How to Make the Leftover Favorite, Mashed Potato Cakes, and Memphis-Style Ribs in the Slow Cooker

[Music] Oh [Music] they come home [Music] today on Cook's Country Bridget and Julia makes slow cooker memphis-style wet ribs Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of apple cider vinegar and Ashley shows Bridget the secrets to the best mashed potato cakes that's all right here on Cook's Country the original slow cooker known as the electric casserole that was invented back in the 1930s but it didn't become a standard appliance in the American kitchen until rival they viewed the crock-pot in 1971 by then more women were working outside of the home and the crock-pot made it's so easy to put a hot dinner on the table ruin the slow cooker is even more popular today and sales have doubled in the past ten years well that's because recipes have finally caught up and these days folks are using it for everything I mean everything there's nachos mashed potatoes creme brulee and even cheesecake a human today we're going to show you how to barbecue in your slow cooker and make some memphis-style wet ribs [Music] when I think of making barbecue I think of charcoal and hardwood and a grill and maybe even a smoker but I don't think about a slow cooker I don't either but the promise a big outdoor flavor and the convenience of a slow cooker well it does sound pretty darn tempting but without the right recipe you end up with that I've seen that before this is Stu it's not barbecue and let me show you the problem all this liquid that was added to the slow cooker all that flavor is washed out of the meat and into that liquid now will I take this off to the side and you didn't probably drink all this liquid later on yes I will but it is not barbecue all right I'm gonna go take this off to the side so before we get cooking let's talk about buying ribs at the supermarket now there's up to three different kinds of ribs that you might find and let's go through them here we have a st. louis-style rib here we have a full spare rib and here we have a baby back rib now these two cuts the st. Louis and the spare rib are cut from the same part of the pig from the belly area in fact if I pick up the st. Louis rack and I put it on top of the spare ribs you can see how much bigger the spare rib is now this brisket part of the belly is attached to the spare rib making it much bigger and that will change the cooking time dramatically now when it comes to baby back ribs they're from a different part of the pig all together they're from the back so they have more bones less meat and require yet a different cooking time so when you're shopping for ribs it's important to know which kind you're buying in wife well today we're buying the st. Louis spirit all right now each of these racks weighs between two and a half to three pounds the reason that we chose st. Louis it's cut from the spare rib so it's got plenty of fat intramuscular tissue that's going to mean more tender and juicy ribs most importantly we can fit two racks in our slow cooker oh good yeah so we're gonna make a lot of ribs I'm gonna cut it right in half so let me find me section there just cut it right in half we'll move on down the line as they say all right so another problem with slow cooker recipes they don't treat these like barbecue they just put them into the slow cooker maybe dump some barbecue sauce on there we're gonna treat these as if they were going outside and that means starting with a rub so this is two tablespoons of pepper you get just regular paprika I've got a tablespoon of packed brown sugar you can use an either light or dark a tablespoon of kosher salt we've got two teaspoons of granulated garlic and two teaspoons of onion powder and that's two teaspoons of ground black pepper all right let's just mash this together get any lumps out of that brown sugar all right that looks good I want to take a tablespoon of this and reserve it because we're gonna use it a little bit later on Oh secret spice for later secret spice we're gonna make a perfume with it so I'll take some paper towels and blot them dry because we want that spice rub to stick we still have the membrane on these you don't need to take that off it's actually gonna help them hold together all right let's start getting some of the spice rub on there and I know my hands are gonna get messy and I'm fine with it mmm mmm I'm sure that we get plenty on all sides and the ribs get a rubdown starting to look like a real barbecue over there isn't it so now it's time to put them in the slow cooker and how we put them in there is going to affect how they cook you see if you look at the side of one of these ribs we've got a fatter end over here got a thinner end over here we want that wider in to go down and we want the meteor side to go around the edges of the slow cooker that's so that they cook more evenly now these will overlap and that is fine all right lid is going on there's no liquid in there you're right there's no liquid in there as these cook they are going to start to give off some of their liquid not a whole lot but that means that they won't have that washed out flavor interesting so it's a dry slow cooker it's a dry slow cooker now you have two choices when you're using your slow cooker you can cook it on high for five to six hours or you can go for low and that's gonna take about six to seven hours we're gonna go for low today low and slow that's right [Music] all right look all that liquid in there yeah see it gave off some that liquid but it's nowhere near that amount that was in that bowl from earlier we're done with the slow cooker at this point so I want to get these out we're gonna put them on