Whew! Glad that's over. This laboring is for the birds.
Well, not really. I 'labored' in the kitchen (and on our back deck), cooking, but as I've said before, that's not really labor.
On Sunday, I barbecued two racks of pork ribs, using a method that I'd never used before. We'd seen an indoor/outdoor method for barbecued pork ribs on an episode of America's Test Kitchen (PBS). Since I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about tending the fire in the kettle all day, and worrying about it raining, I thought it would be worth a try.
Although we cooked the ribs on Sunday, the preparations began on Saturday. First, I mixed dark brown sugar and spices into a dry rub for the ribs. Then I put enough rub on each rack of ribs to cover the top completely, and massaged it into the meat. I rubbed the top of each rack only and not the bottom. After the rub-down, I covered the ribs loosely with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator so they could fester (a technical term we use at our house to describe the process of flavor exchange among food as the result of mutual physical contact) overnight.
Incidentally, I made enough dry rub for two doses on each rack and then some, and covered the remaining rub tightly and refrigerated that, too. Also, I did not remove the membranes from the ribs because I needed the membrane to test the slab for doneness, as explained below.
Sunday morning, I fired up my barbecue/smoker kettle. I usually use mainly hickory with just a little mesquite for fuel, but I used only hickory this time because the idea was to smoke the ribs without cooking them through completely, over a coolish but smokey fire, and I just didn't want to go to the trouble of getting out the mesquite.
Anyhow, after the kettle was smoking along nicely, I put the rib racks in, membrane-side to the grill surface, and put the lid on. I smoked the ribs for 3 hours. Then I brought them indoors, gave them another dose of the dry rub, and finished them in the oven.
I lay the re-rubbed rib racks, membrane-side-down again, on a wire rack in a shallow roasting pan and covered the pan tightly with aluminum foil. I then put the pan of ribs in a 200-degree oven. At the end of 3 hours, I removed them from the oven and tested them for doneness by bending them in such a way that the membrane is stretched to see if, and how easily, it breaks. Nothing happened. The membrane held firm.
Now, this was an experiment, remember, so I wasn't disappointed. We just crimped the aluminum foil back around the pan and threw it back in the oven. I raised the temperature to 300 degrees, and after an hour, I repeated the test. This time, the membrane broke easily. We let the ribs cool for 30 minutes, then sliced the racks up into individual ribs and served them.
The ribs were delicious, but just a little chewy for my taste. Next time, I think I'll cook them in a 300 degree oven for 4 hours after smoking them for 3 hours. That combination should result in meat that is fall-off-the-bone tender.
Here's my recipe for dry rub for pork ribs:
1 C dark brown sugar, loose - not packed.
1/4 t ground allspice.
Ground cayenne pepper, to taste.
dash ground cinnamon.
1 t ground clove.
1 t ground mace.
1/2 t dry mustard.
1 t ground nutmeg.
1 T ground paprika.
1/4 t garlic powder.
1/4 t onion powder.
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk thoroughly, being careful to break up all lumps. Makes about 1 cup of dry rub.
Note that brown sugar is moist, while dry mustard seems to attract moisture, even when it's kept in a hermetically-sealed container. Thus, if your rub wants to stay lumpy, blame it on the sugar, or the mustard, or both.
Our racks were larger than average, but 2 cups of the rub was plenty for two application on both of our racks.
Happy cooking!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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