Joshua's Ribs
First off, some tips on the ribs:
Cooking ribs straight on the barbeque takes a LONG times, anything with bones
takes a while to cook, so if you actually were to cook the ribs raw on the BBQ,
you would have to cook "low and slow" and it would be 1-2 hours easy.
And you would have to be very careful to make sure they are fully cooked(ick).
Now the thing to note on the sauce I use, is that because it has a high sugar
content, it blackens very quickly over high heat. Sooo... this is the type of
"glaze" that you put on the ribs just before you pull them out.
So...
What I do is pressure cook the ribs first... you can also boil, but it doesn't
create the falling off the bones ribs....
I do 15 to 18 min in the pressure cooker, once it reaches pressure. I put in
a few beers, just a couple of inches of liquid in the bottom, and season each
half slab of ribs with Garlic, and onion powders and salt(or Adobo).
Then I throw them in the pressure cooker.
You will need to play with how YOUR particular pressure cooker cooks the ribs,
but essentially for me, if I do 15 min, the ribs are the "knaw tender meat
off the bone" type... if you cook them 18 min or a little more, then the
meat is just falling off the bone... depends what you want. Keep in mind to
be very careful to not over cook the ribs in the pressure cooker... my perfect
setting is when I get the ribs out, one or two bones fall out... if you can't
pick up the ribs because it's just a big pile of meat and bones in the bottom
of the cooker... you may have gone to far...
The sauce is pretty simple... you can use as little or as much jack daniels
as you want... but you can really get away without any.
Ingredients:
1 cup Jack Daniels
2-4 cups ketchup
1-2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 whole onion - diced
bunch of garlic(to taste)- minced
2 cups brown sugar
Essentially what I do is throw the onions and a wee bit of olive oil and butter
in a pot and cook them down... not totally caramelized, but pretty thoroughly
cooked. Then if adding the JD, take the pot AWAY from then burner and add the
cup of JD. Then return to the burner... keep back from the pot in case it happens
to ignite. If it does, don't worry, just keep stirring and the alcohol will
burn itself off. Just don't keep your head over the pot looking at the onions
and JD... quick way to look like me...
Now add the remaining ingredients. Start off with 2 cups or so ketchup. For
the record, I almost never measure... just mix it up till it tastes right. Add
the vinegar and garlic at this point as well as the brown sugar. Incorporate
the ingredients and taste. The taste in the pot is much different than how it
tastes after it's on the ribs and cooked down. It will be VERY tangy. But make
sure that it is sweet as well. Add more brown sugar if it's not quite sweet
enough. You also want it to be about the consistency of ketchup, so you will
need to keep adding ketchup until you get pretty close to that. If you want
it thicker, just keep boiling it until it reduces.
Now let it simmer until you are ready to glaze the ribs.
After the ribs are out of the pressure cooker, and the coals are ready, I take
the ribs and drop them on the grill and put a quick THICK coating of sauce on
the tops and then flip them over and coat the underside... then put the lid
on and let them cook a bit. You want them to char a bit. Keep in mind that after,
or during the first glaze, the flames may start kicking up because of the high
sugar content. It is much better to throw the lid on for 30 seconds to kill
the oxygena and thusly the flames and then continue the glazing, than to try
to finish the glaze. Otherwise you may end up with a rather "crispy"
side on the ribs... (not necessarily a bad thing)
Anyway, I usually put on 2-3 coats of glaze on each side as I turn them... glaze,
turn, let cook, flip over, and the side that was glazed, should be dry again,
then repeat process 2-3 times.
That's it... hope I didn't ramble on too much....
Any questions? Email me