Dry rub for anything

The picture has absolutely nothing to do with this posting. I just happen to like it.

I got a decent price on a rack of St. Louis-style ribs the other day and I have them in the fridge right now coated in a dry rub. I got this list of ingredients from someone at FoodNetwork and I don't remember who. In comparing it to a few other options I have determined that it is suitable for any meat or poultry. The quantity was enough for the rack of ribs and a T-bone steak coming up on Monday.

Here it is just in case you'd like to have it filed away somewhere for a rainy (or not) day. BTW, I am cooking the ribs in the oven and low-ish temp for probably 4 hours. But you don't need to learn how to cook ribs from me. I make it up as I go along.

Dry rub for meat and poultry
2 Tbs espresso powder (or ground coffee)
2 Tbs kosher
2 Tbs paprika (smoked is great if you have it)
1 Tbs chile powder
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander

Rub all over your meat and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Yield is enough for a full rack of St. Louis-style ribs plus 4 chicken thighs.

Braised boneless beef ribs

Peter found a small package of boneless beef country ribs on special the other day. I still had a bit of my home-smoked jalapeno adobo to form the base of a marinade.

So I just made this up.

We’ve been heavily into roasting vegetables lately. As a side dish I sprayed green beans with generic Pam, salted and peppered them, and sprinkled them with asiago cheese. Roasted at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Peter made a really nice orzo and rice pilaf.

Braised boneless beef ribs
2 tbsp chipotle in adobo
¼ cup chicken stock
1 dried pasillo pepper, seeded and ground in spice grinder
2 tbsp vegetable oil
½ tsp black pepper
1 lb. boneless beef ribs

Mix together the first 5 ingredients. Coat the ribs with the marinade and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Put the ribs and the marinade in a casserole with enough room so that they are not jammed together. Add ½ cup beef broth. Bake for 2 – 2 ½ hours, turning the ribs a couple of times. When tender, set aside to rest for 15 minutes. Eat.

Save the liquid from the casserole for another application (soon to come).

Pork loin back ribs

Ribs with fresh Colorado corn and chard

I think I should clarify one thing about the smoked salmon I posted the other day. It’s nothing like lox or gravlax. If you imagine salmon which has been baked but has an intense smoky flavor, that’s what it’s like. The wok-smoker method results in what would be called “hot smoked” fish.

Now, on to something new. The Manager’s Special case at Safeway had a full rack of pork ribs (just a shade under 3 lbs.) for only $5. What a steal. Finding myself a little short of time I decided to try a different way of cooking them. There wasn’t time to wait for a dry rub to do its thing. I just salted and peppered them well and baked them for 2 hours. They were finished right after dinner and at this point I doused them with some spices, let them cool, and refrigerated them for 2 days until we were ready to eat them.

I was surprised at how interesting they were. Many recipes calling for a dry rub encourage you to reserve some spices and add them near the end of the cooking time. The way I did it kind of echoed that. In my book it was a success.

These ribs are more or less Memphis-style dry ribs. You certainly are welcome to brush them with some bbq sauce.

Pork back ribs
c. 3 lb. rack of pork ribs
salt and pepper
ground cumin
garlic powder
onion powder
pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika) or sweet paprika

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Remove the fell (membrane) from the concave side of the ribs. Rub generously with salt and pepper on both sides.

Line a baking sheet with enough foil to fold over the top of the ribs to seal them in. A whole rack is quite long, so I cut them into 2 sections. Place the ribs on the foil, meaty side down, add about ¼” of water and enclose them in the foil.

Bake for 2 – 2 ½ hours until the meat is completely tender. Open the foil packet and sprinkle the ribs all over (to taste) with the cumin, garlic and onion powders, and pimenton. At this point you can do the finishing cooking, although I preferred to let the ribs cool and absord the additional spices. You can refrigerate them for as much as a couple of days if you wish, re-covered with the foil.

When ready to finish them, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fold back the foil to expose the ribs and turn them meaty side up. Bake until heated through and somewhat browned, c. 30 minutes. Let them rest for 5 minutes, cut into individual pieces between the bones and serve.

BBQ pork ribs

It’s not exactly kosher to post a recipe for which I made no precise measurements; nor did I stick to a consistent oven temperature, or even remember exactly how long the fruits of my labor were in the oven. Now that I think of it, it's not exactly kosher to say kosher when speaking of a pork product. Oh well, too late for that now.

But there’s a life-lesson here: it’s not necessary to follow a recipe all the time. I guess it’s ironic of me to say that and then go ahead and post, what else, a recipe!

Everything below is approximate. However, no precision is required. Brine a bit longer or shorter, set the oven temp a little higher of lower, reduce cooking time (after all, what matters in the end is that the meat is falling off the bones), etc.

A word about the type of ribs: they were merely labeled “pork ribs,” definitely not spare ribs, perhaps closer to St. Louis-style ribs. This recipe would work for any of these and as well for “country” pork ribs.

BBQ pork ribs
2 ¾ pounds pork ribs
Chicken stock as needed

Brine: (well-dissolved)
4 cups water
4 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Dry rub:
2 tbsp cumin
2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
black pepper to taste

Wet rub:
1 cup catsup
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 heaping tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp liquid smoke
1 tbsp soy sauce (dark if you have it)

Brine the ribs for 2-6 hours in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 300°.

Rinse and dry thoroughly.

Apply dry rub all over ribs.

