Monday, June 1, 2009

Monday Menu: St. Louis Ribs

St. Louis ribs cooked on the Big Green Egg smoker with red jasmine sticky rice and baby broccoli-rabe.

This slab was coated with the house dry rub consisting mainly of chili powder and turbinado sugar, sprinkled with Penzey's Spices' Galena Street rub. I let it set for an hour.

I used very little of the bottled rub, because the previous time I used it, I wrote a note on the side of the bottle about it being too salty.

The rack went on at 220f - 225f for 3 hours. As you can see, a crust has formed on the ribs and a nice color, too.

I then wrapped them in foil to steam with 1/4 cup of Corona for 2 hours, making this the "3/2 Method" (3 hours to smoke, 2 to steam).

Plenty of steam builds up inside the packet.

I removed the ribs from the foil to show you how to tell if your ribs are done: if you grab a rib and twist it, it should come apart from the rack. At this point I could have slathered on a sauce, but I'd rather not be messy today, so they are done!

Still steamy, and the meat is just about, but not quite, falling from the bone.

I served this with the red jasmine rice, one of my favorites.

Easy ribs, little clean-up, happy days.