I tried first this recipe in my friend's bachelor party, and was a huge success! Few weeks ago I we cooked those again, this time in my own bachelor party: another success. I have tried to them once in an actual barbecue but they weren't that good.
So here I offer you an excellent way to have awesome BBQ ribs, done in the comfort of you kitchen in your oven.
Ingredients:
- Racks of ribs: they should be about half kilo each rack, and that's good for one person (there's lots of bone there, don't worry).
- Beer
- Barbecue sauce (with honey, or hickory, or whisky, or whatever really)
- Spices: brown sugar, thick salt, black pepper, red paprika, coriander, cumin (and chili powder, if you like it hot).
There are several tricks in this recipe which make huge difference!
1. Preparing the meat
You need to remove the membrane behind the ribs. Turn the ribs around and make a cut to the membrane (if you do the cut on top of bone is much easier). Then you just need to grab the membrane and pull; tip: use kitchen paper to do that, it helps a lot!
Once that's ready, put each rack on top of some aluminium foil. There should be enough to wrap the whole rack afterwards. I recommend two layers of the foil.
2. Spice mix and meat rubbing
The proportions are easy to remember, in one hand you have the brown sugar, in the other hand you have the rest!
 |
5 measures of sugar, one measure of each one of the other spices.
From top to down: salt, black pepper, coriander, cumin, red paprika. |
If you got the cumin and coriander seeds instead of powder you'll need to bang them a bit and make them smaller. Tip: don't substitute black pepper for white one, and don't use them in thin powder form. If you want to add some heat, add a little bit of chili powder (by a little bit I mean less than 1/2 a measure).
Once the coriander and cumin have been smashed, mix them all together. I usually shake them in an empty jar (with the lid closed!).
For example, for two racks (800 gr - 1 kg) use table spoons as measures and you'll get enough spice mix. Once that's ready rub the ribs with the spice mix, both sides! Once they are well massaged, close the folio with the bones down.
Let that rest for 20-30 minutes. Start pre-heating the oven at 150 degrees.
3. Preparing the cooking sauce
Mix some beer with some barbecue sauce. Done! About half and half is a good proportion to work with.
4. Cooking the ribs
Open the folio where the ribs were resting. At this point they probably started sucking the spices and getting nicely moist. Then add some of the sauce. They don't need to swim in it, but make sure that there's some liquid inside.
Close the folio again, and to the oven they go! Oven at 150 degrees (we had it ready already) and they need to be there 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Tip: take a look at them every 25-30 minutes or so, open the folio and move them around. If they've dried up, add some more sauce. Shake them a little so that the liquid spreads under them. If you don't do that, some bone may stick-&-burn to the folio and that isn't nice.
Tip: how to know if they're done enough? When the meat starts pulling away from the bone, or if when shaking them they almost break down because they're so tender... you're ready!
If they feel stiff and are hard at the touch, let them be for a while. When cooking 6 racks of ribs at once, I needed a little over 2 hours instead of 1h 40m.
5. Finishing off!
Take the ribs out of the oven, and crank it up to 200 degrees. Open the folio; I bet they look delicious already and you just want to eat them. A little patience my friend!
Paint them with barbecue sauce (just the top side) and if they sucked al the beer sauce, add a little (just beer will work fine also). Then back to the oven they go! 20 to 30 minutes will do.
Tip: keep an eye on them all the time! If you have so many racks that they are in several layers, move them around. If your oven has grill, you can use it, but don't burn them, you just want them glazed.
6. Enjoy :)
