My Rib Recipe

Had not done this in awhile. Then, cooked in for Mom & Dad on Sunday, and took Dad for his surgery on Monday. Ended up talking about this recipe with some people (Hi Dawn) we meet at the hospital, and I decided to post it. This is the perfect way to do ribs!

Bone Dust
½ cup paprika
¼ cup chilli powder
3 tbsp salt
2 tbsp ground coriander
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp curry powder
2 tbsp hot dry mustard
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp cayenne pepper

Give a good mix. I had an old quart sealer which stays nice and airtight, so I have stored for a month or more, because this makes a lot of rub. But, keep in dry and in a dark place, and it stores well

What is Brazing

The way I do it, to braze something, you need a pan you can put your fluid in, then a cooking rack to go in the pan, and meat goes on top of the rack, above the fluid. I looked around, and could not find exactly the pan I wanted. I ended up with two really large cookie sheets which were the deepest cookie sheets I could find, and cookie cooling racks which were big enough to “fill” the cookie sheet and act as cooking racks.

So:

• This works best if you start first thing in the morning, get the oven part done, let the meat cool right down, and then finish on the BBQ latter in the day. Read on.
• Get your ribs out, and rub them down, both sides with bone dust
• Slice up an onion, and toss it in the brazing pan.
• Take out a head of garlic, cut off both ends, strip away the easy to strip-away stuff, and then crush, and toss that in as well. I always just use the flat of my big knife to crush, and usually hack at it a bit as well just so the flavour gets out good.
• Add tequila, orange juice, and pineapple juice.  With my pan, 1 cup tequila, 1 cup OJ, and 1 cup pineapple works perfect. Make sure lots of juice, but not so full the pan is a PIA to move around, and not enough to come over the rack. Which, by the way, is the reason I wish I could, find a better pan than a cookie sheet. A big cookie sheet works great as far as size goes for two racks of ribs, but it could be deeper.
• Stick the cooking rack into the pan, and place the ribs on the rack, with the meat side down.
• Slice up lemon and orange, and cover the ribs with them.
• Cover up the whole thing with aluminium foil, so that the moister stays in.
• Now, my oven cooks cold, so I set the oven to 275° F, but if your oven is accurate, try 250° F. Try 275° the first time, and if the ribs could be a little more chewy, then drop the temp the next time.
• Cook for 4 hours, until meat is very tender, and starting to come off the bone, but everything is still holding together. Once they cool, they get back a bit of ability to hold together
• Set aside, and let cool, right down to room temp is best if you have time
• Cut into the size to want for BBQ – 2-3 ribs per section works good.
• Get the BBQ up to about 350° - 400°F, slap the ribs on, about 3 minutes then flip, cover the upside with Dianna’s Chicken and Rib sauce, turn the BBQ down a bit, cook about 2-3 minutes, flip them, sauce the other side, give them another 2-3 minutes, flip them, 2-3 minutes more, and voilà

Credits

• Got started based on a recipe I got from Dave McConnell
• He got the bone dust from Ted Reader’s book “Hot, Sticky, and on Fire”, which also has a great coleslaw recipe in it.

Variations

• Try Guinness instead of tequila & fruit juice, then just lemon so not so sweet - Yummy.
• Bourbon and fruit juice also works
• I bet slices of fresh pineapple would be yummy.
• I have tried a couple of different home made BBQ sauces to finish with, but have not got anything I can recommend - post a good one if you have a good one!
• Rum? Hmm………..