So, I never really introduced myself to these here forums, way back when I originally joined, but one of my passions, next to gaming, reading, and photography is without a doubt, cooking. I love it, I love food, and I find the different styles, cultures, ingredients etc.. throughout the world to be a fascinating study (though, admittedly, my experience as a cook isn't as 'worldly' as I'd like it to be). Anyway, there are always favorite recipes that people have, and since I couldn't find a thread specifically for users favorites, I figured I'd start one. So, I'll start us off. This is a recipe I came up with, with an ex-roommate Chef, who while an abysmal drunk, was a sensational cook.
I've managed to 'refine' my recipe to a simple 6-8 hour process (of course, this can be extended far longer, since you can literally braise for any amount of time). My meat of choice, for this particular recipe, is Pork Ribs, I simply find they braise better than Beef Ribs, plus the final product tends to come out a bit better...of course, there could be a number of reasons for this, but anyway, it's not important. Moving on.
What you'll need:
1 Extremely Large Pot
1-2x Racks of Pork Ribs
1x Charcoal Briquettes or substitute Briquettes with Wood Chunk coal.
1x Bag of Solid Hickory Chunk (Susbtitute w/ your favorite smoking wood-type)
White Wine Vinegar
1x Bottle of Red Wine
1x Half-Gallon of your favorite beer (or, several pints of differing types/varieties of beers, I find a combination of Ale + Stout comes out well)
3-4x Heads of Garlic (Again, tastes for Garlic vary)
Bottle of BBQ Sauce (I use two, half and half to add more variety of flavors)
Fresh Oregano
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Rosemary
Salt (I use both smoked, and sea salts)
Black Pepper (Ground from peppercorn...just tastes better)
White Pepper
1x Drop of Blair's 3am Reserve (And I mean 1 effin drop)
4-5 drops of Worcestershire Sauce
1x White Onion
Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 275-280 (Fahrenheit)
Section your ribs. Make certain they'll fit into the pot easily, with room to spare in the pot. Next, add in your herbs and spices, and Cut your white onion in half, chop up a half, toss that in the pot, wrap the rest and put it away. The amounts of herbs vary depending on taste, so I'll leave that up to you. When I buy a package of fresh herbs however, I never use it all. Usually a little less than half a thing of time, about half a thing of oregano, and a respectable amount of Rosemary (Rosemary's really strong, it can overpower everything else if you use to much). Now that all your dry ingredients are in, add the wine, beer, white vinegar (A single cap full is all you need), worcestershire sauce, and Blair's (if applicable...and seriously, be careful with that stuff). Gently, place ribs in pot. (Do it this way to ensure that the ingredients are all mixed up, rather than being clumped somewhere between ribs)
Make certain that the ribs are completely submerged in the liquid, prior to placement in oven. Cover/Add lid to pot. Put ribs in oven and let sit for between 3-5 hours (patience may vary), ultimately, though, you want to have the ribs braising in the oven for as long as possible. It infuses the liquid with the flavor from the ribs, and the ribs with the flavor from the liquid. Every hour, to hour and a half, pull the pot out, remove the lid. And flip the ribs, all of them.
3-5 Hours Later:
Remove the ribs from the pot and let them rest on a plate, they will need to sit for a bit, while the sauce is prepared, so put them out of reach of scavenging passersby. Strain the braising liquid, to remove herb, vegetable and other types of debris. Now take this strained liquid, and dump it into the largest pan you have, put it on the stove, blast the heat, and bring it to a simmer. What you want to do here, is reduce the liquid by about 30%, or until Nape' (Thinly coats a spoon ergo the consistency of BBQ Sauce). This can take up to 45 minutes or so, depending on how much liquid you have remaining, and how much heat you're applying to simmer. Either way, roughly 15 minutes before the sauce is finished, you'll want to fire up the grill and get the coals ready.
Grilling:
If you'll notice, the meat is already cooked from the braising. This part of the process, is simply to mount the BBQ sauce on the ribs, and produce a nice carmelized char, as well as adding your smoke flavor. My process for this is fairly simple. Once the coals are up to heat and spread out, I add in my hickory chunk to the sides of the grill, just touching briquettes on the edge (keeps the wood from going up in flames and applying direct flame to the ribs), I lay my ribs on the grill, and liberally coat 1 side with sauce, flip them immediately, and coat the second side. Every 5-7 minutes (again, you have to watch the heat on your grill), you'll flip them (when the sauce is no longer 'wet', or if it's too hot you'll want to do this sooner), and reapply sauce, you continue this method, until your BBQ sauce is gone. Usually, if you start with enough, this is roughly 8-10 coats of sauce. And the more sauce you have, the more smoke that will infuse itself into the meat.
So, that's the first of many recipes that are near and dear to my heart. What're yours?
