I’m cooking ribs (lots of ribs!) Sunday to munch on for the game. My normal rib recipe is a (very) slightly modified version of Alton Brown’s ‘No BBQ Baby Back Ribs’ from I’m Just Here for the Food.
While everyone loves my ribs, I got a request the last time I made them asking if maybe I could do something a little different. So I’m reaching out to my fellow cooking Dopers seeking alternate rib recipes.
Have at it!
I don’t have time to post it right now, but I use a several-step recipe from Melinda Lee dot com.
You cook a brine and let it cool, then brine the ribs overnight. Then, you steam them in the oven (follow recipe). Then, the last step is to cook them, either in the oven or on the BBQ.
It’s rather a long process, but 100% worth the effort. Best ribs ever.
I don’t know what’s in the book, but I have used Alton Brown’s suggested method of braising, which simplifies the process considerably, and the braising liquid can be cooked down to make a sauce and glaze. But overall I think I favor cooking ribs uncovered, using a mop to keep them from drying out. I usually use a mop of apple juice and melted butter, which lends flavor, but doesn’t have enough sugar to create a thick layer of carbon.
Basically, you put your slab in the oven on a rack – I use a broiling pan – and cook for four hours at 250, stopping to brush it down every 45 minutes or so. Based on a suggestion I recieved in an earlier thread on this subject, I now turn up the temperature going into the last half hour because I like a dryer outside texture to my ribs.
My favorite commercial barbecue sauce is Sweet Baby Ray’s Original, but these days I don’t usually bother with it on ribs. I’ve become enamored of using a dry rub in the place of barbecue sauce. Here is one recipe, but the principle is that you take a base of paprika and add spices onto it. I like a fair portion of brown sugar in mine because it replaces the sweetness you usually get from barbecue sauce, and with it and paprika as a base, you just about can’t overdose on the stuff.
Supposedly, James Beard’s favorite way of preparing ribs was to salt them and pepper them lavishly, put them in a roasting pan, and pop them into a 400-degree oven for one hour, turning them over halfway through.
I’ve cooked them this way dozens of times. They’re delicious – the pork flavor really comes across when you leave off all them fancy dry-rubs and sauces – and they certainly couldn’t be any easier.
The last time I made ribs I followed the Alton method (from his TV show) to a point, but finished them off on the grill. I called them “Hot Cherry Ribs” and they were really tasty.
Pretty simple actually… I had some kind of 7 pepper blend (or was it 10?) that my neighbor had given me and I used all of it in a standard brown sugar and salt base rub (plus a touch of ground hot red pepper). I rubbed the ribs and let them sit covered in the refrigerator for a few hours then made a foil pouch for the ribs plus one sliced onion.
As the braising liquid I poured a large drink pouch of Cherry Capri Sun and a dash of apple cider vinegar into one end of the sealed, foil, rib pouch. I let the rib pouch braise/steam in the oven for about an hour then poured off the peppery, cherry braising liquid and onions into a small saucepan and reduced that into a thick BBQ sauce/glaze (The brown sugar from the exuded rub and the sugars in the Capri sun were enough to make a sweet and thick sauce).
Finally, I finished the ribs off on the grill with a constant and generous slathering of the reduced spicy cherry glaze. You could do the same thing under your oven’s broiler setting.
For simple, no-fuss, fall-off-the-bone ribs:
-Cook racks on BBQ 5 mins per side, with salt/pepper
-Using heavy duty foil, place ribs on foil and slather in BBQ sauce (your choice). Put double foil on bottom, and stack ribs. Make sure to seal foil all the way around and make a very tight large tent.
-Carefull lift from bottom, liek you are cradling a baby, and put on cookie sheet (just in case of drippage)
-Cook in oven for 90-100 mins on 350.
-open foil, careful of steam, take out ribs, cut them, eat them. you may want BBQ sauce for dipping.
