Recipe - Grilled pork ribs

In my (rarely humble) opinion, anyone worth listening to when it comes to cooking ribs will tell you the best way to fix ‘em is with a smoker. Unfortunately, for the July 4th cookout I hosted, I was ill-equipped and sans smoker. Never one to let appliance-related adversity stand in the way of my culinary adventures, however, I decided to use a combination of oven and grill to make a (wait for it) 6.5 lb rack of spare ribs. I felt like I was cradling a newborn as I walked out of the store.
 

Recipe inspired by … me! Picture outright pilfered from PaleoLeap, though I did not consult their recipe.
I’d have liked to get a picture of the ones I made, but we were all too hungry to wait.
 
Barbecue Pork Ribs
 
Prep time: 2-12 hours, depending on how devoted you are to the dry rub.
Cook time: 2½ - 3½ hours
 
Ingredients:

• 1 rack of spare ribs or baby backs Note: I prefer spare ribs because they’re meatier, but they do call for a longer cook time.
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp garlic powder
• 3 tbsp paprika
• Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper (1-2 tsp each, or to taste)
• Your favorite barbecue sauce Note: I usually make my own, but I was running low on time. I used Hak’s Chipotle Bourbon BBQ sauce, and it was awesome.
• Apple cider vinegar
• Optional: Bulleit (or other brand) bourbon

The Nitty Gritty:

1. Mince the garlic and mix your dry seasonings. Rub generously on both sides of the ribs.
2. Place in a baking pan and cover for 2-12 hours, depending on how much time you have, and how much you care about the dry rub.
3. Preheat your oven to 300°.
4. Once the oven has preheated (and you’re sick of waiting to get your ribs going), rub both sides of the ribs with a 1:1 ratio of apple cider vinegar and bourbon, if you’re using it.
5. Cover the ribs with tin foil again and place in the oven. Roast for 1-1½ hours.
6. After an hour, brush with vinegar and bourbon again, recover, roast for 1 more hour.
7. This is where you’re going to have to gauge the tenderness of your ribs for yourself, and adjust your timing from there. To check doneness, you can do the ol’ fork test, or run a paring knife through 2 or 3 ribs. Should slide easily.
8. When they’re as tender as you want them, baste with barbecue sauce, re-cover, and put them back in the oven, but turn the heat off. Let them sit in the oven as it cools for about half an hour.
9. While the ribs are waiting in the oven, you can heat up the grill. In this case, we put one side of the grill on med-high, but kept the ribs on the unheated side. Do med-low if this isn’t an option, or, if using charcoal, arrange your coals so that the ribs won’t be over direct heat.
10. Place ribs on grill and reserve juices from your baking pan. Mix juices with barbecue sauce.
11. Grill ribs, basting with barbecue sauce mixture and turning frequently, until lacquered and charred in places and heated through, 10-20 minutes (just eyeball it.)
12. Transfer to a cutting board; cut between ribs to separate. Transfer to a platter and serve with additional barbecue sauce as desired.

In addition to a bunch of other veggies—including corn, bell peppers, zucchini, portobellas, and broccolini—I grilled up some fresh pineapple to serve with these. No joke, everybody at the party said these were the best ribs they’d ever tasted, which had this copywriter strutting around like the proudest little peacock. Cheers, y’all!
 
Brought to you by our resident copywriter and culinarian, Justine Kurtz