Claire Makes Best-Ever Barbecued Ribs

Nice char.

Oh, thanks Carla.

I wouldn't have pegged you as a griller, Claire,

but having these ribs right now I realize

there is literally nothing you can't do.

(upbeat music)

Hi everyone, I'm Claire, we're in the test kitchen

and today we are making BA's Best Barbecued Ribs.

Today, I'm using St. Louis-style ribs.

I am from St. Louis so I requested these specially.

You can use baby back, there are a couple differences.

The St. Louis-style ribs tend to be a little bit bigger.

They come from the belly section of the ribs.

So, there's a little bit more fat on them.

I love sort of the little bit of cartilage that you get.

The baby backs come from closer to the spine

and they're always a little bit smaller.

So, the term barbecue can be

a little bit confusing for people.

If you're from certain parts of the South,

barbecue means smoked, long cooked,

in this context we're using a little bit of

more of a Yankee definition and we're gonna go

from the oven to the grill.

So, these ribs are dry-rubbed first,

baked until tender, and then finished on the grill

with some barbecue sauce.

(bright music)

First, I'm gonna put together the dry rub.

I have kosher salt, in the test kitchen

we like to use Diamond Kosher for its sort of fineness

and the sort of flakiness.

I'm just combining all of these together.

I have paprika, dry mustard,

some freshly ground black pepper, and for heat some cayenne.

And all I want to do is

mix these up and distribute them evenly.

I also patted the ribs dry with some paper towels.

There's still plenty of moisture so that the dry rub sticks.

I'll liberally sprinkle the dry rub

all over the ribs on both sides

and then press lightly to help adhere.

And then I like to use my hands

to sort of massage that spice mix into all of the crevices

to pat it into all the surfaces.

Okay, so they've already kind of started

to absorb some of that spice rub

and now, I will wash my hands and then wrap each rack

in two layers of foil to bake them.

(light music)

So, I have my foil lined baking sheets,

I'm going to individually wrap each rack

in a double layer of foil.

That contains all of the juices and then I'll put them

back on the foil line sheet just in case there's any

kind of leaking during baking.

And I like to sort of create a seam at the top

so that there's less of a chance that the juice

is leaking out during baking.

So, I sort of crimp all the way across

and then once I get to the end,

kind of like I'm wrapping a present.

Okay, so here I have my five

very tightly sealed meat packets.

And these are gonna go into a 350 degree oven

until they're tender but not falling off the bone.

So, I'll show you in a couple hours

what that looks like and how to test.

So, for the St. Louis-style, it'll take a little bit longer

than the baby back, we're thinking maybe

around three hours, two and a half to three.

So, we have some ribs that we cooked this morning actually

and brought in as a swap, so I have four slightly larger

racks of the St. Louis-style.

I'll show you a trick for testing them while they're baking.

Because you go through the trouble

of crimping them into these tight foil packets,

you don't want to have to unwrap them

and have all the hot juices splashing around to test them.

So, I like to use a cake tester.

You could also use like a skewer or even a fork

and just poke through the foil

and your aim is to kind of get between

the bones of the ribs, test the meat.

And so you can see this, once you get through the foil,

it slides through the meat pretty easily.

What I like to do actually is,

instead of unwrapping them completely,

is just to stand them up on the end

and then poke a hole in the foil

and let the juices drain into a measuring cup.

So, so much flavor in there, we're not gonna throw them out,

we're gonna use them to fortify

some store bought barbecue sauce.

Okay, so now that these are well drained

I can go ahead and unwrap them fully.

So you can see that they are nicely encrusted with

that spice rub and the meat has

pulled away from the bones a bit.

So, that's how you know that they are done.

So, I have KC Masterpiece today,

one of my favorite store bought sauces.

And I'm going to as I said fortify store-bought

barbecue sauce with all the juices from the ribs.

So, I'll pour this into about a cup and a half

and then I have a cup and a half of barbecue sauce.

And with a thicker style of barbecue sauce

like KC Masterpiece, it's nice to thin it out a little bit.

You can kind of apply multiple coats

and get sort of multiple layers

of kind of shellac on the ribs.

Here in the test kitchen we have our gas grill

on medium high, it's been preheating for a while,

and I just oiled the grill grates.

So, I'm gonna take everything over there

and we're gonna get these on the grill.

(upbeat music)

Now, before I get the ribs on,

I'm going to just baste them lightly in a coat

of this sort of thinned out sauce.

And as I'm grilling them, I'm not really cooking

the ribs further, I'm really just trying to caramelize

and char that sauce, so that it sticks

to the ribs and adds that layer of flavor,

and I'll continue to baste them as I turn.

So, I'm gonna get the first ones on

and this is much easier if the ribs are cold.

When they're cold, they hold together really well.

If they're hot, they might want to sort of break apart.

So, I'm just laying them on the grill sauce side down.

And when they go on, I can also paint the back sides

with a little more of the sauce.

I have just a regular pastry brush here

with natural bristles, you can use the silicon kind as well.

And if you're like me and your arm is burning off

because the grill is really hot

but your brushes have a short handle,

you can use your tongs to help you.

So, I'll turn these frequently

just until I see the first side's starting to caramelize

but I'm gonna get the second racks on as well.

So, I have a generous amount of sauce here.

There's nothing that's uncooked in the sauce

so I can save any remaining sauce for serving.

The first ones I put down might be ready to turn

and it can also help to have a flat

flexible spatula when you're grilling.

So, I'm gonna grab I have a thick spat right here

just to help you get underneath.

So, you can see that this first side

has nice caramelization, I'm gonna

turn the heat down a little bit.

So, that it doesn't caramelize too quickly.

And now, every time I turn I'm gonna add

another layer of sauce so I'm building up

sort of a lacquered finish on the ribs.

Now, if you're finding that it's a little bit difficult

to manage racks that are the full size,

you can always cut them in half

and then grill sort of more pieces that are

a little bit smaller and easier to turn.

And that wouldn't be a bad idea for,

you can see some of the racks, the St. Louis-style

have that tapered end, so that thinner end

is gonna cook a little bit faster and caramelize.

So, it's not a bad idea to cut the larger racks in half.

So, I pulled them off the grill.

The grill was really, really hot,

so they didn't go the full 10 minutes.

They were probably on there for maybe four or five,

but you can see I have nice caramelization.

Sort of an even char across them

and a pretty nice layer of sauce also.

So, I'm gonna bring them back over

to the cutting board and we're gonna cut 'em.

I'm just gonna do it rack by rack.

Sometimes with St. Louis ribs

it's a little bit hard to find that area

between the bones to cut through.

Sometimes you end up cutting through cartilage, that's fine.

You can just use a sharp knife.

With baby backs it's a little bit easier.

And then when you get to the end,

you can leave the two bones together,

so you get a little bit of a bigger piece.

And then, I'll just arrange them on this platter.

And at this stage you can add a little bit more sauce

or you can put some off to the side for people

to add their own during eating.

As a kid I loved dinners where we had pork ribs

and one of the reasons is because

you have to eat them with your hands

and I love eating with my hands.

So fun when you eat with your hands.

Do you want a little more sauce?

We have sauce on the side.

Alright well--

Well, great job.

Thanks, you got a whole eight pounds of 'em.

These are such a great recipe for summer barbecues,

cookouts, you can make them ahead,

so the prep is really, really simple.

Kind of foolproof right?

Foolproof.