a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet I went ahead and lined that sheet with aluminum foil later on you're gonna see it's gonna help a clean up as these cool down for 10 minutes they're gonna dry out a little bit on the top that's gonna make it easy for us to apply our barbecue sauce it's gonna stick to those ribs mm-hmm stick to the ribs stick to the ribs speaking of sauce this is a very easy pantry friendly sauce and like all good things it starts with ketchup so this is 3/4 cup of ketchup all right and I've got 6 tablespoons of apple juice ah you find that a lot in especially memphis-style ribs sometimes they'll brush them with apple juice and makes it really good this 2 tablespoons of molasses so we're going all over the country here 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire I've got a tablespoon of yellow mustard gotta love the hotdog mustard all right got a teaspoon of ground black pepper little kick mm-hmm a little bit of liquid smoke a quarter teaspoon if you wouldn't mind handing oh the secret spice that's right that's our secret spice that goes right in and that's a tablespoon all right so whisk this together all right that is it very easy nice and easy all pantry staples goes together like that and it cooks very fast too we're gonna bring it up to the boil and then we're gonna lower that heat let it simmer for about 10 minutes until it's reduced to a cup that's it easy-peasy that is a quick cooking sauce 10 minutes that's nice in fact it is nice and thick all right so this is ready to go on those ribs again those have also sat there conveniently for 10 minutes so the surface is nice and dry we're gonna go ahead and brush it with some of the sauce about half the sauce that's in here that's about a half a cup so we're gonna just slather it all over the place that makes those ribs look a lot better now it's looking like barbecue you're painting them on very artistically you like that I do I've got this Bob Ross method it's a happy little rib right the happy rib all right this is beautiful hmm now we're gonna save the rest of that sauce for just a moment but these are going to go into the oven under the broiler we want to leave them in there for about four minutes so a little glazing effect exactly it's gonna look like barbecue now those ribs are really close to that broiler element that is totally by design so this rack is about three inches from the broiler element those ribs are about an inch away that means really really good char kind of like what would happen on a grill Wow all right now take a look at that that is some good-looking barbecue it looks like it came right out of the smoker doesn't have em hmm we're not quite done yet I've got the rest of this beautiful sauce shellac it right at the end oh these look so different than when they came out of that slow cooker there's no stew here I'm entranced it is mesmerizing so good mm-hmm patience patience we have to wait 20 minutes to tuck into these they need to rest a little piece of foil right on top and again we're gonna tent this and let it sit for about 20 minutes [Music] all right big reveal a voila those are gorgeous and what you don't see is a whole bunch of juice underneath the ribs they're not swimming in it because we didn't add it to the slow cooker it means all the flavor is in there and you don't have to take my word for it I'm gonna cut them up in this all right so let me cut these for you now I like to cut them upside-down because just take a knife and you can go right in between the ribs makes it much easier to see mmm all right how many ribs would you like yes a full skeleton please I'll give you three nice cuz one is never enough one's never enough all right I'm just gonna dig in please do mmm super tender and I like that sauce it's a little got a little bit of kick to it must've been that secret spice you had it mmm-hmm so juicy - it is really juicy who again the juice wasn't in the bowl at the end that's in the ribs that's right that's where all the flavor is so to make killer memphis-style ribs in the slow cooker start in Missouri by st. louis-style ribs and give him a good rubdown with a flavorful spice rub then arrange the ribs in the slow cooker with the thick ends pointing down in the meaty side facing out and cook them without any liquid until they're just tender to finish the ribs and give them a saucy glazed exterior run them under the broiler of baste them with a sweet smoky barbecue sauce and there you have it from Cook's Country the best recipe for slow cooker Memphis style wet ribs that's a mouthful doesn't mouthful there's a better mouth yeah I agree [Music] hey we're gonna be tasting apple cider vinegar and now a lot of folks say apple cider vinegar is good for your health and cures everything from weight loss and acne to hiccups and even helps with teeth whitening but the real question today for Jack is which brand pays best yeah we'll see what you're thinking after you drink all this I'm a little worried so we have three vinegars here first thing you're going to notice is some differences in appearance there are very different looking so this is really about filtering and I'm not sure it's such a big factor some are filtered some are not so we did the tasting four ways the way you're doing it pan sauce coleslaw and barbecue sauce barbecue sauce yeah you sorry no barbecue sauce today you're getting it straight up I gave you some crackers so start drinking now big thing you want to be paying attention to is the level of acidity and the amount of sort of fruit and sweetness these are somewhere between 5% and 5.3 percent acidity so as vinegars go these are actually fairly low acid so if you think about it like a sherry vinegar or a balsamic