I want to make some ribs, but do not really want to do BBQ. I’d love any ideas for alternative methods. Thanks.
We’re talking pork ribs I assume.
Benjamin,
When you say you don’t “want to do BBQ,” I’m not at all certain what it is that you don’t want to do. No spicy rub? No smoke? No slow roasting? No “BBQ sauce” added after cooking?
Give me a better idea and I’ll try to help. Meanwhile, choucroute garnie is always an option - if you like choucroute. Jacques Pépin’s recipe: Choucroute Garnie Recipe
Benjamin… also try hitting up a site like food52.com or esp gojee.com which has an “I Crave…” feature. You put in one ingredient and it finds various things that use it. Kind of nice when you want to eat something but are tired of the preps you know about.
My wife makes some great sweet n sour ribs. She has no recipe, everything is by experience and taste. Something like
should be a good 1st pass.
you can boil them in something like apple juice & brown sugar for an hour or so, then finish as desired. They will be moist & tender.
Place ribs in saran wrap(I like that textured grippy version). Season with all seasoning ingredients you please including sauce etc. Close tightly. Wrap in aluminum foil, close tightly.
Place in oven at 225° for 3 hours. Remove carefully, cuz it will fall apart, and quickly sear on a pre-heated stove top grill pan after basting with your favorite bbq sauce.
There are two non-BBQ braising techniques that I use that are very good for producing fall off the bone ribs.
- THE SLOW COOKER SELF-BRAISE: Season your rib racks with a dry seasoning or wet rub or spice paste of your choice. Alternatively, marinate them overnight in your favorite marinade.
Then place the ribs in a slow cooker, turn it on to its lowest settings, cover and cook for 6-8 hours. If you have an oval cooker, make sure the ribs are standing horizontally on their sides. If you have an older styled vertically long circular cooker, stand the ribs up vertically.
The ribs will essentially self-braise in the cooker’s sealed environment. They will come out extremely moist and tender and you’ll have a fair amount of liquid left over for making gravy if you wish.
- THE OVEN BRAISE: Place each rib rack on a very large piece of tin foil large enough to encircle it at least twice (preferably more) and seal it tight at both ends.
Now either season your ribs with a web rub or a spice paste. The key is whatever you use must have a small amount of moisture to it. Wrap the ribs up tight and bake in an oven at 225-250 degrees for 6 - 8 hours. The ribs will come out fork tender and having absorbed all the seasoning.
Note that if you want to do this using a sauce (for example, a decent commercial honey garlic sauce) it is possible to do but you have to make some adjustments.
Because the sauce will likely be a thin liquid, it will not stay on the rib and splatter all over the place if you try to do it like I described above. So you have to do a slight alteration.
Wrap each rack of ribs up nice and tight first but leave one end of the foil wrapper open. Slowly pour in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of your liquid sauce into the package and then seal the open end shut tight. Check to make sure no liquid is seeping out of the foil after you close it. Now bake in an oven at 225-250 degrees for 6 - 8 hours. When done, be sure to open one end of each packet and drain the liquid out into a measuring cup for making gravy with. You risk a big mess and/or possibly even injury from the hot liquid if you forget this part.
When you get comfortable with this oven braise method, you’ll want to start playing around a bit more with your ribs. The last time I did this, I seasoned the ribs with a dry rub, wrapped them, and then poured in red wine into the foil package before sealing it up and baking. THey came out delicious.
If you want to use a marinade for the oven method, I recommend leaving some of the fresh marinade aside to put into the packets for the oven braise while the ribs marinate overnight in the rest of it.
Geez, now that you have me thinking about it, I should really do the oven method this weekend and season my ribs with my homemade dry rub and use the Fonseca and Van Zeller 2003 Port as my liquid. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
^^ much better explanation of what I described.
Wow, great stuff. I don’t. Know which one to try first! Thanks for the input.
Sous vide then deep fry. Then sauce 'em if you want.
I smoke them in this (2 hours, 300f)
and put them under the broiler in this:
