Beef Rib Recipe That Can't be Beat!
I had just seasoned up a mess of beef spareribs and gently placed them in our large roasting pan, slid the whole mess in the oven and closed the oven door when a small fireworks display went off inside the oven. I knew right away, being the quick thinker that I am, that something was not right. So before the whole house burned down I turned off the oven. Now what was I going to do?
My plan that morning was to cook the 13 pounds of beef spareribs slowly in the roasting pan at 230 degrees F while we were at church. Then pull them out and finish them off on the grill with mass quantities of my delicious home made barbecue sauce, serve with broccoli casserole, baked beans and maybe some nice fresh from the oven, award winning biscuits. Well that never happened. Instead when I got home from church I threw the whole mess of ribs in a large pot of water and boiled them until they were just done. Then I removed them from the water, which had now become some really nice rich beef stock and then smothered them in my homemade barbecue sauce and cooked them on the grill. They turned out great.
We served the ribs with baked beans that weren’t baked but were still quite good and some potato salad that Vickie my quick thinking (it runs in the family) wife whipped out while I was cursing the situation. Not really. Folks that know me know that I would never curse unless I was maybe in heavy traffic or watching football on TV or if I ran out of other descriptive type words for certain stressful situations. Anyhow the meal turned out great in spite of our bad luck. I guess we will be shopping for a new stove. In the mean time we will be eating a lot of boiled dishes like yams. You boil yams right? And eggs, and frozen vegetables and a lot of good stuff like that.
Here’s how you fix beef back ribs without an oven: First before we dive in and start whipping up the best batch of ribs this side of Rigby (a small town in eastern Idaho) we need to make sure that we get the best ribs possible. You see the ribs that the supermarkets purchase from the large meat processors have less meat on the bones than the ribs that us local butchers peel off the prime ribs. The reason is that the large meat producers want to leave as much meat on the boneless rib eye that they can, which they get a lot of money for, instead of the rib bones which they get very little for. Us local butchers don’t bother to gouge the meat out between the ribs to leave on the rib eyes because we just have to trim it off again when we cut the steaks. So the bones that are not gouged between the bones are the most meaty. Whenever you see a store advertise boneless rib eyes you will often find lots of the good meaty rib bones in the case. Next make sure they are on sale when you buy them. In the summer they are often on sale around the 99 cents a pound area. This is good.
Now take your ribs and cut them in half or thirds so they will fit in your largest pot. Cover with water and boil until done, or you can boil longer to make them more tender and to cook away some of the fat-your choice. I season the water with garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper and then save the broth for some delicious vegetable beef soup. Next simply fire up the grill on medium to low setting and lather them up with your favorite barbecue sauce. Then cover and cook for a while adding more sauce and turning every couple of minutes or so for about twenty minutes.
Ok here it is one more time. One of these days I’m going to bottle this stuff for the retail markets of America and when I do I will not be giving out the recipe anymore so you better write it down.
John’s very own “Marine Corps Railroad Style Barbecue Sauce” 1-24 ounce bottle of ketchup, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder, 1/2 tsp of onion powder, 2 tablespoons of black strap molasses or so, a couple of hearty shakes of Tabasco sauce, a tsp of apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp of salt, a few shakes of black pepper, 2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce. Liquid smoke is optional. Actually everything is optional. Last time I checked it was still a free country. There it is. The Marine Corps’ Basic Barbecue Sauce. If you want it a little zestier just beef up the seasonings. It turns out different every time I make it but it is always delicious.
