Rib’d, For Your Pleasure

Don't kid yourself: given the opportunity, they would eat you, in a heartbeat.

Don’t let my rock-hard abs, perfectly defined pectorals, ripped lats, and huge penis fool you – I’m no stranger to fatty, artery-clogging, and greasy fare.  Pizza, cheeseburgers, and foie gras smeared on bacon are all right in my lard-loving wheel house.  But when I’m in the mood for some truly messy, succulent, nap-time inducing food, I tend to turn to barbecue.  Specifically, I love me some melt-in-your-mouth ribs, with a side of baked beans and steak fries.  Now, I know that barbecue inspires fierce loyalty in people, and that any preference opposed to ones own regarding the best way to cook, sauce, or prep an item sparks both righteous indignation and me punching people in the face.  I’m not here to tell you how to make award winning pork butt, or to settle the titanic and contentious cases of Wet v. Dry, or Vinegar-Based v. Tomato-Based; I’m just telling you how to get some tasty-ass ribs from your oven, without too much fuss.  So if you BBQ elitists don’t like it, you can stick it in your smug-holes, along with that $600 smoker you use once a year.  Now, for those of you who, like me, don’t ask much form your ribs, let’s finish up pleasuring that Swedish lingerie model we met at Whole Foods and tuck into some down-right passable pork.

P.S. Wet/Vinager-Based wins by a landslide. It's the "Nixon" to Dry/Tomato's "McGovern."

Admittedly, cooking ribs in your oven won’t give them that iconic smoke ring or tasty bark so familiar to barbecue fans; but it does allow you to cook them in your home, which means you can cook them while naked and glistening from the baby oil you rub all over yourself on special occasions or when you need a little pick-me-up after a rough week.  Now, even though these are pretty easy to make, don’t think that they’re going to be quick  to make – you’re going to want to budget about 2-4 hours of cook time, alone, if you want the finished product to be falling off the bone and not give anybody worms. 

I’ll let you figure out what kind of ribs to buy, whether St. Louis style, baby back, or from Chili’s.  The three main things I’m going to focus on are (1) the rub; (2) the tenderizer; and (3) what changes I can make in my daily life to help reverse the effects of global warming.  The rub is important because Alton Brown tells me that it is.  I can’t remember what he said to put in it, but I can tell you that I happen to prefer black pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, brown sugar, smoked paprika, and salt (does that sound right?  I have no idea.  Those are all spices, yeah?).  As for the tenderizer, I like to hang my ribs up and pretend I’m Rocky Balboa, punching them in a meat locker.  Additionally, I like to add a little beer to the cooking vessel, as well as to my gullet. 

AB sez: "That's not how you make ribs. Your blog is kind of retarded."

Stuff:

All that shit I just listed
Ribs
Beer
Your favorite BBQ sauce, which happens to be the one I’m going to tell you how to make

Cookerate:

Wake up early, tell that supermodel you just showed the best time of her life to scram, and pre-heat your oven to, oh, I don’t know, say, 300 degrees.  As the name “rub” implies, you want to gently sprinkle your seasoning on the pork.  Pour some beer in a big Pyrex dish, throw in your ribs, cover tightly with foil, and put the whole she-bang in the oven.  You, my friend, now have about three hours to kill by watching football and being handsome.  Normally, I would tell you drink your ass off during this time, and today is no exception – go ahead and get blitzed like you were Carson Palmer behind his shitty O-line.  When the ribs are ready, take them out of the dish and crank up your broiler.  Paint the ribs with the sauce you just made from cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, brown sugar, salt, and red pepper flakes.  Throw ’em under the heat for a little bit, but be sure to take them out if it looks like they’re going to burn, genius.  Serve with fries, an ice-cold beer, and a sense of satisfaction at having accomplished something in three hours which could have been accomplished in far easier fashion had you just gone down to the sports bar at the corner, ordered a rack, and watched your favorite team lose the first game of the season. 

Yeah, on second thought, just go to Hooters.