Recipes

Holy Smoke Baby Back Ribs

Ribs by John Relihan, from Holy Smoke in Cork. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

John Relihan
Sat Apr 30 2016 - 03:00
Serves: 6
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 3 hrs 30 mins
Ingredients
  • 1 rack of baby back pork ribs from your local butcher. Make sure they have plenty of meat on them
  • 100ml French’s mustard, or any sweet American mustard
  • Pork rub:
  • 1 1/2 tbsp sweet paprika
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • Cayenne, a pinch
  • Half tsp granulated onion powder
  • Half tsp granulated garlic powder
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • Half tsp cracked black pepper
  • Crushed chilli flakes, a pinch
  • (These measures aren’t definitive – play around with it and add more of the ingredients you like)
  • Herb brush and baste:
  • 1 bunch rosemary
  • 1 bunch sage
  • 1 bunch thyme
  • 200g Irish butter, melted
  • Garnish:
  • Coriander, one bunch, chopped
  • 4 spring onions, chopped
  • Barbecue sauce:
  • 150g white onion, minced
  • 1 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
  • 300ml apple juice
  • 100ml cider vinegar
  • 100ml ketchup
  • 60ml French’s mustard
  • 20ml soy sauce
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 3 1/2 tbsp dark brown sugar
  • Half tsp garlic powder

If you don’t have a smoker, use a charcoal barbecue that has a cover, which will work just as well. Alternatively, you can use your domestic oven.

To make your herb brush or flavour wand, bunch the herbs together and tie tightly with a piece of string to the top of a wooden spoon, so it resembles a mop. Sit your herb brush into the melted butter and use it to baste your ribs.

Make the barbecue sauce before you cook the ribs. With this quantity, you will have some left over which can be refrigerated for a couple of weeks.

Heat the oil in a pan and add the minced onions and garlic and slow cook until they are soft. Add the dry ingredients and cook on a low heat for another five minutes.

Add the apple juice, vinegar and soy sauce and bring to the boil for 10 minutes, then leave on a simmer. Add the ketchup and mustard and season. Let it cook out for 40 minutes on medium heat.

Flatten the ribs and remove all of the sinew that covers the naked rib side of the rack. Rub the mustard into every nook and cranny of the rack. This caramelises when you cook them. Mix the rub ingredients together and massage into the meat side of the ribs, leaving the naked rib side unseasoned to allow the smoke in.

Place in the smoker/covered barbecue at 120 degrees Celsius for three and a half hours, until the ribs are pullable from the bone, but still have a bit of a bite.

While you are cooking them, baste generously every 40 minutes with your herb flavour wand.

When the ribs are ready, cover them with barbecue sauce and return to the grill for five minutes to allow the sauce to settle.

Sprinkle with spring onion and coriander before serving.

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