Cravings

Saturday mornings usually start the same way. I go the supermarket to pick up the last remaining items for the nights party. This morning I found myself at Loblaws, and on entering I was hit with the smell of RIBS. I do so love ribs, but these were not smelling so great. Ribs are hard not to be good, but these only made me want to make some, not eat the ones on offer. So what to do? If you're me, you go home and make some ribs.
I have a pretty good smoker at work and a kettle style BBQ for smoking at home. These are my stand byes. I use them a lot. But today I wanted to recreate the ones I had smelled in the morning, only better. So today, baked ribs. Now now, I know we are wading into some pretty opinionated waters here. DO I bake them or braise them? Here is my simple take on that age old question. I want the taste of my pork, in my pork and not in the water in the pot. PERIOD. Now I have had some great tender ribs that were braised or cooked in a crock pot. But really, if you do them right in your oven, they win hands down.
So some basics to follow. Temperature, time and well, LOVE. The first two are pretty easy. An oven temp of 280-300 degrees will be satisfactory. Time, well, depends on your ribs and their size. Baby backs cook faster than say, side ribs. But it really doesn't make a difference. The ribs cook, until they are done. Simple. For the back ribs I had on hand, 3-3.5 hours is probably going to do it. Can't say for 100% certain as they are still in the oven. And killing me by the way, with their olfactory rhapsody. Soon. Soon.
Love. Now this is a bit more difficult. Everyone is different, so all types of love are going to be admissible here. For me, today, love is a rub with a mix of (in no particualr order)
Smoked paprika
Ground chipotles
Garlic powder
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Ground yellow mustard
Salt
Pepper
Brown sugar
But this mix is by no means the only suitable kind of love. Make sure to experiment, because you never know where love is going to come from.
One thing I find a lot of people forget when dealing with ribs, is the silver skin on the bottom side of the rib. If you bake or smoke with this on, you will end up with ribs that don't quite fall apart as they should. Or have a strange papery substance on the bottom. I have always wondered why the butchers don't automatically take this off. But they don't, so you need to. Easy enough. Take a knife and run it down the middle of your rib, tail to tip. Work your finger under the cut, and pull the silver skin off. Next take your rub and work it well into the ribs. Really massage the love in here. I usually let my ribs sit in the fridge over night with the rub on, but this is optional.
Get the oven going and wrap your ribs in foil tightly. This will help them not burn and slightly steam them at a certain point. At about the 2.5 hr mark, I usually take the foil off. I do this so I can see the ribs, and allow the heat at the end to be a dry heat. With back ribs, they are done when the meat start to pull away from the bones. Seeing white bones means they are done. I will usually take them out of the oven and cool them down. Only to cook them on the BBQ later with a slathering of secondary love, BBQ SAUCE. But today, they are going under the broiler to finish. Ofcourse they are going to get a bit of BBQ sauce just before.
I will post some pics as soon as they come out.
One craving out of the way.
Next up some beef jerky. Not sure why I am craving this today as well, but while the ribs worked, I made up some jerky. They will come out of the dehydrator much later tonight. But damn do I love some good jerky.
Cheers.