I have not had a lot of luck cooking beef short ribs. I love the ones I get when eating out – beefy, rich, and fork-tender. I’ve managed to get mine smoky and tasty, but they were also usually tough and dry. Since our last quarter of beef included two packs of short ribs, once more unto the breach, dear friends…
1 pound bone-in beef short ribs
Kosher salt & fresh-ground black pepper
1/4 cup red wine
Set your smoker up for at least a 6 hour indirect cook at 250°F. On the Big Green Egg this means filling the firebox with lump charcoal and using an inverted plate setter to diffuse the heat and a drip pan with a little water in it to catch the fat.
Once the smoker is up to temp, toss in your smoking wood (I used pecan), Season the ribs lightly with salt and pepper, then arrange them bone side down on the grate. Close the lid and let the smoker do its magic for 4 to 5 hours, or until the ribs reach 160°F internal.
When the ribs are ready, arrange them on a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil, meat side down. Pull up the edges of the foil to make a little bowl and then pour the wine over the ribs. Wrap the ribs tightly in the foil, making sure to seal the edges.
Put the bundle of ribs back on the smoker, meat side down, and cook until the ribs reach 190°F internal (about an hour).
Remove the ribs from the foil and return them to the smoker bone side down. Cook for 30 minutes or so, until the meat has tightened up and pulled well away from the bones.
Remove ribs from the smoker and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.
The Verdict:
Finally! No knives were needed to take apart these little blocks of beefy wonder. They practically melted. I was also glad I stuck with a real simple preparation and let the meat and the smoke come though.
The Nutrition:
3 ounces of rib meat is a whopping 11 points and 165 calories, so these are a rare treat.
I’m getting ready to cook up a big pile-o-pork for a graduation party. I’d like to make all my own rubs and sauces for it, so I thought I’d start with a quart-sized batch of Honey Hog sauce.
1/2 cup honey
1 cup raw or turbinado sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 (12-ounce) can tomato paste
1/2 cup gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup tamarind concentrate
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1 tablespoon smoked sweet paprika
1 tablespoon half-sharp paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon allspice
Combine the tomato paste and sugar in a medium sauce pan and cook over low heat, stirring often, until the sugar melts into the paste.
Add the remaining ingredients, stir to combine, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stirring constantly, raise the heat a little until the sauce is bubbling away nicely. Keep stirring and cook until all the sugar has dissolved and the sauce starts to thicken a little bit (about five minutes).
Reduce the heat to low and let sauce cook for another 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Bottle and store in the fridge. Makes about 1 quart.
Since you can only tell so much about a sauce while tasting it off of a spoon, I tried it on some grilled chicken thighs to get an idea of how it would work and play with others.
About 2 hours before cooking, I dusted some bone-in, skin-on thighs with a bit of salt, pepper, and paprika. I put them in a single layer on a sheet pan and let them sit uncovered in the fridge to let the seasoning work its way into the thighs and dry out the skin a bit to make it crispy.
I set the grill up for a raised indirect cook over medium (350°F) heat. I used the plate setter under the cooking grid on the Big Green Egg to diffuse the heat.
I put the thighs on the grill skin side up, closed the lid, and let them cook for 20 minutes. I flipped them and let them go another 20 minutes. I flipped them back skin side up and checked for doneness. While chicken is technically done when the juices run clear and the internal temperature hits 160°F, that leaves the thighs kind of rubbery. I like mine cooked a little longer to at least 180°F so the meat is tender and the skin is crisp.
This batch of thighs needed about 20 more minutes to hit 180°F. At this point I sauced them on both sides with the Honey Hog, put them back on for 10 more minutes, sauced them one last time and moved them to a warm plate and let sit 10 minutes before serving.
The Verdict:
Sometimes less is more. I basically doubled the main ingredients in the v2.0 recipe, but decided to leave out some of the herbs and spices that I didn’t think were key players. The result is a sauce that has a nice sweet and tangy tomato flavor with enough heat and spice to make it interesting. It’s not as complex as the previous version, but I like the clean, straight forward taste.
