Rib Recipe Please

[Nutczak]

These ribs were boiled prior to bbq'ing and were the most tender I've ever tasted.

Are we looking for tender, or a proper flavor?
A guy could boil meat until it falls apart, but how is that appetizing? Especially if you are trying for a true BBQ flavor and texture.

Ribs can be done from a fresh raw state cooking directly over charcoal or hardwoods, just keep the temps low and baste to keep them from burning.

I am not trying to be a "Richard Cranium" or anything, but I am having difficulty trying to keep my breakfast from re-appearing with all this talk of boiled meat.
Ribs should be cooked at low temperatures over hardwoods or charcoal with hardwoods for flavor

If you are trying to duplicate true to form American-Stlye Barbecue ribs, they need to be lightly seasoned with a dry rub a few minutes before cooking in a smokey environment between 225F-250F

Simple rub recipe,
3 parts sugar
1 part salt (Uniodized)
Then use the following items for flavor and color
Paprika
Granulated garlic
Granulated onion
Black pepper
Maybe some dried mustard powder
Ground bay leaf or whatever flavor you care to use besides cinnamon, nutmeg, anise and other highly aromatic things.

Sprinkle the rub liberally on the meat while you smoker is coming up to temp, then cook the ribs until they are tender but not falling apart.



If you season the ribs with salt and/or sugar several hours or days before cooking, you are effectively curing the meat and it will make the texture similar to a ham.

[Zulululu]

I think the point not to miss here is WW will be serving these up at a function or something similar so he will not have the time to do long slow cooked ribs. The way I see it he will have to do a lot of preperation upfront and then finish them off at the function because of time constraints.He could even turn the bones from his sausage making into stock and simmer them in that I am sure that way he could make up for flavour leaching into his boiling liquid, and reduce the stock afterwards to make up his basting sauce.

[welsh wizard]

Lots of interesting ideas. I have now tried a number of ways to cook the ribs and they seem to be fine 3/4 cooked, frozen in a vac pack, defrosted and then finished off on the BBQ. True not the best ribs I have ever tasted but more than passable, safe and workable on the scale I need them to be.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank one and all for their input to date, just brilliant.

Cheers WW

[culinairezaken]

here is just a little (bad) picture i made of the ribs i'm selling in my restaurant.



what i've learnt from this post is that there are quite different preperations for ribs around the world and everybody is rather fanatic about them

i really would try the smoked barbecued ribs shown here!

greets from holland,

pieter dijkema

[saucisson]

I feel a new signature coming on


" One Man's Delicacy is another Man's Heresy..."

[RodinBangkok]

Well for me I guess it comes down to knowing that a technique that drains all the flavor from meat, just to make it tender is wrong, not taught anywhere, and goes against the basics of good cooking practice. I don't agree with the fanatics that say you can only make ribs on a such and such smoker and use only 100% whatever to cook them. There's a lot of ways to get to a good properly cooked rack of ribs, that use basic fundamental cooking techniques, boiling is not one of them.

About the only cut of meat I boil is liver if using it in a Braunschweiger or liver sausage.

I think that by slathering sauce on or lacquering a boiled piece of meat after it has given up all its natural flavor is giving you the false sense that these are good ribs. Well take a piece of hard bread and put the same sauce on it, and see if the flavor is any different than with the ribs, most likely not. In other words turn the meat into cardboard, then coat it with something that has flavor.

More traditional techniques will attempt to do both, save that natural flavor, tenderize, and then enhance the flavor with what you've added to the mix.

Take a close look at the grilled ribs in the photo above, they are plump, with just a bit of pull back on the bone, and show minimal signs of shrinking, this suggest just by site that they have been cooked in a process, (and yes they can look the same from an oven also), that has preserved the texture, and most importantly the flavor of the meat.

[Paul Kribs]

No longer boil hams, no casseroles, no lancashire hotpots, no stews, etc etc

What I have gleaned from this thread is that people cook their meat recipes to suit what they find tastey and what suits them. When I do my chinese style ribs, EVERYONE who tastes them likes them. There is plenty of the pork taste left, it doesn't wash away, it isn't smothered with loads of liquid, but it is boiled then gently simmered. As has been quoted 'different strokes for different folks'. To me it is about adding flavour to the meat, not drowning it.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[wheels]

I have to agree:

'different strokes for different folks'

...should always be a watch-word. There is rarely, 'one way' which is absolutely right.

Phil

[vinner]

The very first advices I ever got on this forum.. and if he will let me state that he "e-got" me confident enough to pursue hobby curing and sausage making, came from the gent who might inspire my new signature.......

"When it comes to ribs, I shan't doubt Kribs"

I do like my hill country ribs slow smoked, though.

