Spare Ribs

bonkey · 29-03-2004 1:55pm #1

Did some of these at the weekend. Great on a BBQ, but almost as good from the oven.

Get your rack(s) of ribs. Put in a container and cover with beer (yes, beer) for about 24 hours. A darker/red beer is preferable to lager, but I wouldn't use stout or porter.

After the day is up, boil the ribs, in the beer, for about an hour. You only want this to come to a simmer. You do *not* want to boil it for more than an hour, or the whole thing will be so tender it'll fall apart.

While this is boiling, make up a sweet/sour or BBQ sauce. YOu can use a jar-based one if you like, but

I use a 3/3/2/1 mix of vinegar, sugar, ketchup, soy as a base, adding garlic, chili, ginger, etc. as I feel like, as well as up to 1 unit more of the ketchup and soy to vary towards BBQ instead of Sweet/sour. You can substitute honey or maple syrup nicely for some of the sugar. Generally, you want to simmer this for 10 minutes to calm the vinegar a bit. Just work from taste...its not rocket science

Anyway...once the ribs are finished boiling, drain them (carefully - they may start falling apart anyway), and put them in a shallow bowl / tinfoil and pour over the BBQ sauce and cover/wrap. Allow to sit for a min of 30 mins to let the meat soak up all the flavour from the sauce

You can do all of the above up to a day in advance of actually using the ribs. When you're ready, just lob them in the oven (200-ish) for about 30 mins, or on a medium-hot BBQ for about 10 mins per side to warm through.

neuro-praxis · 02-04-2004 6:41pm

Wow, that sounds wonderful.

I shall be trying it!

mike65 · 02-04-2004 6:50pm

God I hav'nt had spare ribs in years, and I'm salivating.

ps if your in the Tramore area head to Rockettes in the coast road toards Bunmahon. They do famous ribs and Crubeens

http://www.tramore.net/tramore/rocketts.htm

Mike.

bonkey · 02-05-2005 1:16pm

Heh...I was about to post ravnig about this recipe, when it occurred to me I had already done so. So I've just dug it up again instead.

We've just had our first really summery weekend over here (Switzerland), and I was off doing some archery with some mates, followed by a bit o' grilling (BBQ) done in a nearby wood. So I brought these along.

I've now refined the recipe...no 24-hour soaking, just boil in-and-around a low simmer (i.e. it can be non-simmering, very hot) for about 2 hours.

Replace the sugar in the recipe with either an equal quantity of maple syrup or honey. Add some chilli (or chilli sauce) for kick, or some cajun spice if you have it. Oh - and don't bother pre-cooking the sauce. It'll cook enough while coating the ribs when they're on the BBQ.

Just remember to turn and baste the ribs regularly, so it builds up as a nice glaze on teh outside, without getting it too caramelised.

By the looks of the weather, I'll be BBQing again this evening.

What to do, what to do. These are the hard decisions in life that I like

jc