I first featured this rub back in September. I had already used it (a LOT) on slow-roasted racks o’ ribs, and was trying it out with braised country style ribs – worked a treat.
My inspiration came from the dry rub called for by the nice folk at Betty Crocker when making ribs with cherry coke barbecue sauce: salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger.
Nice. But I thought I could do a bit better, so I headed to the spice rack.
INGREDIENTS
•1 tsp ground ginger
•1 tsp garlic powder
•1 tsp Brisket of Love – or, use your favorite steak seasoning
•1 tsp salt (I use coarse sea salt)
•1 tsp chili powder
•1 tsp Caribbean Calypso – or, use some dried orange peel, mebbe a dash of nutmeg, and a wee, tiny bit o’ crushed red pepper
•1/2 tsp Coleman’s (dry mustard)
•1/8 tsp black pepper
That’s it – whisk ’em all together and apply to your ribs!
Hmmm. About those ribs.
I cut a rack of pork ribs in half and nestled them on top of a bed of coarsely chopped onion, celery, green pepper, and carrots before… Well, let’s just do it, and thanks to Rachael Ray for the original recipe.
INGREDIENTS
•1 rack of ribs
•Aromatic veggies – I used onion, celery, carrot and green pepper this time
•1 quart cranberry juice
•Rib rub
•Additional coarsely chopped onion for baking
Heat oven to 325º.
Coarsely chop the veggies and place in the bottom of an oven-safe pot.
Apply the rub to the ribs and arrange on top of the veggies, then carefully pour the cranberry juice down the sides so you don’t wash off too much of the rub.
Bring to a boil over high heat, then remove from the heat, cover, and pop into the oven for 90 minutes.
Remove the ribs and finish as you like – grilled is lovely, but baked on a bed of sliced onion (I hit a sale and have a LOT of onions to get through) is nice too. For this batch, I just used my regular barbecue sauce.
Bake or grill to heat through and give the ribs a nice glaze.
Just, lovely. Tender, tasty, and the bit of a bite from the rub and the sauce blends really well with the hint of cranberry from the braising.
And, speaking of the cranberry juice…
One of my favorite things about this particular method of preparing ribs is that I end up with a wonderful seasoned pork stock. I’ve used the cider vinegar-based stock to make a very nice hot and sour soup; and the stock I ended up with from using plain cider made for a particularly fine batch of meatballs stroganoff with crème fraiche.
While cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, I strain the stock from the braising pot into a large container, cover it and stash it in the fridge overnight.
Sometime the next day, I pull out the stock and skim off and discard the fat that has formed on the top.
Strain once more for good measure, and you are ready to pop this bit o’ goodness into the freezer.
The cranberry juice made for a really nicely flavored stock, so I’m thinking Rich will get some of that stroganoff for Valentine’s Day.