Page 114 - Amazing Ribs - Book

Oven Baked Ribs
Don’t have a smoker or a grill? Live in a condo or dorm? Gut- ting out a blizzard? Broken leg? This technique makes tender, juicy ribs indoors with a flavor that might fool you into think- ing it was cooked outdoors.
In the summer of 2015 our friends, the wizards at ChefSteps. com, invited our Chef Ryan and Meathead to their kitchen/lab in Seattle to show them how we cook ribs outdoors and then for a friendly challenge to make ribs cooked indoors that taste like ribs cooked outdoors.
Both teams used a bit of Prague Powder #1 in their rub. PP#1 is a curing salt that gives hot dogs, corned beef, ham, bacon, and other cured meats their pink tinge. Both teams got a faux smoke ring from it. That’s because the smoke ring is not really made by smoke! Click here to read more. PP#1 really doesn’t impact flavor, so you can skip it, but if you do choose to add it, you might be able to pass these ribs off as cooked outdoors.
They started theirs sous vide, a method of gently cooking in a vacuum pack in a hot water bath and then finished the ribs in the oven. We baked ours inside in the oven, at first wrapped in foil, then nekkid.
The results? We agreed that our rub was better. We also agreed ours tasted more outdoorsy because we marinated them for
a bit in dilute liquid smoke. We agreed their meat was slightly juicier. If you have a sous vide setup, instead of using foil as
we did, do as they did: Cook the ribs sous vide for five hours at 165°F, and then dry roast at 225°F for two hours. Here’s a video of the results.
114