[Paul Kribs]

Just thought I would post an old photo (not very good one) of chinese style ribs on a bed of noodles and veggies. The reduced marinade was used to flavour the noodles after stir frying. Not everyones cup of tea but a tastey meal nonetheless..



Regards, Paul Kribs

[lemonD]

:D I feel a new signature coming on


"One Man's Delicacy is another Man's Heresy..."

Or "One Man's Delicacy is another man's Hershey's"

[adm]

Just to revive this thread, I am currently cooking ribs today......on my Weber Smoky Mountain cooker. They've been in for two hours so far and have another three to go. I've just joined this site to learn about sausage making, but I already know a lot about BBQ (and beer brewing for that matter) and this thread caught my eye....

My personal opinion is that ribs should never, ever be boiled (despite most commercial restaurants in Europe selling them this way) , but should always (and only) be slow smoked indirectly at 110 to 120c over charcoal and/or hardwood logs. And also that they should never be cooked with sauce either. Sauce is for glazing the ribs in the last 30 minutes of cooking only, and then serving on the side....

Ribs should be rubbed (or left naked if you like that) overnight with a mixture of dry spices, typically including cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, pepper, etc, etc...to your personal taste. Personally, I avoid sugar in the rub completely as it burns on the ribs. For glazing, I use a sauce based on tomato passata, ground chipotles, agave syrup (for a bit of sweetness if required as I am diabetic), apple cider vinegar, etc - adjust and add ingredients to the taste of your diners.

Alternatively, a simple vinegar sauce is also excellent - apple cider vinegar, agave syrup and chilli and garlic flakes boiled for a short while then left to sit works really well. Far different from the usual sickly sweet sauces.

To me though, the thought of boiled ribs is almost stomach turning. I spent a year in the US learning the real art of BBQ and ever since then I can't eat ribs in any restaurant in Europe (with one exception being the Bodeans BBQ chain in London, who do cook them properly). Just the thought of boiled gray ribs smothered in a sickly sauce is nauseating to me! I make far, far better ribs at home.....

Anyway - just my tuppence worth! I know others believe differently and if you can sell 32,000 Kg of boiled ribs, then more power to you....it's just not the way I would do things.

To the guy looking to sell ribs at festivals, I'd buy a large commercial offset smoker and get to the site the night before and do the job properly. You'd have a far better product and the smoker would also be a centrepiece for your stand. It would also be much easier as all the work would be done early (that's the beauty of the "slow and low" approach) and you'd be free to concentrate on the serving rather than the cooking!

[grisell]

Personally, I prefer the ribs with more meat on them. Rubbed with white pepper, salt and dried ginger. Or maybe with this spice mixture:

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=6609

I don't care much for the (American?) way of bbq-ing meat until close to incineration. I worked on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for one season in 2004 and saw how they cooked meat to the degree of sterilization (there was a reason for this: you don't want sick people on the South Pole, 3 000 kms from the nearest hospital). Anyway, the finest fillet of beef was reduced to a dusty piece of dog-food. That experience is still in my mind.

On the positive side I can say that I had some excellent steaks when I was in Texas in 1993. Succulent, juicy and just about right. They came with no accessories except baked potatoes, so we ordered some butter and had a can of garlic powder that we mixed and put onto the steaks. No wonder the waitress saw us as crazy foreigners.

However, that Chinese stuff you showed me made my mouth water...

[grisell]

I want to emphasize that I don't have anything against American cooking. I just had some good and bad experiences.

[adm]

Personally, I prefer the ribs with more meat on them.

The ones I've just finished had a HUGE amount of meat on them! Although baby backs are nice, I prefer the "country" cut, with the added bottom of the rib that includes the cartilage with the meat that goes around it, plus an extra layer of meat over the ribs themselves. Basically massively meaty ribs!

IMHO, baby back ribs dry out too quickly, and don't have enough meat on them in the first place.

I have to say though, that properly done American style BBQ beats the hell out of the typical UK BBQ. From my experience, UK BBQ is cheap cuts of meat, cooked to cinders on the outside whilst still being raw on the inside and normally slathered in a sugar based tomato sauce. For me that's not Q.

Q is slow smoked (or even slow cooked but not smoked) cuts, gently cooked so the collagen and fat breaks down and marinades the meat as it cooks low and slow. Think overnight for a piece of beef brisket or pork shoulder and 5 hours or more for country cut ribs....Sounds like the Americans you met at the Pole knew nothing about barbecuing. Still - must have been an awesome place to go!

The other thing I like is Sous Vide cooking - again, low and slow and transforming cheap cuts of meat into mouthwatering delicacies. Being a brewer, I use my digitally temperature controlled mash tun for this - and it works fantastically!