FLOWER POT KITCHEN: SMOKEY JACK DANIELS BARBECUE RIBS

29 May 2024

SMOKEY JACK DANIELS BARBECUE RIBS

BIG GREEN EGGING

Barbecue by

Miss Kristi Lou

3-2-1 Cooking Method

Indirect Cooking

Dry rubbed ribs, smoked at 110 C / 233 F, for 3 hours, then slather with your barbecue sopping sauce, add the apple juice and butter, wrap in a double Texas crutch of foil and a single layer of butchers paper, place back in your egg for 2 hours. For the last stage remove the Texas crutch and place the ribs back on the grill baste and sop regularly with the bourbon barbecue sauce for 1 hour and now you have the most glorious tender smokey basted ribs that are almost falling off the bone.

The only effort in cooking these ribs is time…

3 hours stage 1

2 hours wrapped, stage 2

1 hour basting, stage 3

Cooking time 5-6 hours

Ingredients

Whole rack of pork baby back ribs per person

1 bottle french’s hot dog mustard

200ml apple juice per rib

100g butter per rib, thick sliced

Barbecue Dry Rub

7 tbsp dark brown molasses sugar

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp dried chipotle flakes

1 tbsp dried ancho flakes

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

Mix all the ingredients together well, store in a ball mason jar.

Texas Style Barbecue Sauce

for serving

1 cup tomato ketchup

2/3 cup molasses brown sugar

3 glugs Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp chipotle powder

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

200ml Coke

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and simmer until desired consistency.

The Jack Daniels Maple Sopping Sauce

200ml Jack Daniels

300ml maple syrup

25 ml molasses

1 tbsp tamarind or lime juice

3 tbsp honey

Warm all the ingredients until combined, pour in to a squirt sopping bottle or bowl for dipping your sopping brush in.

LETS GET COOKING…

Fire Up Your Big Green Egg Set For Indirect Cooking

How ever you start your smoker /grill, fire up (I fill my fire box to the top as my fire starts in the middle and slowly burns outward giving me up to 12hrs hours of slow heat controlled cooking) once your fire is established bring the temperature down to 110 C / 230 F, using your air vents to control the heat.

Air flow = temperature control, more air flow = more heat, less air = less heat.

Ribs 3 - 2 - 1

Remove your ribs from the fridge 1 hour before cooking.

Do Not Skip This Step

Remove the silver skin membrane from the back of the ribs, to do this slip a small knife tip under the the thick skin membrane on the first bone, lever up gently, take some paper roll and hold the lifted skin and peel off the rib, this silver skin normally comes away in one strip. If you leave the skin on it constricts while cooking pulling the rib tight and it is like eating a rubbery skin on your tender rib, not nice.

Cooking Ribs Stage 3 (the first stage)

Rub your ribs generously with mustard then the barbecue dry rub.

To your smoker add one/two hickory wood chunks

Place the ribs in your smoker 110 C / 230 F for 3 hours, I like to rotate my ribs by 90 degrees half way through, if cooking upright in a rack rotate 180 degrees.

NEXT…

Cooking Ribs Stage 2

The Texas Crutch

Take two sheets of foil and one sheet of butchers paper or baking paper, lay the butchers paper on top of the two sheets of foil, place the rib in the center, generously baste the rib all over with your barbecue sauce, lay the butter slices on top of the ribs, bring the edges of the foil up to start to make a bowl, pour in the apple juice and gently fold the top of the foil over to create a tent around the ribs.

Place back in your smoker for 1-2 hours. After 1 hour check the ribs for tenderness, keep cooking for up to 2 hours, you don’t want the meat to actually fall off the bone, your looking for a presentable rib that the bone easily pulls cleanly away from the meat.

Cooking Ribs Stage 1 (the last stage)

Final bark

I increase the heat in my smoker at this point to 200 C / 395 F.

This is not essential but I like a good bark on my ribs, Unwrap your ribs and place back in your smoker, now I get sopping with my hot maple bourbon glaze every 10 minutes.

You can also sop some of the buttery apple cooking juices over the ribs too.

Once your ribs are ready around 1 hour is when you can gently pull a bone away from the meat, generously baste the ribs with your barbecue sauce and serve.

No comments:

LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.