The sauce was lovely on the chicken thighs – adding a nice spicy sweetness. The thighs themselves were so crispy that biting into one was like biting into a slice of bacon. Mmmmmmmmmmmm… chicken bacon… mmmmmmmmmm…
The Nutrition:
3 ounces of chicken meat is only about 100 calories and 4 Weight Watchers points. The sauce maybe adds another 1/2 point per thigh.
This is an ever-so-slightly updated version of the creamy cabbage salad that you’ll find at almost any barbecue or picnic.
1 small head of green cabbage, shredded
1/2 small head red cabbage, shredded
2 medium carrots, grated
1 small onion, grated
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice or buttermilk
1-2 teaspoons Louisiana-style hot sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise (I used Kraft’s Olive Oil Mayo)
1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Grate cabbage, carrots, and onion into a large bowl.
In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Pour the dressing over the cabbage mixture and toss to coat thoroughly. Cover and stash in the fridge for at least an hour so the flavors get to know each other. Toss again, taste and adjust seasonings, then serve immediately.
The Verdict: This may well be my favorite coleslaw recipe. It’s creamy and flavorful without crossing over into being gloppy and heavy. It’ll stand up to barbecue or burgers, but won’t overwhelm them. Making it with lemon juice gives it a brighter taste, while using buttermilk makes it creamier.
The Nutrition: Switching to light mayo and sour cream keeps the creaminess, but really cuts the fat. 1/2 cup is about 100 calories and only 1 Weight Watchers point.
I had such nice results using Plowboys Yardbird Rub on chicken, that I just had to take them up on their “Created for Chicken but Made for Pork” tag line and try it on some baby-back ribs.
I went with a very minimal prep of the ribs, just removed the membrane on the bone side of the ribs and rubbed in a generous coating of Plowboys Yardbird Rub into both sides of them about an hour before they went on the Big Green Egg.
I have to say that whoever designed the jar for this rub is a genius – 14 ounces, so you’ve got plenty of rub to work with, and then this dual-function top has both big holes for easy shaking and a larger flap that lets you get a measuring spoon in there. Very nice.
I set up my grill for an indirect cook at 250°F. I filled the firebox with lump charcoal and used an inverted plate setter to diffuse the heat and a drip pan with a little water in it to catch the fat.
I lit the charcoal just in the center, and once the temperature hit 250°F in the dome, I added a couple of chunks of apple wood for smoke. When the smoke changed from white (bad) to blue (good) I loaded up the ribs bone side down on the grate and let them cook for an hour.
I flipped the ribs bone side up and then let them cook for 2 more hours. After the ribs had been on for 4 hours total, I started checking for doneness. Ribs are generally done when a full slab will almost fold in half and start to crack when you pick up one end with a pair of tongs. These weren’t quite there yet.
I gave them another 30 minutes and checked again. The meat had just started to pull back from the end of the bones, but a gentle tug on a couple of bones showed that they weren’t ready to come apart yet.
I gave them another 30 minutes and checked again – much better. I brushed them with a thick coat of Honey Hog Barbecue Sauce and let them cook for another 15 minutes. I sauced them lightly again, cooked them for another 15 minutes, then removed them from the smoker and let them sit 10 minutes before serving.
The Verdict:
The Plowboys Yardbird rub stood right up to smoke and the porky goodness of the ribs. In fact, it may be better on pork than on chicken. What I’m really liking about this rub is how it disappears – like a good background singer – you don’t hear them but you would sure miss them if they were gone. The rub enhances the natural flavors without getting in the way.
Why not a 5? We had a high of 6°F the day I cooked these, and the darker and colder it got the more those ribs sure looked like they were done. My bad. Another 30-45 minutes and they would have rocked.
The Nutrition: Ribs will never be diet food, sorry, but I think I burned off most of the calories with all the shivering I did.
Did you remember to set your clocks back? I did (well, my dear wife did). While that extra hour of sleep was great, it doesn’t make up for the lack of sunlight in the evening. Soon it’ll get cold and I’ll be trudging back and forth to work in the dark, on foot, with snow on the ground, uphill both ways…
It’s joyous thoughts like that that make me yearn for warmer climes. To try and break my funk, I made up a rack of baby back ribs that packed a sweet heat reminiscent of jerk dishes I’ve had in the Caribbean.
