from: Daniel Larkin
to: “Jamey W. Bennett”
Just because the mother of my child is vegetarian doesn’t mean I can’t make ribs on Mother’s Day. Jenny wanted to have her parents over for Mother’s Day and grill veggie burgers. And since Jenny’s mother (who eats vegetarian 90% of the time) is always stealing one of my ribs when we go to Roadhouse, I decided to be the good son in-law and grill 3 lbs of pork ribs for Judy. She ate one rib.
I’ve never done ribs before, (except this one time when my buddy John and I cooked a few racks in a stone smoker we built during a camping trip) but I’ve slow cooked my share of meats at home before, so I felt comfortable. I just applied basic methods and common sense, and hit a home run.
- First, I peeled off the silver skin from the back of the ribs with a knife and some elbow grease. It’s the tough stretch stuff on the underside. (Why the butcher doesn’t do this, I’ll never know)
- Then I sprinkled the ribs with a mix of brown sugar, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, black pepper and cinnamon.
- Then, as the oven was preheating to 230º, I poured about two cups of vegetable stock and a beer into a stock pot, and squirted in a good dose of liquid smoke.
- I laid the ribs in the stock pot with a tight fitting lid, but elevated them above the liquid by setting them on two ceramic pot-pie ramekins. (For all my cooking, I don’t own a roasting pan. Obviously, that’s the easiest thing to do.)
- Then I let that shit go for 5 hours. No need to baste or anything. They were literally falling off the bone when I pulled them out. And the juice!
- I finished them off by brushing them with some BBQ sauce and grilling them on high flames for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce was caramelize.
I honestly should have taken a picture of these things, but I couldn’t stop eating long enough to wash my hands and get my camera. Just trust me, they were friggin’ amazing!