can often be six or seven percent yeah acidity and so these are less potent and this is the American vinegar you know Spain has sherry vinegar Italy has balsamic this is what in colonial America they used this to as you said clean their teeth clean their house cider was the main alcoholic beverage before beer it's a little strong small sips tear so we sent these all out to the lab that we use to analyze them for sugar content and acidity the acidic content didn't vary all that much but it was perceived very differently depending on how much sugar was there so anything that you are immediately noticing besides the obvious that they look different from each other do you feel like they taste different yeah do they do have different flavors and it's very noticeable I coughed when I drank this one because I didn't like it okay it was too harsh it was almost salty I might have a different opinion if it was in a vinaigrette our barbecue sauce I might like that sort of push of acidity to shine through but drinking it straight this was a little much for me yeah and we did find the ones that were really harsh here that was a better treat it something like q sauce where you've got spices and tomatoes and molasses and you really want the vinegar to do its job what about the two on the ends this one was a little stinky a little stinky err on the edges but I actually liked that it reminded me of sauerkraut or other fermented things and that was positive to me my favorite sippin vinegar was this one it was balanced it had a good sweetness on the end and in terms of just sipping it it just it tasted good okay where do you want to start with what you liked or what you didn't like I'll start with what I didn't like okay this one this is high so this is the winner it does better in the expert panel in the other test when we started cooking with it the studio audience doesn't want about the Heinz either because it's very strong and so that's a good trait when you're cooking less desirable trait when you're doing a cocktail let's move on to the unfiltered one next which had that sort of stinky flavor that I actually like you were the only one who liked figured that was coming this is at the bottom of the rankings this one had some odd notes that the panel didn't like it's fine vinegar but it was our lowest rated all right and then this one which was my favorite you are an agreement with these lovely people they chose this because this is the one that has some residual sugar in it to balance all that acidity it was the overall runner-up once we finished all four tastings but it's a great vinegar alright so there you have it when buying apple cider vinegar either go with Heinz which has a really potent flavor or think about choosing white house which has a nice sweetness [Applause] [Music] I love leftovers and I'm not the only one in this 1960s cookbook called the I hate to cook book peg Bracken wrote well some women can keep a leftover going like an eight-day clock their Sunday's roast becomes Mondays hash which becomes Tuesday's stuffed peppers which eventually turn up as tamale pie and so on until it disappears where daddy does well we don't have daddy here but we have Ashley and we're gonna find out what happens when you can't count on leftovers so Ashley's going to show us how to make great mashed potato cakes from scratch yes and we don't want to settle here because mashed potato cakes are traditionally made with leftover mashed potatoes but the problem is you never know how much dairy or butter somebody used in that original recipe so the potato cakes can turn out really loose or really gluey so we found that the best way was to make the filling ourselves we're control freaks along ER so these are two and a half pounds of russet potatoes which we chose because we like the start to your texture and also they were a lot fluffier when they got mashed and we peeled and have these lengthwise and then cut them into quarter inch slices okay so I'm just gonna put these into this saucepan here and I'm gonna fill the saucepan with some water and you just want to cover it by about one inch looks good we have one tablespoon of salt and this will help for seasoning the potatoes while they cook bring this water to a boil reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the potatoes until they're done which will take about 8 to 10 minutes so we're not breaking any new ground here we're boiling potatoes exactly all right all right so it's been about eight minutes and the way you know that the potatoes are done is that you insert this paring knife here but if it meets no resistance yeah they're done tender tender tender tender I'm gonna drain these and I put them back into the saucepan I'm gonna leave them here for about five minutes just to cool down a little bit and also just to let any excess moisture evaporate off okay so it's been about five minutes and they seem to have cooled down a bit now it's time to add the flavorful ingredients to our mashed potatoes first I'm gonna start with one ounce of finely grated Parmesan cheese which is about a half a cup cheesy mash yeah one egg yolk the parmesan and the egg yolk are gonna act both as binders we have a quarter cup of chopped fresh chives here 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon of pepper and I'm gonna mash these all together in the saucepan and you want to do this until it's nice and smooth but you'll notice I haven't put any milk or any butter and you know nothing that'll fry I'm better because it's more cohesive all right I'd say these look about right I'm gonna move over here to this large bowl and just scrape out the mixture and everything's really nicely incorporated