All Things Chill

Pork Ribs in an Espresso BBQ Sauce with Extra Sharp Cheddar Grits

I don’t have much experience with ribs. A while back, Jocelyn gave me Ribs, Ribs, Outrageous Ribs which gave me a good general background… but I didn’t really get to use it much in my matchbox of a studio in San Francisco – I’d prolly have the fire department knocking down my door every time I wanted to burn some swine. LOL.

While shopping for cioppino ingredients, I picked up some “country-style” pork ribs from the local market to park in the freezer for later. It was a good price and was fun to experiment with. According to the wiki:

Country style ribs are cut from the blade end of the loin closest to the pork shoulder. They are meatier and higher in fat than other rib cuts.

There’s a lot of good information in the “pork ribs wiki” such as the difference between baby back ribs vs. spare ribs vs. rib tips, etc. I had all day to cook, so here’s what I did to make a semi-hearty lunch:

I grabbed the ribs and rubbed with cumin, brown sugar, cayenne, red pepper flake, garlic powder, oregano and black pepper – whatever I had on hand – and wraped the ribs in foil and threw in a 300 degree oven for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, I pulled the foil pouch from oven and drained fat. I made some of Chiarello’s Espresso BBQ sauce recipe, brushed it on the ribs and threw ‘em under a low broiler for a few minutes on each side for the sugar to caramelize a bit before serving. I also trimmed the ribs to make them more uniform, but if you wanna eat ‘em right of the pan be my guest! LOL.

For the grits, I used 1 cup to 5 cups of liquid (4 water, 1 cream) – just like the polenta with lamb a while back. I boiled the water, carefully whisked the grits in and lowered the heat. I continued stirring every other minute until it only had a very “soft bite” to it. I then threw in a cup of Tillamook Extra-Sharp Chedder cheese and some sliced green onions and stirred well until combined.

The meal does take a while to make, but the depth of flavors work well together and it’s not TOO heavy (in moderation, of course). RIBS IN MODERATION? RIIIIIIGHT. LOL.

Enjoy!

~Spec

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 1:25 am and is filed under Cheap [and GOOD] Eats, Cooking Culture, Cuisine, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.