You can’t beat a relaxed summer’s day *BBQ with friends and family, especially if you serve these delicious pork or beef ribs with a home made BBQ spice rub and sticky sauce. This is perfect with beef short ribs or, if you choose pork, ask your butcher to sell you the ribs in a whole rack – it keeps the meat moister and you can cut them up at the end of the cooking process.
Spice rub
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 3 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons chilli powder
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon each of fennel and cumin seeds, coarsely crushed
2 x 800g pork ribs, each with 8 rib bones about 5cm long or 4 large beef short ribs.
BBQ sauce
- 2 tablespoons dark brown molasses sugar
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 150g tomato ketchup
- 2 teaspoons mustard powder
- 1.5 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- 3 cloves of crushed garlic or 3 teaspoons of roasted garlic paste
- 1 teaspoon of runny honey
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 3 drops of Tabasco
To make…
- Thoroughly combine the spices and herbs for the dry rub in a bowl. Rub the mix all over the ribs and leave overnight. Cover, refrigerate and take them out an hour before you want to cook them.
- To cook, wrap the ribs in baking parchment (sprinkle over any loose dry rub spices so as not to waste them) and then wrap them tightly in foil to make a parcel. Preheat the BBQ hotplate to low. Sit the ribs on a rack and the rack on the hotplate and cook for an hour and half. Turn them so that the ribs cook in the steam. You could also do this part in the oven ahead of time at 150°C.
- Meanwhile, mix all the BBQ ingredients together in a ceramic bowl.
- Unwrap the cooked ribs, and put them on the BBQ hotplate. Brush the ribs with the sauce, turn with a pair of tongs. Repeat the process for about 15 to 20 minutes until all the sauce has been used and the ribs are tender.
- Remove to a warm plate, cover with foil and leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
*This recipe was originally published in the WOW24/7 section of The Bury Free Press for my Pigeon Cottage cookery column.
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