The Marinade
1 rack baby back ribs
1 large shallot
4 to 6 Habanero or Scotch Bonnet peppers (4 were plenty for me)
4 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon dark rum
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Wearing gloves, seed and devein the peppers. Put the salt, shallot, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the garlic and shallot are minced. Add the peppers, soy sauce, oil, vinegar, sugar, rum, lime juice, thyme, black pepper, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and give them a whirl until they are well-combined. Makes about 3/4 cup.
Reserve 1/4 cup of the marinade for the barbecue sauce. Prep the ribs by removing the membrane on the bone side and trimming off any scraps of meat or excess fat. Put the ribs into a zip-top bag. Pour the remaining 1/2 cup of the marinade over the ribs, turning to coat. Squeeze the air out of the bag, seal it, and stash in the fridge overnight.
The Barbecue Sauce
1 (11.3 ounce can) mango nectar
1/2 cup raw or brown sugar (divided)
1/4 cup marinade
1/4 cup tamarind concentrate
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the mango nectar and 1/4 of the raw sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture has reduced to about 3/4 cup – about 10 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough that it starts to spit at you.
Reduce heat to medium and add the remaining raw sugar, reserved marinade, tamarind, and cider vinegar. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until all the sugar has dissolved and the sauce starts to thicken a little bit (about five minutes). Bottle and store in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
The Cook
Set your grill up for a raised direct cook at 300°F. I didn’t use anything between the ribs and the fire to diffuse the heat, but did use a Woo2 extender to raise the cooking grid up about 4 inches further from the heat.
When the grill is up to temp, add your smoking wood (guava in this case), and when the smoke changes from white (bad) to blue (good), put the ribs on bone side down for an hour.
Flip the ribs bone side up and let them go for another hour. Flip the ribs back to bone side down and start checking signs of being done – the slab cracks when you pick up one end with a pair of tongs and the meat has started to pull back from the bones.
This rack started looking done at the 3 hour mark, so I slathered both sides with some of the barbecue sauce and put them back on bone side down for another 15 minutes. I slathered the meat side again and let them go another 15 minutes. I gave the meat one last coating of sauce and moved the rack off the grill to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
The Verdict:
This was one fine rack of ribs – all the heat and spice of traditional jerk but with a sweet and fruity base. It was one of those eat, sweat, wipe brow, swig adult beverage, repeat, kind of meals.
Next time I would use about 2 cups of the thicker mango nectar you can buy in refrigerated boxes in most mercados. This was the thinner Jumex canned version, and it just didn’t have oomph.
The Nutrition: Ribs still won’t ever be diet food – 460 calories for 8 ounces of meat (4 to 6 bones worth) and 12 Weight Watchers points. But they were sure the cure for the gray blahs.
I had this dish at a little hole-in-the-wall resort while on vacation up north and was very impressed. It was advertised as ribs, but came out as a huge pile of meat covered in sauce. I was afraid it would be the usual sickly-sweet, mushy mess you get off of a Sysco truck, but it turned out to be country-style ribs that had been smoked long enough to develop a nice bark, and then braised in a thin barbecue sauce until the meat just started to fall apart.
It was so good that I had to try to make it myself. I haven’t had the best luck in the past with true country-style ribs that are cut from the sirloin or rib end of the pork loin and can be a little gristly. So I went the do-it-yourself way and cut down a boned pork shoulder roast (AKA Boston Butt) into 1-inch slabs.
6 pounds country-style ribs
1 (16-ounce) bottle barbecue sauce (Sticky Hog in this case)
1 (12-ounce) bottle hard cider
1 tablespoon barbecue rub per pound of meat (Dizzy Pig Dizzy Dust in this case)
Season the ribs heavily on all sides with rub. Cover and stash in the fridge until the grill is ready.
Set your grill up for a raised direct cook at 250°F. On the Big Green Egg I didn’t use a plate setter to diffuse the heat, but did use an extender to raise the cooking grid up about 4 inches further from the heat.
