook it to a much higher level of doneness, letting the collagen work its way into gelatin and end up with a juicy tasting hunk of meat, whether you cook it to something like 185F (where it’s still sliceable) or 195±ish, where it’s of the pullable variety.

Now, given the times and temps in the OP, it does seem most likely those are recipes for a pork loin, in which case, I would just use a meat thermometer, cook it to 145F, however long it takes. For a loin, I’ll usually do a pan sear and then finish in the oven at anywhere from 325-350.

16

My bad. I did actually google “baking boneless pork ribs in oven” but I dropped a word when I was writing the OP.

17

I ain’t eating underdone pork.ever. Sorry, IMO.

18

For the record, I cooked it at 350 degrees for about fifty minutes. Then I poured the sauce on it and cooked it for another fifteen minutes. When I pulled it out I checked the temperature and it was 75 degrees Celsius (my kitchen thermometer is metric). I checked on a Canadian webpage and that said pork is good once it hits 71 degrees.

It came out pretty good.

19

I’m glad it was enjoyable for you.

Purely out of curiosity, what kind of bbq sauce did you use?

20

Hey, don’t be sorry. A lot of old people are like that.