Monday, September 2, 2013

Labor Day Ribs

Queen Bee and I had promised to host a neighborhood party this summer so we used the extended Labor Day weekend to have the event.

I took off Friday so we could get supplies.  Costco makes cooking for large crowds easy.  24 Brats and 10 pounds of back ribs, beer, wine, bottled water, chips, etc...

For the main course I was going to iterate on the ribs recipe I had used twice when we entertained my work group a couple years ago.  It worked pretty well but I overshot on the spice rub the second time.  This time I promised myself I would actually measure the ingredients and write it down.  So here it is...

Ingredients:
9.5 pounds of back ribs
3 teaspoons of chili powder
3 teaspoons of salt
3 teaspoons of thyme
3 teaspoons of rosemary
3 large cloves of garlic
3 cups of wine
3 ziplock bags
1 12 oz bottle of BBQ sauce

Start with brining the ribs...
Put about 3 pounds of ribs in each of the ziplock bags.
To each bag, add 1 cup of wine 1 teaspoon of each of the salt, herbs  and spices above.  Also add one diced garlic clove to each bag.  Let these bags of ribs sit overnight in the fridge.

4 hours before serving, remove the ribs from the ziplock bags and place the ribs and the liquid in a covered roasting pan and place in an oven preheated to 350 F.  Roast for 75 minutes at 350 F then reduce heat to 250 F and continue to roast 2 and 1/2 hours.

With about 30 minutes remaining before serving, drain about 12 oz of the roasting liquid in a saucepan and combine with BBQ sauce. Simmer the mixture to reduce slightly.

With 15 minutes remaining remove the roasting pan from the oven and turn the temperature back up to 350 F.  Drain away the rest of the liquid from roasting pan.  Then spoon the BBQ sauce mixture over the ribs to coat them evenly.  Return the ribs to the oven uncovered for the remaining 15 minute to brown.

...turned out great this time:)