Booze In Your Food July 4th Edition: Ribs’n'Beer’n'Indoor Grilling

Heavy is the head that’s connected to the neck that’s connected to the shoulders that’s connected to the hands that write a post-July 4^th food blog post: they bare responsibility for a recipe that not only empowers the young, broke and hungry, but which says something profound about the United States of America. Naturally my first thought was, “WOOOOO! JELLO SHOTS! WOOOOOO!”

However I quickly found that the internet already has jello pretty much covered. Particularly intimidating was www.myscienceproject.org, which has half a dozen amazingly thorough posts concerning jello shots and their ingredients, consistency, chemistry, flammability and nail-to-the-wall-ability – your humble booze blogger was clearly out of his depth. So I slunk back to the cutting board, reminding myself that I don’t really like jello shots all that much anyway, and resolved to spend my holiday weekend on something I can’t get enough of: REE-ubs. It just so happens that I recently spent a week in Texas, where a couple of friends were getting hitched (congratulations Doug and Maria, yeehaw bang bang bang, etc.), and since returning to California I’ve been suffering from a powerful case of BBQ withdrawl. Now I had never actually cooked ribs before last weekend, but I trusted in the talismanic power of my recently purchased State of Texas bolo tie and got to work. Because seriously folks, what’s more ‘Merican than cracking a beer and grilling some ribs? And like any good national tradition, the 4^th of July Barbeque leaves millions of people disenfranchised: I am speaking of course about all of us apartment-dwelling cityfolk, the yard-less masses without a grill to call our own, much less a place to park it. Well my fellow urban Americans, in the words of President Bill Pullman, today we celebrate our independence day! In this post you’ll find three different techniques for cooking ribs indoors, using nothing more than your average stove, oven and broiler.

Making all three recipes in one night was a little hectic, but individually each indoor “grilling” method is pretty simple and not nearly as time consuming as I always assumed ribs would be. The three recipes are the Boil’n’Broil, the Braise’n’Broil, and the Rendezvous. One involves a lager, one involves a porter, and the third – SPOILER ALERT – doesn’t have any booze at all. But before we get to the specifics, here are a few general remarks about ribs:

What kind of ribs? All three recipes use baby back pork ribs. St. Louis style ribs and spare ribs are larger cuts of meat, and may take a little longer to cook. Beef ribs are a totally different animal (hey-ohhhh), tough and as big as dinosaur bones, with completely different cook times and, usually, different recipes.

But then how will I know when it’s done?

Use the tong test, or bend test: pick up the rack of ribs with a pair of tongs at one end and let the other end droop down. Jostle and bounce it a little, and if the crust of the meat starts to crack and split, it’s done. Find a more thorough explanation with pictures here.

BBQ Sauce: Obviously this is a matter of taste. I used Sweet Baby Ray’s Original sauce in recipes #1 and #3; it’s good, it’s widely available, and it’s a “Kansas City style” sauce, meaning it has a smoky taste, which seemed like a good idea since these indoor ribs won’t be seeing any actual smoke or flames.

Boil & Broil

Adapted from my buddy Eamonn. At about 2 ½ hours this is the longest of the three preparations, but it is also the easiest: those hours are mostly unattended simmering, and only a few basic ingredients are required.

2 racks of baby back ribs

1 onion, quartered

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 bottle BBQ sauce

32oz. bottle of champagne… of beers, that is. Or any other light-colored, light-flavored beer, like a lager or pilsner.

Vegetable oil

Salt

Pepper

Water

• Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet. Season the ribs with salt and pepper, then brown over high heat, just a couple of minutes on each side. You may have to cut the racks in half to fit them in a skillet.

• Add ribs, onions, garlic and beer to a large stock pot. Add 1 to 2 cups of water to cover and bring to a boil.

• Simmer over low heat for 2 hours. Use the tong test to check if the ribs are done.

• Set the oven to Broil and brush ribs with BBQ sauce on both sides. Run them under the broiler, say 5 to 7 minutes per side, until the ribs have developed the desired burnt crust on the outside (or you can flip every couple of minutes, reapplying sauce each time).

• Serve with more sauce.

Conclusion: All that simmering leaves you with incredibly tender meat that needs barely any prodding from your teeth to slide completely off the bone, but there’s a catch – all that simmering also sucks a lot of the pork flavor out of the ribs. Basically you’re left with a well textured sauce-delivery system. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; pick a great sauce and it’s still a great meal.

Braise & Broil

Adapted from my buddy Mark Bittman. Takes about 90 minutes total.