Add your smoking wood (apple, in this case) to the grill and when the grill reaches 250°F and the smoke has turned blue, arrange the ribs on the cooking grate. Close the lid and let them cook, flipping every hour, until they reach 160°F internal (about 3 hours).
While the ribs are smoking, combine the barbecue sauce and cider in a medium saucepan. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes until the foaming has stopped and the sauce thickens up a little bit. Remove from the heat and reserve for later.
When the ribs hit 160°F internal, move them off to a flame-proof pan (I used the base of my tagine) and cover with half of the sauce. Turn ribs to coat and move the pan full of ribs back to the grill. Close the lid and let cook for an hour.
Check the ribs for doneness – they should be around 190°F internal and the meat should fall apart when you poke at it with a fork. If they are done, remove the pan full of ribs from the grill and let them rest for 15 minutes before serving. If they are not done, add more sauce as needed and return them to the grill until they are done. Serve with the remaining sauce on the side.
The Verdict:
I really liked the taste of these ribs. Thinning the sauce with the cider let it soak into the meat while cutting the sweetness and giving it some great apple flavor.
I was not at all happy with the tenderness of the meat. It had some nice bark, and had started to fall apart, but it had also lost a lot of moisture and gotten pretty tough. I was looking for more of a baby-back-ribs-meet-pulled-pork texture. Next time I think I’d wrap them in a couple of layers of foil rather than letting them sit uncovered in a pan.
The Nutrition
Three ounces of rib meat is 387 calories and 10 Weight Watchers points. Ouch! Obviously a special occasion treat.
I love it when cooking becomes a social, innovative, iterative process. There are few things in life more boring for me than looking over a recipe that’s just a bunch of steps – no pics, no descriptions, no exposition, no tips, no love. Yech.
Now this rib recipe has got some history to it. I first came across it as Balsamic Pork Belly from She Cooks… He Cleans and it looked wonderful (and it comes with musical suggestions, gotta love that). They adapted it from Ian Knauer’s Sticky Balsamic Ribs over at FOOD52, also a tasty-looking recipe that Ian says, “These ribs just might be the best thing I’ve ever come up with.” High praise indeed.
So I’ve got two terrific recipes for two different cuts of meat, using two very different cooking styles, but with the same marinade and glaze. Oh man, this is going to be fun!
The Marinade
2 racks baby back pork ribs, about 5 pounds
4 large garlic cloves
1 tablespoon sea or kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1 tablespoons dried rosemary
2 tablespoons packed raw or brown sugar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/4 cup water
Combine the garlic and salt in a blender or food processor and give it a whirl until the garlic is minced. Add the pepper, rosemary, sugar, vinegar, oil, cayenne, and water and pulse to combine.
Prep the ribs by removing the membrane on the bone side and trimming off any scrapes of meat or excess fat. Put the ribs into a zip-top bag. Pour the marinade over the ribs, turning to coat. Squeeze the air out of the bag, seal it, and stash in the fridge overnight.
The Cook Remove the ribs from the marinade. Lay them out on a sheet pan and dust with some sea or kosher salt and black pepper. Return to the fridge, uncovered, while you set up the grill.
Set up your grill for an indirect cook that will burn for at least 5 hours at between 225 to 250°F. On the Big Green Egg that meant filling the firebox with lump charcoal and using an inverted plate setter to diffuse the heat and a drip pan with a little water in it to catch the fat.
When the grill is up to temp, add your smoking wood (a chunk of apple in this case) and wait for the smoke to go from white (bad) to blue (good). Remove the ribs from the sheet pan and set on the grate bone side down and centered over the drip pan.
Close the lid and let the ribs cook for an hour. Flip bone side up and cook for another hour. After the ribs have been on for 2 hours, remove them from the heat, wrap them tightly in two layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil, and return them to the grill bone side up for an hour.
After an hour, carefully unwrap ribs, making sure not to lose any of the drippings that have collected in the foil. Return the ribs to the grill bone side down while you make the glaze.
The Glaze
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup raw or brown sugar
1/4 cup water
Reserved drippings from foil
Combine the vinegar, sugar, and water, and drippings in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring often, until the mixture has reduced to a thick and syrupy glaze, about 5 minutes. Watch this like a hawk because the once it starts to thicken the glaze can easily burn. Set aside, but keep warm.