Alternative (a bit more work, and more work closer to eating time):
-Dry Rub ribs night before
-Cook in foil, same time, without BBQ sauce
-Take out of foil, apply BBQ sauce, cool on BBQ for 5 mins per side.
-Eat
Either way, guests say these ribs are “the best home cooked ribs” they have had.
I do this but put in about half a cup of water, kickstarts the steam. About 1 hour into cooking, poke a small vent hole in the foil to let the steam start leaving and cook another 30 minutes or so. Then take the ribs out, put them onto a rack and spread with BBQ sauce [sweet baby rays =)] and finish off
devilsknew, Cherry Capri Sun? I definitely can see the cider, but Capri Sun? I usually use Margarita mixer plus orange or pineapple juice. Like any other amateur chef, I took another chef’s (Alton’s) rub and co-opted it to my own tastes. The method (braising) seems the best indoor way, so now it’s just finding the right braising medium and maybe a different bbq sauce (which uses, as its base, the braising liquid).
When I do ribs in the oven, I’ll usually just combine mustard and apple cider vinegar. Seal it all in foil, and cook for a couple hours at 250.
The vinegar really helps break them down. I’ll slice them, and cover them with more mustard/vinegar with a little honey to give it a consistency that sticks to the rib better.
Yea, I know it sounds weird. But it’s someting I had on hand. Believe it or not, in combination with the multi-pepper blend and brown sugar rub it ranked as one of my top three rib preperations. My others have been very classical with slight variations on rub spices and traditional BBQ sauces. If the Capri Sun turns you off (which is actually mostly apple juice with a small amount of cherry juice and natural flavorings.) then real and pure cherry juice could substitute.
Splash them with rum.
Sprinkle on some garlic powder, salt, pepper and brown sugar.
Bake.
After you eat them all, you might want to make another batch to feed your guests.
But can they compare with grilled or barbequed ribs? There’s a lot to be said about barbequing ribs for a couple of hours, preferably with hickory or mesquite.
I wonder how oven-baked ribs would fare at an international barbeque competition, were they allowed to compete.
What is with the variety of cooking times? I find 40 to 60 minutes at 280 is plenty for ribs. In this thread already we have:
four hours at 250
400-degree oven for one hour
in the oven for about an hour plus finished the ribs off on the grill
a couple hours at 250.
Cook in oven for 90-100 mins on 350
Strange that we can use such a variety and come up with decent foods. I can’t think of anything else that you can cook for between 40 minutes and 4 hours and get acceptable results.
I should have been more clear-- I braised them at 350F for just under an hour, then finished them on the grill. (They were actually on the grill for about a half of an hour.)
I’m the “Cook in oven for 90-100 mins on 350” guy. Since they are in a foil tent, they are essentially being steamed. I can’t say what would happen if you cook them shorter, as I don’t want to mess with a good thing.
I use th Alton Brown recipe also. The one he did on TV, I don’t know if it changed for the book. The key is to cut the salt in half. WAY too much salt in the recipe.
Personally, I believe there’s only one right way to make pork spare ribs, and that’s lovingly slow-cooked over natural charcoal and smoked with any combination of hickory, white oak, cherry or applewood. (Personally, I find mesquite to be more suited to beef with its sharper flavor. Mesquite is Texas BBQ.)
Oh, and BBQ sauce on the side.
However, as far as competitions go, you have to know your audience. There was a competition here in Chicago a few years back, and the unofficial Chicago BBQ expert Gary Wiviott entered his fantastic ribs. They were one of the few examples of real BBQ entered.
Unfortunately, Chicago is a Jell-o, fall-off-the-bone, textureless rib town (places like Honey 1, Barbara Ann’s and Lem’s excepted), so Gary didn’t even place anywhere in the top echelon. First place was won by someone who—egad—boiled his ribs. No smoke was involved anywhere in the process.
So, know your audience. It takes a lot of skill to do 'cue well, but not everyone will appreciate it.