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bzarcherMore food porn ahoy!
When doing any kind of ribs, the first thing you have to do after washing them off and drying them down is remove the heavy outer membrane from the bottom. Sometimes the butcher will do this for you, but in a case like these where I bought them out of the meat case as-is, I knew it'd be my job.
Most of these, I was able to just work the membrane loose at one end with my fingers or a butter knife if it was being really annoying, and then just slowly and carefully pull it straight off of the rest of the rib.
I know it doesn't look that much different, but trust me, it will make a difference in the finished product.
Once the membranes are pulled, the next step is to slather the rib with a coat of mustard. Doesn't have to be thick, and plain yellow store mustard works just fine. Nothing fancy. This helps the rub stick without affecting the taste of the finished product. The mustard will basically disappear when smoked for several hours.
Then, it's time for rub. In this case, I did two racks with the rub I'm taste-testing for a Smoke Ring guy, and one with my own version of the Magic Dust in Peace, Love, and BBQ.
Once rubbed on both sides, since I am not cooking until 4-5, I wrapped the racks in saran wrap and put them in the fridge to get happy.
Then it was time to make up some of my appetizers for while the ribs are finishing up - some Atomic Buffalo Turds.
There's a few steps missing from the pictures because Alex and I were both working on these and getting our hands messy, so no documentation.
WEAR GLOVES for this. Latex, cellophane, wrap your hands in saran wrap, whatever. TRUST ME. I had the painful experience of not doing that last summer when I made that habanero sauce, and I'm not repeating it!
First, take anywhere from 8-24 Jalapeno peppers. Slice off the caps/stem and discard. Then slice them open lengthwise and remove all the seeds and the membrane, which takes most of the heat with them.(Despite the name, these are going to be more smoky/savory than spicy.) Keep each set of halves together, you will be recombining them later.
While the peppers are being prepped, get a medium size mixing bowl. Dice up about an 1/8th of a medium sized sweet onion (vidalia onions or sweet spanish onions are perfect) and put it into the bowl, then add about 4 oz. of shredded cheddar or colby cheese, 1 tablespoon of turbinado (cane) sugar, and 8 oz. of softened cream cheese. Mix well with your hands.
Now, take your pepper halves, and line each pepper half with the filling mixture. Then place a lil' smokey sausage at the "stem" end of one half, and combine the halves.
Repeat until you've done this for all of your peppers, and then wrap each one in 1/2 to a whole piece of bacon depending on the size of the pepper, and use some toothpicks to keep the whole thing together.
If you have some extra filling left over, you can either go out and get a couple more peppers, or it's also a nice base for some tasty tasty chip dip. :>
The ribs will go out around 5pm or so. We'll be doing a 2-2-1 cook. Two hours on the cooker, two hours wrapped in foil on the cooker, then one hour back on the cooker without foil to finish. I'll be spritzing them about every hour or so that they're not in the foil with a 50/50 mix of apple juice and apple cider vinegar.
When we come out to put the ribs into their foil wrap, I'll throw the ABTs into the smoker as well, and when the ribs come out of their foil I'll pull the ABTs to serve as an appetizer while we let the ribs finish.
When doing any kind of ribs, the first thing you have to do after washing them off and drying them down is remove the heavy outer membrane from the bottom. Sometimes the butcher will do this for you, but in a case like these where I bought them out of the meat case as-is, I knew it'd be my job.
Most of these, I was able to just work the membrane loose at one end with my fingers or a butter knife if it was being really annoying, and then just slowly and carefully pull it straight off of the rest of the rib.
I know it doesn't look that much different, but trust me, it will make a difference in the finished product.
Once the membranes are pulled, the next step is to slather the rib with a coat of mustard. Doesn't have to be thick, and plain yellow store mustard works just fine. Nothing fancy. This helps the rub stick without affecting the taste of the finished product. The mustard will basically disappear when smoked for several hours.
Then, it's time for rub. In this case, I did two racks with the rub I'm taste-testing for a Smoke Ring guy, and one with my own version of the Magic Dust in Peace, Love, and BBQ.
Once rubbed on both sides, since I am not cooking until 4-5, I wrapped the racks in saran wrap and put them in the fridge to get happy.
Then it was time to make up some of my appetizers for while the ribs are finishing up - some Atomic Buffalo Turds.
There's a few steps missing from the pictures because Alex and I were both working on these and getting our hands messy, so no documentation.
WEAR GLOVES for this. Latex, cellophane, wrap your hands in saran wrap, whatever. TRUST ME. I had the painful experience of not doing that last summer when I made that habanero sauce, and I'm not repeating it!
First, take anywhere from 8-24 Jalapeno peppers. Slice off the caps/stem and discard. Then slice them open lengthwise and remove all the seeds and the membrane, which takes most of the heat with them.(Despite the name, these are going to be more smoky/savory than spicy.) Keep each set of halves together, you will be recombining them later.
While the peppers are being prepped, get a medium size mixing bowl. Dice up about an 1/8th of a medium sized sweet onion (vidalia onions or sweet spanish onions are perfect) and put it into the bowl, then add about 4 oz. of shredded cheddar or colby cheese, 1 tablespoon of turbinado (cane) sugar, and 8 oz. of softened cream cheese. Mix well with your hands.
Now, take your pepper halves, and line each pepper half with the filling mixture. Then place a lil' smokey sausage at the "stem" end of one half, and combine the halves.
Repeat until you've done this for all of your peppers, and then wrap each one in 1/2 to a whole piece of bacon depending on the size of the pepper, and use some toothpicks to keep the whole thing together.
If you have some extra filling left over, you can either go out and get a couple more peppers, or it's also a nice base for some tasty tasty chip dip. :>
The ribs will go out around 5pm or so. We'll be doing a 2-2-1 cook. Two hours on the cooker, two hours wrapped in foil on the cooker, then one hour back on the cooker without foil to finish. I'll be spritzing them about every hour or so that they're not in the foil with a 50/50 mix of apple juice and apple cider vinegar.
When we come out to put the ribs into their foil wrap, I'll throw the ABTs into the smoker as well, and when the ribs come out of their foil I'll pull the ABTs to serve as an appetizer while we let the ribs finish.
