Beef Spare Ribs

Weekends are a great time to enjoy Beef Spare Ribs as they need long slow cooking to make sure they are melt in your mouth sticky goodness.  I start mine on Friday or Saturday night when I am getting dinner ready and they are ready for the next day.

It is pretty common to find pork ribs for sale but if you want to do beef ribs you will have to ask your butcher for them.  We are using beef ribs because that is what we have and it is one of the more unusual cuts we asked our butcher for when working out all the different cuts.

Beef ribs like pork ribs come with layers of meat sandwiched between layers of fat and when cooked slowly the fat renders out of the meat and melts basting the meat in flavour.  The can still have a bit of fat when done but the meat will be so tender that any left over fat will fall away from the meat.

I make a spice rub for my ribs consisting of 1tbs Crushed fennel seeds, 2 tsp smoked paprika,
1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tbs brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and the zest of an orange.  Mix all together and rub into the ribs then chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours but over night is better.

On the day of baking heat your oven to 150 degrees and cook the ribs bone side down in a covered baking dish for 2 hours.  Then add 2 cups of apple or orange juice to the dish and cover again making sure the dish is well sealed and steam cannot escape.  Return to the oven for another 2 hours.

Once this time is up I remove from the oven and pour off all the liquid and put the ribs back in the oven uncovered to let them dry out for 15 minutes.  After that I use my home made BBQ sauce and brush it all over the ribs returning to the oven for 30 minutes brushing all over again with the BBQ sauce and giving them a final 15 minutes.

The ribs will now tender and sticky all at the same time and finger licking good.

Do you eat ribs?  Do you have a preferred method of cooking them?