Ribs

Serve this dish with a platter of mixed garden tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt.

Korean kalbi is soy-marinated chuck flanken-style beef ribs grilled quickly and eaten with rice wrapped in crisp lettuce leaves. Our cheater kalbi uses the same soy-based marinade, but is cooked as a stew in the slow cooker. We usually swap the traditional flanken ribs for regular beef short ribs, which have larger bones that fall right out, leaving a nice pile of shredded meat. Short ribs are also easier for us to find. Set the table taco-style with iceberg lettuce cups for shells. Along with the meat, stuff the lettuce shells with Korean kimchi, white rice, green onions, and hot peppers. We throw in some fresh cilantro, too.

Put some big beefy ribs in a piping-hot cast-iron pot and in as little as an hour, the ribs will emerge with a deep, dark brown crust and a meaty, tender chew. Like slow cooker Texas Beef Ribs, there’s no need to finish Hot Pot Ribs under a broiler unless you’re brushing on a sauce. They also reheat well in a dry slow cooker or in a 350°F oven wrapped in foil. You’ll also get a nice batch of beef broth out of the deal. After it cools, chill the broth in the fridge to congeal the fat so you can discard it easily. Pour the warmed broth over the reheated ribs or freeze it to use in other recipes.

Despite his growing appreciation of cheater skills and methods, R. B. is still a little sore about the time his outdoor hickory smoked ribs (barely) lost the blind taste test against our cheater Texas Beef Ribs. Sorry, R. B., the kids preferred the smoky, supermoist, easy indoor version. The bigger surprise was finding a distinct outdoorlike crust on the slow cooker ribs. Because the ribs weren’t simmering in sauce, the crust had a chance to develop. We didn’t even need to finish them off under the broiler or on the grill. In the pork-crazy mid-South, beef back ribs are a rarity. Now that the in-house tasting staff has ever-so-slightly favored the cheater style, we’ll not hesitate to jump on a good-looking rack, regardless of the weather.

Flanken-style ribs are beef short ribs cut across the bone (not parallel to the bone like short ribs), a half inch to an inch thick. This thin cut gives you a slice of beef with little oval rib bones evenly spaced throughout. Flanken-style ribs will turn mildly chewy and tender when slow-cooked long enough to render the fat and connective tissue. Since they like a little last-minute finish on a grill or under a broiler, they’re a good choice for slow-cooking in advance. The high-heat finish brushed with Dijon mustard crusts up the meat juices. Brush the ribs with bottled smoke before slow cooking, if you like. Be sure to set the ground rules before dinner: Chewing on the rib bones is encouraged.

Chinese ribs were oven ribs long before oven ribs were cool, as of course we all agree they now are. They’ve never had to suffer the embarrassment of being dragged off the patio and into the kitchen. Their only taste of the outdoors is with the delivery guy. Cooked right in the sauce, uncovered on a baking sheet instead of wrapped in foil, the rib meat has a nice chewy bite. Chinese chili sauce brings home the flavor. You can find some in the international section of a well-stocked supermarket. The bright red-orange sauce is thick and sweet like ketchup, and hot like pepper sauce (but not as vinegary). Substitute ketchup if you like less heat. Double or triple the recipe whenever possible.

If you love ribs, it’s hard to break the habit of the classic barbecue profile of brown sugar, vinegar, and ketchup. Since we can’t easily find lamb ribs in Nashville, we cheat by dressing up pork ribs with Mediterranean herbs, garlic, and mustard. Serve the pork in lamb’s clothing with couscous, rice, garlicky white beans, tomatoes and fresh basil, Greek feta salad, pita bread, or anything inspired by any country that touches the Mediterranean—and anything other than sweet barbecue beans and traditional slaw.

We don’t understand why pork ribs are too often confined to summer barbecues, outdoor festivals, and dinner at a rib joint. At $15 to $20 a restaurant rack, maybe it’s the cost. But at half the per-pound price of rib eyes, filets, and strip steaks, cost can’t be the whole story. We think ribs are just another casualty of barbecue hype and mystique, a victim of their own popularity. The result is that lots of folks are reluctant to make them at home. Can they be any good if they’re not from a “real pit barbecue” restaurant, a competition team with matching shirts and dancing pig logo, or the crazy guy down the street with six grills and a smoker on wheels? Truth is, we should all be making ribs and having them with champagne, another enjoyment unfortunately confined to special occasions. If you’re a reluctant ribber, or still recovering from disappointing attempts, the cheater oven method will lead you to really great “fall-off-the-bone” spare-and baby back ribs with consistent results and minimal hassle. No lie.