Return to the grill and check on the ribs. Ribs are done when the meat hits 165°F internal, but they aren’t tender enough to eat until they hit about 185°F and the surface cracks when you lift up on one end of the slab or the meat starts to tear apart when you pull on one of the bones. When the ribs get to that point it’s time to sauce.
Brush the glaze on both side of the ribs and let them cook for another 10 minutes. Glaze both sides again and cook another 10 minutes. Brush ribs one last time with more glaze, remove the from the grill, and serve remaining glaze on the side.
The Verdict:
To badly misquote Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “If I told you how good these ribs are, I wouldn’t have time to eat them.”
Yes, they were that good – sweet and tangy with good smoke and enough heat from the cayenne and porky goodness from the drippings to tie everything together. They reminded me of the Minimalist Ribs I did where there are so few ingredients that every one of them gets to shine.
The Nutrition:
A four bone serving is 600 calories and 10 Weight Watchers points.
The latest version of my home-made barbecue sauce. I switched to a little less honey, and a little more raw sugar (in place of the brown sugar I used to use), and used my General Purpose Rub v1.5 as the seasoning base.
The raw sugar makes a huge difference in the taste. The sauce had a kind of fruity/floral sweetness that rocks when balanced with the heat from the peppers.
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
1/4 cup gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate or pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons General Purpose Rub v1.5
Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until all the sugar has dissolved and the sauce starts to thicken a little bit (about five minutes).
Bottle and store in the fridge. Makes about 2 cups.
I recently had the opportunity to cook up a mess of barbecued baby back ribs for some friends. The only kicker was that we were to bring them over to their place. No problem.
The ribs need to be almost fully cooked, travel for 30 minutes, and finish cooking in our friend’s oven. Since I wanted to make sure there were leftovers for everyone, I figured on one rack of baby backs per adult, so 5 racks total.
The first thing I did was rub the racks heavily with my General Purpose Rub v1.5. Then I set the Big Green Egg up for an indirect cook at 250°F
When the Egg was up to temp, I added both a plate setter and a drip pan to diffuse the heat and keep the ends of the racks from burning. I added a little hickory wood for smoke and when it burned clean I loaded up the ribs.
This is more ribs than I’ve ever tried on the Egg, and an inverted roasting rack really came in handy to keep the ribs from crowding each other so they’d cook as evenly as possible.
I let the ribs cook for an hour and then flipped the racks end for end. I let them go another hour and then rotated the whole roasting rack 180°. I let them go an hour and a half undisturbed, then moved them out of the rack and onto the grate and sauced them.
Honey Hog Barbecue Sauce v2.0
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
1/4 cup gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate or pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons General Purpose Rub v1.5
Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until all the sugar has dissolved and the sauce starts to thicken a little bit (about five minutes).
I sauced the racks fairly heavily and let them cook for another 30 minutes. I then sauced them one more time and moved them to a large baking pan. I sealed the pan up with 2 layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil and we hit the road.
Once at our friend’s house, the ribs went into a 350°F oven for an hour.
The Verdict:
I have to say that I am really liking General Purpose Rub v1.5. It’s got a lot of flavor, a bit of heat, some herbiness, and it all works well together. The Honey Hog Barbecue Sauce v2.0 is also a winner, with all the goodness of the rub plus a tangy, almost fruity, sweetness.
The ribs? They were tasty, but they were big baby backs (average 2 1/2 pounds per rack) and I overestimated how much they would cook in the foil while being transported. They ended up good, but chewier than I would have liked. On the plus side, a rack per adult was way too much food, so we all enjoyed leftovers.
The Nutrition
Ribs never will be diet food. A four bone serving is 600 calories and 10 Weight Watchers points with the rub and the sauce.
This is the second version of what I hope will be a stock barbecue seasoning that I can use as the base for a variety of recipes. For the code geeks out there, this is a “dot release” with a few little tweaks, but no major changes. I increased the sugar and salt, dialed down the lemon zest, added some thyme and chili powder, and bumped up the allspice.