2 racks of baby back ribs

2 Tbsp ground cinnamon (or 2 to 3 cinnamon sticks)

1 Tbsp ground ginger, or 10 “nickel-sized” slices of fresh ginger

5 cloves of garlic, crushed

10 Allspice berries

1 tsp cayenne pepper (or 5 dried red chilies)

20 oz. Guiness (or another dark beer, stout or porter)

Salt

Pepper

• Preheat oven to 300 F.

• On the stove, heat vegetable oil in a large ovenproof skillet or roasting pan. Season the ribs with salt and pepper, then brown over high heat, just a couple of minutes on each side. You may have to cut the racks in half to fit them in a skillet. It’s like déjà vu, all over again…

• Add allspice, cinnamon, ginger, chilies and garlic, and stir for 1 minute.

• Add beer, bring to boil, then move into the oven. Cook for 1 hour, then check if ribs are done using the tong test.

• Remove ribs from braising liquid, season with salt and pepper, then broil to get that seared crust – again, about 5 minutes per side.

• Meanwhile you can turn the braising liquid into sauce: skim the fat off the top, boil the liquid until it is reduced.

Conclusion: These ribs might not be welcome in Texas or Kansas City, but the complex and exotic spice flavors of the ribs and their sauce are a nice change of pace from your average barbequed ribs that are heavy on the tomato-based sauce. And why not celebrate your lack of a grill by making something different? Also, the braising method makes the ribs tender in a relatively short cooking time.

The Rendezvous

Adapted, if I remember correctly, from… Heaven? The greatest ribs I have ever eaten were at Charles Vergo’s Rendezvous in Memphis, Tennessee, and this recipe from the great website amazingribs.com comes amazingly, mouth-wateringly close to recreating them. These are dry ribs, cooked while being basted in a vinegary sauce and then coated in a dry mixture of spices before serving. Cooking takes 60 to 90 minutes, plus 10 minutes to make the dry rub.

1 rack of baby back ribs

1 metal roasting pan

1 metal rack

1 basting brush

4 Tbsp Rendezvous dry rub (see below)

1 cup Mop Sauce (see further below)

3 oz. bourbon

Rendezvous dry rub: You can purchase Rendezvous Famous Seasoning online or in some food stores, or you can easily make it from scratch by following the recipe for Rendezvous-Style Memphis Seasoning over at amazingribs.com. The list of spices may seem long, but it’s well worth adding Allspice, mustard and celery seeds to your spice rack in order to make this rub. I made only a few adjustments:

1. Halved the recipe, which still left me with enough for 2 racks of ribs.
2. Omitted the Ac’cent MSG, not because I’m scared of it but because I couldn’t find it at the store.
3. One downside of cooking ribs this way is that the oven doesn’t impart any smoke flavor to the meat. In fact if it does you should be calling the fire department. In the case of the Rendezvous ribs you can get around this issue by outsourcing the smokiness to Spain: substitute Spanish smoked paprika (Pimenton de la Vera) for the ordinary paprika.

Mop Sauce: So called because the Rendezvous serves over 2000 lbs of ribs every day, so much that, if I remember correctly, they actually apply this sauce with a rag on a stick. The following recipe makes enough for 1 rack of ribs, but you can always make more with a 1-part rub, 2-part sauce, 4-part water and 4-part vinegar mixture.

2 Tbsp dry rub

4 Tbsp tomato-based BBQ sauce

½ Cup water

½ Cup distilled white vinegar

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 F.

• Place ribs on a metal rack in a roasting pan. I also suggest lining the pan with foil, otherwise all the baked-on drippings are a bitch to clean.

• Paint mop sauce onto ribs and place in oven. Every 15 minutes apply a new coat of mop sauce and flip the meat. Using the tong test, start checking if the ribs are done after 60 minutes (I think mine took about 70).

• Pour bourbon into glass over ice. Sip. Repeat.

• When the ribs are done, paint on one more coat of mop sauce and sprinkle with dry rub. Serve with BBQ sauce on the side.

Conclusion: I happen to think the second to last step in the recipe is absolutely vital, but some people may point out that this is not, strictly speaking, a recipe with booze. Yet I am choosing to compromise my shtick and risk my blog-cred in order to include these ribs anyway. They’re that good. The Rendezvous holds such an exalted spot in my memory that I was all set to be let down by this recipe. Didn’t happen. I still have half a cup of leftover dry rub sitting in my fridge, and I cannot wait to make these ribs again.