so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to transfer this to the refrigerator just to let it completely cool for about one hour [Music] all right Bridget so these have been in the refrigerator for one hour and they are nice and cool we have two shallow pie plates and here we have two eggs and here we have two cups of panko breadcrumbs lightly beat these eggs here this is gonna be our glue and using this 1/2 cup measure we are going to and yes I said we divide this mashed potato cake filling into 8 portions and I was wondering would you help I will I'm not gonna show me one I will all right all right so what I'm gonna do is form each patty 3 inches wide and it's gonna be 3/4 of an inch thick in height all right so I'm going to just lightly put this in the egg coating here you could use a pork you don't have to use a fork you can just use your old Forks your hands if you'd prefer to and let any excess drip off and then place it into the panko to go for here thank you yes that's great and the only thing I would ask is just be sure not to forget about the sides because you want to make sure that all the sides get really nicely breaded there all right and then we have a large plate here that we can put all of our formed patties on to look good oh my gosh all right got the last one great job I'm just gonna leave these here on the counter for about five minutes and the eggs and the breadcrumbs are gonna form together and just form a really nice outer shell sticking together yep so I have 1/2 a cup of vegetable oil which I've been heating over medium high heat and it looks like it's about shimmering which is what I wanted it to do yes all right and I'm gonna put 4 carefully into the skillet we're gonna cook this for about 3 minutes on the first side until nice and golden brown and I'm gonna go around and press it just to make sure that all of the mashed potato cake is in contact with the oil contact means Brown perfect all right it's been 3 minutes so using 2 spatulas I am going to flip them carefully yummy they're so yeah I'm magnificent and they're holding their shape all right so I'm gonna cook the second side for about 2 minutes until that side is golden brown as well okay it has been 2 minutes and I just checked and the bottoms look perfect so do you mind just holding that paper towel-lined plate there for me I will do whatever you want as long as I get a mashed potato cake at the end maybe you'll get to so I'm using the paper towels here just to collect any extra grease or oil thank you very much right now what I'm gonna do is some of the panko bread crumbs get really dark so instead of burning my second batch or making them look a little freckled I'm gonna discard this oil and use fresh oil for the silk attached and for extra insurance I'm gonna wipe out the skillet with a lot of paper towels here and because it's nonstick it comes up really really easily all right nice empty skillet now I'm going to heat this again over a medium-high heat with a fresh 1/2 cup of vegetable oil so I'm going to heat this oil until it's shimmering and I'm gonna cook the second batch of mashed potato cakes for the same amount of time three minutes for the first side until golden brown flip them with my two spatulas two minutes on the second side and then we're close to done close to done Bridget the moment is almost here and I'm excited yeah all right so it's been three minutes on the first side two minutes on the second side all right I'm gonna transfer the remaining four to this paper towel-lined plate make some room here for daddy oh yeah and Mama I've never made mashed potato cakes that look at anything close to this you know usually they're so kind of loose it's more like an actual pancake right right I'm starving yeah yeah you think and you can see here we have some sour cream for a little topping and you're gonna thank me later for that I promise probably gonna thank you no okay I'd like to do a big Cheers I would too oh you hear those crunchy crispy well definitely and the inside really fluffy really fluffy it's like everything I like in a twice baked potato but crispy and crunchy on the outside you nailed it that is perfect because it really does taste like that creamy interior of a twice baked potato I love that you didn't have to cook anything other than the potatoes mhm so you weren't sauteing onions and garlic all really simple very smart oh I think mmm who needs leftovers I sure don't because our mashed potato cakes are the best because they're made from scratch you start with boiled russet potatoes then to bind the potato filling mash the spuds with an egg yolk and Parmesan cheese that Parmesan cheese adds tons of flavor shape then bread the cakes with panko crumbs and fry them in two batches for the ultimate hearty crunchy coating so there you have it from Cook's Country the best recipe for mashed potato cakes you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with our tastings testings and select episodes at cookscountry.com Tarin do the rest oh me too girl thanks for watching cooks country from America's Test Kitchen so what'd you think leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or just say I now you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later alligator [Laughter]

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 155,224

Keywords: ribs, memphis ribs, recipe, ribs recipe, slow cooker ribs, slow cooker recipe, slow cooker, memphis style ribs, barbecue, bbq, barbecue sauce, bbq sauce, homemade ribs, mashed potato, mashed potato cakes, mashed potato cakes cooks country, cooks country, cooking show, cooking tv, recipes

Id: ELS3mP9pa1o

Length: 23min 6sec (1386 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 08 2019