I now realize how delinquent I’ve been regarding introductions.
What I should have said months ago:
“Alton Brown’s ribs, meet my smoker”.
Alton Brown’s Baby Back Ribs recipe has been rocking my world lately and ushered our household into a meat phase. These baby back ribs come out meltingly tender, with a touch of sweet and spice.
A great feature to this recipe is how its steps can be easily broken down into elements:
- rub down ribs with dry rub
- slow cook ribs with braising liquid
- boil down cooked juices
- glaze ribs
- finish under the broiler
After making up AB’s recipe as written a couple of times, I encourage you to study those components, and then steal his recipe and make it yours.
You know what I mean…
Shake up the dry rub:
- add a pinch of ground up candied orange peel,
- massage in some pummeled cilantro,
- candy some cacao nibs, grind them up and apply liberally,
- try some Szechuan peppercorns
Change out the braising liquid:
- pineapple juice works well,
- I imagine cherry lambic will have us turning cartwheels,
- apple cider plays well with pork,
- did I mention sake has a wonderful skill set?
Kick up that glaze:
- I’ve become addicted to adding mango jelly in at this point
- a swirl of Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce is more than nice.
- do you have some tamarind or pomegranate paste lurking in your refrigerator?
Next time up, I’m going to take my own advice and cook these babies in the smoker. It’s high time they met.
More baby back ribs from food bloggers
- Chubby Hubby: do you have it in you to let your cooked pork rest 2-3 days before digging in? My household is now full of laughter- we are not so strong. Go check out these black sticky gems: Pork Riblets Braised in Vietnamese Caramel Sauce
- Baking Bites: honey, you had me at root beer (no not root) Slow Cooked Ribs and Root Beer BBQ Sauce
- haverchuk: I’ve seen it and now I can’t get it out of my mind… I’ve got a severe case of rack envy: cooking Recipes from ‘Peace Love and Barbecue‘
- Simply Recipes: Elise is going to convince me to brine my next batch of ribs. Make sure to check out her post to also get in the membrane removing habit. Grilled Spicy Citrus Ribs Recipe
8 Comments
Wow! I love ribs, and I love Alton Brown’s recipes, so this has got to be a win/win combination for me!
I dream about these ribs sometimes!
Yummy! We just bought a smoker two weekends ago and are eagerly collecting recipes, so this is perfect.
My husband basically learned how to cook by making these ribs. They are absolutely phenomenal!
These two are my prime guidelines to anything rib and BBQ related, but I’ll try Alton’s recipe this upcoming weekend 
These came off too salty for my taste. Call me a purist, but these aren’t BBQ. Broiled, to be sure, but without smoke, no BBQ.
You’ve mentioned that you got a smoker. What kind did you get?
Ryan
Yay! Interesting…
[...] glazed on pork ribs [...]
