Straight From The Pig's Mouth

A little ways back Dave had a post that was inspired by many of the rib feasts I cook up during our university daze in the Brick'Tangle. Well the local grocery store had baby back ribs on sale and I couldn't resist the meaty goodness. Amazing ribs are extremely easy and actually require minimal effort, a little bit of technique, and a huge amount of passion for deliciousness. This is a very adaptable guideline and you can get super creative with it, but my special rib formula is pretty spectacular if I do say so myself and definitely worth a try.

First order of business in making the best damn ribs you've ever eaten is to remove the membrane. The membrane is a thin, tough skin on the underside of the ribs. The membrane makes for shitty ribs in my opinion so it is best to remove it. To get this son-ofa-bitch off the meat, find a little unattached flap of the membrane near the wide end of the ribs, or make an little slice into the meat near a bone. Try to work the tip of your knife under it by running your knife back and forth in and pulling at the membrane. Once the skin starts to separate, gently yet firmly pull it away from the meat. The pictures below do a pretty good job of illustrating this. Using a paper towel for grip helps if your hands get slippery.

Once the membrane has been removed, it is time to season the meat. I use a dry rub with a variety of spices to build a sweet, savoury, and spicy flavour. These are approximate measurements and should make enough rub to cover both sides of two racks of ribs:

2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp finely ground coffee
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp dry mustard
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp chili flakes

Preheat your oven to 275 degrees. Yes, that low. Rub that spice mix all over both sides of the racks of ribs and place them in a pan that will accommodate the size of the meat. My racks were especially large and I had to cut them in half to fit into my pans, do the same if need be. I found that cutting them in half made the ribs much easier to handle and move about when they were cooked and super tender. You can be pretty resourceful when choosing a liquid to use for braising. Water would suffice, but thats pretty flavourless. I usually opt for some sort of beer, as it creates a fantastic flavour, especially when accompanied by said beer after the fact. I have also used cola, rootbeer, or Dr. Pepper in the past. This time around I used a mix of beer and cola, and it turned out phenomenally. Don't limit yourself to just beer and soda though, as you can literally use any liquid. For a more savoury flavour, use some wine, for a sweeter flavour, use some sort of fruit juice. Add enough liquid that it covers about a third of the meat. Cover the pan tightly with tin foil, and pop it in the oven for 4 hours. Don't even bother peaking, just let it do its thing and enjoy the aroma that will soon overwhelm you. Once the 4 hours is up, your ribs will be tender as fuck and will be in a very delicate state. Peel back the foil, and let them chill out for a bit. Drain the liquid or carefully transfer the ribs to a cutting board. Essentially your ribs are done now, but there is still another step to making these the best damn ribs ever. 

At this point, I like to let the ribs cool for a little while as it helps keep them from completely falling apart into a heavenly pile of meat. For best results, fire up the grill, but if you don't have a grill, just crank the broiler in the oven to high. These ribs will easily be delicious without any sauce, but frankly I like a sweet, spicy, and sticky crust on my finished ribs. I packed my ribs up and took them over to my friend Craig's place where we hit the grill, and he happened to have an amazing selection of BBQ sauces he picked up at the local ribfest, thus saving me time in making up my own. It is best to sauce up the bottom of the ribs and grill them facing upwards first, then carefully flip, sauce up the top side, and let the sauce begin to caramelize. Be attentive to the ribs and the heat as you don't want to char the sauce. By finishing the grilling process with the meaty top facing up, you have room to fit you tongs or flipper under the ribs when they are hot and reach a delicate, fall-off-the-bone state once again. You can do the same thing under the broiler as you can on the grill, just the grill adds that extra smokey, grilled flavour. 

Remove from grill, let them rest again for a few minutes, and then enjoy with beer and good friends. Goes well with coleslaw, potatoes of some sort (mashed, roasted, salad, etc), and maybe some baked beans if you got the time. 

Sorry pup, there won't be any meat left of these bones.

SPATCHCOCK!!!

Flat out, this is one of the tastiest meals I've had all summer. I'm not always a huge proponent of chicken, but this is mostly because of boneless, skinless chicken breast. It's the "healthy" meat and its lean and tasteless and dry and boring, and I got fed a ton of it with steamed vegetables during the week as a kid when my mom didn't have time to make something delicious. A whole bird though, bone-in, skin-on, that's my shit. Some people may be intimidated by this, but really it's a simple thing and super easy to cook and the result can be spectacular with just a bit of care. Now, since it's the summer time, one might not want to be stuck in the kitchen, but on the patio with a cold beer and friends. Cold beer, friends and patios are congruent with barbeques. One may think that cooking a whole chicken on a barbeque is a difficult task and they need a fancy grill with a rotisserie or something like that. Well, you could do that, or you could bust out this easy-to-do and highly impressive technique that I will divulge in mere sentences. Daniel taught me this skill last summer, and I've been stoked on it since. It's called spatchcocking, and it's basically flattening the chicken so it grills relatively quickly and easily. Anyone pick up on that pun I threw in at the beginning yet? Har har.