Place on baking rack in a baking pan with at least 1” sides. Add some chicken stock to the pan (1/2 cup or so).

Cover tightly with foil and bake for 2 ½ - 3 hours, checking each hour and adding stock if it has evaporated.

Reduce oven to 250°.

Remove foil from the ribs and slather them with the wet rub all over. Return ribs, uncovered, to the oven to ½ to 1 hour. Recover with foil and let the ribs rest for 10 minutes. Cut between the bones and serve.

Boneless pork ribs

Country-style ribs are hugely meaty as compared with spare ribs. For some reason our Safeway sells the country-style without the bones. I wouldn't have bought them except for the fact that they were in the specials bin and cost only $3.

They are extremely lean and I was concerned about them coming out dry. So I brined them. I also made a sauce with which I basted them every 30 minutes after the first hour of cooking.

The picture to the left ("borrowed") from someone's web site is of ribs with bones. However, despite that, the similiarity to the look of mine is quite remarkable.

Boneless pork ribs

4 boneless country-style pork ribs (about 1 3/4 pounds)

2 cups water

2 tbsp kosher salt

2 tbsp sugar

10 peppercorns

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

3/4 cup catsup

1/8 cup pomegranate juice

1/8 cup pomegranate molasses (regular molasses)

black pepper

Stir the salt and sugar into the water until dissolved. Place the liquid, the peppercorns, and the ribs into a gallon-size freezer bag, squeeze out the air, seal, and refrigerate for an hour (2 hours if you can).

Remove the ribs from the fridge and dry them with paper towels. Don't rinse them.

Mix the cumin, paprika and cayenne together and liberally dust the ribs with the mix. Use all of it. Again refrigerate the ribs uncovered on a plate for at least an hour (or more) if you have the time. Remove from the fridge 1 hour before you begin cooking.

Preheat the oven to 275°.

Place the ribs on a rack on a shallow roasting pan. Add 1 cup chicken or beef stock to the pan, cover tightly with foil, and roast for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, mix together the catsup, pomegranate juice and molasses. Reduce the oven to 250° and start generously basting the ribs every 30 minutes. Turning them each time you do so. Keep them covered.

Total roasting time will be 2 1/2-3 hours. Let the ribs rest, still covered, for 10 minutes before serving.

For a free excerpt of my book, “A Year of Food,” in which I opine, report, cook, muse and philosophize about everything that passed my lips for an entire year, write to me at: scrout1944@msn.com.

Chinese braised beef back ribs

Jeez Louise, I’ve got to try to write down what I did today before I forget. I had a package (just under 2 pounds) of beef back ribs which I bought for a song from the clearance bin at Safeway. These are not baby back ribs by any stretch of the imagination. The bones are large, they are fatty and have some gristly material too.

I’ve been having so much fun with Fuchsia Dunlop’s “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook,” that I thought and thought about how I could make up a Chinese inspired way to braise the ribs. It took some doing and involved improvising from beginning to end. There were 4 ribs in the package. Therefore they are nearly ½ pound each, though most of the weight is bone.

The one new ingredient I opened a can of today is sweet bean paste. Fuchsia says it’s reminiscent of Hoisin sauce. It is in a way, but it is sweeter and less salty I think. Ideally I would have used beef broth, but what I had on hand was about 2 ½ cups of fresh chicken stock from pressure cooking a chicken for the dogs day before yesterday.

Bear in mind that, as usual, I didn’t measure anything. As you doctor the liquid and turn it into a quasi barbeque sauce, taste it. It should have the earthy saltiness of the fermented beans, the right (according to your palate) hint of sweet bean paste, and just a little sweetness from the sugar.

I had no idea how long to cook the ribs for, or at what temperature. So yours truly just made it up. I wish I had some Sichuan pepper but didn’t have time to make a special trip for it. Hence the black pepper corns. Here’s how it went.

Chinese braised beef back ribs

4 large back ribs
2 tbsp peanut oil
chicken stock
8 salted red chiles
10 whole black peppercorns
1 ½ tbsp fermented black beans
2 tsp sweet bean paste
1 tbsp sugar
Cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 275°.

In a cast iron or other heavy pot, heat the oil until a flick of water into it pops. Brown the ribs on all sides until well colored, about 2-3 minutes per side. Slice the chiles open on one side. Add 1 cup chicken stock, the chiles, peppercorns and 1 tbsp fermented beans to the pot. Bring to a boil.

Transfer the pot to the oven and braise for 3 hours, turning the ribs every 45 minutes or so. If the stock disappears too quickly, add more.

Put the pot back on a burner. Add another cup of stock and bring to a boil. Remove the ribs to a baking dish and set aside. Increase the oven temperature to 350°.

Strain the braising liquid and discard the solids. Put the liquid into a saucepan. Mash ½ tbsp fermented beans and add them along with the bean paste and the sugar. Dissolve 2 tbsp cornstarch in enough cold water to make a slurry. Stir in ½ of it and wait to see how much it thickens. You want this sauce to be thick enough to stick to the ribs. Add more cornstarch as needed.

Brush the ribs all over with the sauce. Put them in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes, turning and rebasting them after 15 minutes. Let the ribs stand until cool enough to pick up with your fingers.

Save the remaining sauce for another special treat coming soon to a blog near you.

The meat was ready to fall off the bones and the flavor was distinct and delicious and about as far from an American style barbecue as you can get. But then that was the idea after all.