Spareribs in the slow cooker? We first tried this method simply to rule it out for Cheater BBQ. We figured the ribs would come out gray and soggy, more like a slow cooker stew. We couldn’t have been happier in our disappointment when the ribs turned out better than okay. In fact, they were handsomely browned and crusted with tender, not soggy, meat. A big 6- to 7-quart slow cooker will do two good-size racks of spare or St. Louis ribs, and you can be multitasking elsewhere. (If you actually like using the oven, you can finish them with a sauce in the oven or under the broiler.)

You can’t pick them up with your fingers or gnaw the bones, but country-style boneless “ribs” make nice pork barbecue. We like this hot-covered-pot-in-the-oven method to speed things up without sacrificing taste or tenderness. Moisture and smoke are trapped inside and the pork’s fat keeps the meat from drying out. If you’re among the 20 percent of households without a slow cooker, this is for you.

An Arctic cold snap certainly inspires one to rethink the traditional all-day hickory-smoked approach to barbecued ribs, especially with a 10°F wind chill outside and football and a roaring fire inside. Saucy Asian-style Rooster Riblets were named when we first made them for Chinese New Year, then the Year of the Rooster. Rename them annually, throw them in the oven, set the timer, and relocate your cooking post to the recliner. Even better, cook them a couple days in advance. Before serving, reheat the ribs with their sauce for a few minutes in the oven, on a grill, or under the broiler to add a little crust. Chinese ribs aren’t a good match for the usual baked beans, potato salad, and creamy slaw. If you’re up for it, serve pan-fried dumplings (find them in the grocery freezer section) or rice and an icy rice vinegar–cucumber salad (page 153).

I love meaty short ribs, but I don’t want the fuss of browning the ribs before braising them at home. To get that same rich, caramelized flavor, I simply cook the beef with konbu. Notable for its umami, this one ingredient can deliver the same depth of flavor that comes from searing meat. I do labor over these ribs, though; at the end, I keep glazing them until they shine. Serve with Honey-Glazed Parsnips (page 201) for an inspired combination.

Because our weather in Central New York is less than tropical, we have to figure out ways of keepin’ those warm weather flavors coming even when poundin’ rain or three-foot drifts make it hard to get to your backyard grill. So here’s a way to make ribs in your oven and bring on all the flavors of places with better weather. Our method for makin’ ribs in the oven can also be applied to the recipe for Dinosaur-Style Ribs (page 93). All you’ll be missin’ is the taste of the smoke and the smell of the outdoors, but the ribs will still be fallin’-off-the-bone tender.

This is our reason for being. If you’re a rib joint, you’d better have great ribs. What we strive for every day is a perfect balance of spice, smoke, sauce, and pull-off-the-bone tender pork. Here’s the blueprint and some tips to achieve some beautiful barbecue. All you need are a few hours and a dedicated pit boss spirit. A couple of beers won’t hurt either.

Cook ‘em low and slow. That’s the secret to tender short ribs. I like mine spicy, rich, and mahogany brown.

Since moving to Oklahoma, I have noticed that a lot of the barbecue there is made with beef. I started making these Georgia pork ribs a couple of years ago for the Fourth of July, and they quickly became tradition around here. Cut the racks into two-rib portions and serve them with Easy Baked Beans (page 133) and Fourth of July Coleslaw (page 54) for an awesome holiday feast!

Our use of ribs extends beyond a plate of ribs. We use them in gnocchi and in potato soup, and we will cut them into three, remove the bones, and make a McKiernan ribs sandwich. As lard was a staple at the turn of the century, so are ribs at Joe Beef. We provide two ways of cooking: roasting and smoking. Serve with Good Fries (page 154).

Country-style ribs, from the shoulder end of the pork loin, turn succulent with long, slow braising. In late winter and early spring, when California’s blood orange harvest is peaking, Brian adds their tangy juice to the braise, along with fennel wedges and kalamata olives. Like many braises, this dish reheats well. Serve with wide ribbon noodles, such as pappardelle.

Small and lean baby-back ribs are a quick-cooking (and very tender) alternative to spare ribs. If desired, coat them with your favorite spice rub before baking. Serve the ribs with any of the potato side dishes on page 284 or steamed corn on the cob.

You can make your own mild chile powder for this recipe by lightly toasting and grinding whole dried sweet chiles such as Anaheim or ancho.