In the Kitchen at Bungalow Beauty

Alright kids, I know I haven't posted in a long time but things have been pretty busy around the ole bungalow beauty. A couple weeks ago I got around to smoking a rack of ribs, tonight I will finally be able to sit down and blog about it. So let's start.

First off, we're doing pork ribs here, nothing wrong with beef but today we're focusing on pork ribs. You have two types of pork ribs, spareribs (aka St. Louis style) or loin ribs (aka back ribs). The first thing you're going to want to do is make up your rub. A rub is just a mixture of spices to season the meat with. If you search the internet you can find recipes for thousands of different kinds of rubs, or if you're lazy you can just buy it; however for those of you who are not lazy, here is my recipe:

2 tbsp kosher salt
6 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp ground black pepper
5 tbsp paprika
3 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder

Mix all the spices together and store them in an air tight container, like such:


  

Now we turn to the ribs. The ribs have a very tough membrane on their backside. You need to take this off if you want tender and flavorable ribs. If you want to have a hell of time eating them you go ahead and leave it on. I warned you. To get it off just work a knife under the silverskin, when you have a bit of it up grab it and very slowly pull it away until it's all off, you should be able to get it off in one pull; if not- try try again.


  

Now that the silverskin has been removed I usually cut the rack in half, it's just easier to handle I think.


  

Now to apply the rub, I like to slather my ribs in yellow mustard. The reason is two fold, 1)the vinegar in the mustard helps to tenderize the meat 2)the mustard holds the rub onto the ribs. So slather the ribs in mustard and coat them in the rub. *Note: you will not use all the rub that we made above. Only use enough rub to coat, not cake. I then like to toss them into a vacuum bag and let them sit overnight in the refrigerator:


      

I let these sit in the fridge at least 12-24 hours, if you can't wait that long then don't bother wasting our time. Bah-bye.

Day 2



Now if you have a smoker you can just skip all this and look at the pretty pictures. But if you're still reading chances are you don't have a smoker, and that's okay. I don't have one either (not yet at least) but we can still smoke our ribs in a Weber kettle grill. This website here has a great illustration on how you want to setup your grill. Basically what you want to do is cook with indirect heat, have the coals one side and the food on the other. Now the link above suggests putting a drip pan under the ribs and another pan with water above the coals. Hogwash! I say. You don't need the water pan and the drip pan, well I can't remember the last time I used one and I haven't had a problem. Next we need to look at the smoke; I like to use hickory wood chips that I've soaked in water for about an hour. I've also in the past used a blend of oak, hickory, and mesquite; but go easy on the mesquite it can be really strong and over powering. Don't toss the chips on dry, they'll just burn, we don't want them to burn we want them to smolder, hence the wetness. So then- toss a handful of soaked woodchips on the coals and they'll start to smoke. Next you need to position the grill so that the wind enters the bottom of the grill under the wood chips and exits the grill through the vent over the food. This setup will pull the smoke across the ribs ensuring a very good flavor.


    

Now for the fun part, kick back and crack open a beer! Seriously we have like 6 hours to kill. We need to keep the temp right around 225 in the grill so toss a thermometer in the grill and keep drinking and adding wood chips as the smoke stops. Seriously though- after about 2 hours the food is going to absorb as much smoke as it's ever going to absorb- I like to keep smoking beyond that to keep the neighborhood smelling good.

so here we are about 5 hours later, I know I know I said 6 hours but I was hungry. Here's what they looked like:


  

You can see the meat pulling back away from the bones, that's good, if you tug on the bone and it comes right out you've overcooked them- congratulations you've just wasted your day- but look on the bright side, at least your failure is still pretty delicious and you can eat it, pork is pretty good like that. Beef on the other hand is not as forgiving- you over cook beef and you have shoe leather. In any event, when you bite into the rib the meat SHOULD NOT fall off the bone; if the meat is falling off the bone it's overcooked. You should have to pull at it a little bit- got it? Good.

Now notice I still haven't mentioned barbecue sauce anywhere in this blog, why? You don't need it. Your ribs should be good enough to stand up on their own without barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce should be a condiment, a finishing sauce, or table sauce, that's all. I don't understand these people who drown their ribs in barbecue sauce- dumbasses. However- if you must, add it during the last 15 minutes, don't do it sooner or the sauce will just burn and again you've just wasted your day but this time your failure won't be delicious enough to eat still.


    

Now as you look at my ribs you'll notice two things. First, the pink ring around the meat, this is called the smoke ring or "lucky smoke ring" as I like to call it. Some people may think it's pink because it's under cooked- um hello mcfly you've been cooking for the last 6 hours- of course it's cooked. Second- it may look like they are burned- they're not- the rub just crusted up a bit because I was sidetracked making homemade hotdogs (that's another post for the encased meats series we're doing here at in the kitchen). But let me tell you this, these ribs were damn good and I ate almost all of them myself. I saved some for the next day, mmm mmm good. So then- as you can see anyone can make a good rack of ribs, all you need is time and a kettle grill. Now I know at least one person will read this and leave me a comment about how his apartment in new york is too small, blah, blah, blah, to him I say- add some liquid smoke to the mustard before your rub, wrap your ribs in foil and slow cook them in a 225 degree oven for about 6 hours, at the very end toss them under the broiler for about 5 or 10 minutes to char up a bit. fantastico!

Sorry it took so long for this post but it's been a busy month. Hopefully I can update again real soon. Any suggestions for the next post? ???