In order to spatchcock a bird, you need a good pair of kitchen scissors or shears. You can use a heavy knife but I find it much simpler to get in there with scissors. With the chicken laying breast side up, simply flip it over so now the backbone is facing up. Using the scissors cut down from one opening to the other right along the side of the backbone, then repeat on the other side of it. No you have a spineless bird. Open the bird up and flip it back over and proceed to push down on the breasts to flatten the chicken. I like to cut off the two little flaps of skin right at the bottom cavity (where the legs are), as these are just fatty and tend to cause flare ups on the grill. Now rinse your spatchcocked bird and pat it dry with some paper towel, season generously with salt and fresh cracked pepper. And say spatchcock as much as you like.

Now to get this bird tasting sexy, you're going to need a few essentials, so along with the chicken itself, throw these on your shopping list if you don't have them kicking around the kitchen already. And if you don't these are some staples that you should.

-ground cumin
-chili powder
-shallots (small onions that have a sweeter flavour)
-garlic
-butter
-maple sizzurp (the real shit)
-dijon mustard
-fresh lemons
-Sailor Jerry's spiced rum

Heat your grill up to medium high heat. Meanwhile, on the stove top over medium low heat, melt a couple spoonfuls of butter in a small saucepan. Throw in some chopped up shallots, garlic (just smash it with the side of your knife), a few generous pinches of cumin, as much chili as your desire, and grate some of the rind from the lemon right into the pan. Things are gonna start smelling awesome, but you gotta be careful not to brown the butter. Now take a swig of the rum, and proceed to pour some right into the pan. A few shots will do, but the more the merrier. Let the concoction form small bubbles on the top and stir it around a bit. You want to make all the alcohol evaporate so you get the tasty, sugary, sweetness from the rum. Give it a quick taste and add more butter if necessary. Now swirl in a bit of maple sizzurp, and half a spoonful of dijon. This will round out all the delicious flavours. Give it another taste, to make sure its still good. Take it off the stove, grab a silicone basting brush (if you don't have one, you can get these mad cheap, and they're super duper handy), a pair of good bbq tongs, and head back to the grill. And pour yourself a damn drink already, that rum won't drink itself.

You don't want to scorch the chicken, so you will have to turn off one of the burners on your grill, and adjust the other according to maintain the heat. If you have a 3 burner grill, I'd suggest shutting the middle off. Make sure your grill is good and oiled so your chicken won't stick to it and get all gnarly looking. Before throwing the bird on the grill, season both sides with some cumin, chili and chopped garlic. Now throw it on the grill and let the heat to the work. Every 10 minutes or so splash some of that delicious sauce on it. The butter in the sauce will help achieve a nice golden brown colour. You should rotate the chicken throughout the cooking process to ensure it gets cooked evenly, and close the lid when you're not slapping some sauce on or rotating the bird. About 15-20 minutes into the grilling, I like to flip the chicken, breast side down, right onto the direct heat so you get some sexy grill marks. Flip it back onto the indirect heat, and keep that thing going until the juices run clear if you cut it with a knife. The whole cooking process takes about 30-40 minutes depending on how big your chicken is. The breasts usually cook faster than the legs, so take the chicken off the grill and throw on a cutting board to rest up. Using a knife, seperate the legs/thighs by cutting between the joint, then throw them back on the grill (direct heat) and cook them to you liking. This part isn't necessary, I just find leg and thigh meat a little slimy, and I like to cook it a little longer to get it a little drier, plus it brings the flavour of the meat out more.

Your bird has been resting up now and the juices have redistributed; it's ready to cut. With a big knife (or scissors) cut between the breasts, separate the wings if you want, and I like to cut the breasts in half so every one gets some white meat. Serve with some grilled veggies, and some leafy greens and you got yourself a sexy summer meal that will definitely impress the ladies. When this deliciousness was created, we served it was some brown rice concoction Dave made, and a rad fruit and grilled veggie salad that had some rum in it, too. More to come on that later. Pop open a bottle of chilled vino and enjoy. Thank me later.

-justin