Alton Brown Makes Perfect Baby-Back Ribs | Food Network

we're going with what we call an 8-3 one plus one rub and what we're talking about here is parts eight parts of light brown sugar three parts of kosher salt and one part of chilli powder plus one which we'll get to shortly now seal up nice and tight in a mason jar or some other jar that you've washed and shape to combine we'd like to mix things up a little as a matter of fact we've discovered there six things that we like to mix up into that one part starting with black pepper now these are just small amounts that are gonna add up to the one part cayenne jalapeno seasoning which is really just dried and ground jalapenos with some other seasons added little old bay personal favorite of mine rubbed or dried thyme for an herbal note and that leaves us with just enough room for onion powder there we go yeah that's one part now that goes on top and again we cover and shake now lay each slab out on its own big piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil and make sure that the shiny side is down that'll make the heat come in just a little bit slower which is good now lay on the rub and don't be prissy about it contact is critical push on and flip now this other side doesn't matter quite as much so don't go overboard it's mostly the convex side that we're after why aluminum foil well because we can basically shape the thing at the pan to fit the food which is a good thing and of course you don't have to wash it so break it right up in the middle and just fold it over once and then push down you don't want to do any fancy crimping because we've got to get back into these to add some liquid later now these are gonna go right back into the refrigerator for at least one hour before cooking you could do this well the night before and it would be even better now wash those porky hands so into eight microwavable container will go for moisture and acidity one cup of white wine bolster that with two tablespoons of white wine vinegar if you don't have white wine vinegar it's okay just use any vinegar that you've got two tablespoons of wish'd is your sauce that takes care of the salty now for the sweet a tablespoon of honey and I never measure this stuff I just figured that each squeeze is a teaspoon so three squeezes one two three three teaspoons makes a tablespoon now really last but not least two smashed and chopped cloves of garlic you don't have to be pretty with it you don't have to be fancy with it know why garlic hey garlic don't need no reason there we go and look it's pre chopped for us so if you smash right you don't have to do anything else just scoop that right in and lit it up we're going to put this in the microwave for one minute meanwhile we will prep the ribs just open up one end of the crimp and kind of turn it into a funnel looks like a couple of big silver widemouth bass make sure that the openings over the tray in case you do any spilling which I usually do half the liquid goes into this side and half the liquid goes into this side and just give the tray a little bit of a tilt just to kind of distribute everything down there hear a gurgle gurgle then crimp up the ends next stop for these bad boys is 725 degree oven for two and a half hours now aggressive oven management is required here so cook by your instruments namely the oven thermometer see if it gets too hot in here the meats gonna dry out in spite of all that liquor in that case no amount of dissolved gelatin in the world will ever bring that lip-smacking goodness back when it comes to ribs speed kills so do not attempt to pick up the pace on this your patience will be rewarded well the timer says the braise is done but there's only really one way to know for sure and that's to look and feel so slide out your rack and just open up one end of one of the pouches you can do this with that with paper towels but I'm trying to sacrifice myself of science here there and I just grab one end lift up and then reach for one of the pouch one of the ribs further back just grab it and give it a twist now if you feel the bone just rotating in the socket that means that the collagen has started to dissolve around the bone that means that these ribs are done so I'm gonna get my saucier out you can use any wide pan and just just lay lay the packet right in the middle of the pan like that take your kitchen shears and just snip a hole in the foil it's like opening a nice barrel of wine it'll drain right out now all in all I'd say that we got about a cup and a half of liquid back out of this and those are fine liquid assets indeed 10 minutes later and a humble braising liquid is reduced down to a barbecue sauce that's suitable for bottling and selling for 6 bucks a shot that would probably require special licenses and permits so we'll just stick to this get this off of the heat by the way because when it gets to this consistency the next step is burned and it happens very quick so let's go ahead and open up the ribs but do not remove them from the foil oil is actually going to help us get them colored once they are under the broiler now grab your nearest basting brush this is the only way and literally paint the glaze right on to the meat this goes under the broiler but I'm not about to tell you how long the reason is I don't want you to walk away from this even for a minute because in as little as 30 seconds that sugar is gonna start to bubble on top that's in the glaze it's gonna start to caramelize and in as little as a minute it's gonna be Brown ten more seconds it'll be black so keep a very close eye on it [Music]

Channel: Food Network

Views: 1,322,915

Rating: 4.8673081 out of 5

Keywords: alton brown, food network, good eats, baby-back ribs, ribs, technique, how to, cooking, barbecued ribs, how to make ribs, ribs how-to, how to cook ribs, how to barbecue ribs, meat, food network recipes, barbecue recipes, sauce

Id: zQ2nL7VGOFs

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 07 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/Woodyville06]

Great post. I’m a huge Alton Brown fan.