You never know where inspiration will come from… sometimes it just falls into your lap or mixes up on your plate.
The last couple days I was thinking about ribs, which is… for me… rather odd. It’s not something I normally eat more than once or twice a year. Don’t get me wrong – I love BBQ but being a city gal, I don’t have an outdoor grill.
A colleague had mentioned buying ribs and cooking them in the oven at home. Hmmmm…. Oven method huh? Never really thought about cooking ribs in the oven… doesn’t seem appetizing. So now I had ribs on the brain.
When I got home from work, I scoured the internet looking for a good recipe for oven ribs. So much information out there. Parboil… or not to parboil. Rub? What about sauce? Kansas City, St. Louis or Memphis style? I never really knew the difference (and I lived in St. Louis for several years). I’d always had ribs with BBQ sauce but have now come to understand that some are served without sauce.
So then the question went out to my foodie friends on Facebook. Everyone has their own particular way of doin’ up their ribs. A friend suggested a vinegar-based dipping sauce and sent an old family recipe. I’ve never used a “dipping” sauce but it sure looked good. Then I was off to find a basic tomato-based BBQ sauce in the internet that actually used tomato sauce rather than ketchup. I settled on one that looked relatively simple. Next was finding a dry rub recipe. Again I looked for something simple that I could easily vary the ingredients for a different flavor.
The next day, I put my list together, picked up the ribs on a break from work along with various spices I was missing in my pantry. When I got home (very late and tired), I blended my dry rub and prepped the ribs to sit overnight in the fridge. The following day I would have time to make the sauces and cook the ribs “low and slow” in the oven.
The day came for ribs!!! I went to work for a few hours and then came home to start my culinary adventure. Since the ribs were wrapped in foil and ready to go, I only needed to pop them in the oven at 250 degrees and leave them alone for the next 2 ½ - 3 hours. Next was the tomato-based sauce. I sautéed my onions and garlic, added the tomato sauce and paste and measured out my molasses and spices… but it sure seemed like a lot of cayenne pepper. I like “heat” but I have to be careful of others who do not like very much spicy heat. I checked the recipe again… sure enough, it said 1 teaspoon and the comments on the recipe said, “just the right amount of heat.” Okay, 1 teaspoon it is.
I mixed it all up in the saucepan… it was very thick and not like a sauce at all – more like a paste. Did I miss anything?? I double checked. No, everything was in. Now for a quick taste… WHOA!!! All I could feel was the cayenne pepper on my tongue, obliterating any taste the sauce could possibly have. That had to have been a typo in the recipe. I quickly doubled up on all my other ingredients EXCEPT cayenne. Ewwww, it was still beyond hot and a very thick paste. I added water until it was a consistency I thought was “sauce-like.” Still no decrease in the heat. In went more sugar, vinegar, worcestershire sauce and still more. It was finally palatable but not very good in my opinion… oh well.
Next I made my friend’s dipping sauce… YUM!! It was so good I couldn’t help dipping my finger in over and over.
Fast forward a couple hours – ribs were done in the oven, just had to put them under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp them up. Then came the moment of truth. I served up a plate of ribs with collard greens and a corn muffin. I asked what sauce the boyfriend wanted to try… he tasted the tomato based one – BLECH…. Total failure. He went with the dipping sauce.
I served up my plate and put the dipping sauce and a spoonful of the BBQ sauce on my plate thinking it might taste better with the ribs. It was okay but the dipping sauce was amazing. I sent off a quick email to my friend, thanking him for the recipe. I went back to my plate to continue eating and noticed some of the dipping sauce had spread into the BBQ sauce. Oh well, let’s see how the blend tastes… HOLY COW!!!! This was amazing!! I asked my boyfriend to try the mixture of both… which he didn’t really want to do but did anyway. His eyes almost popped out of his head, “This is great!!! Better than any BBQ sauce I’ve ever tasted!!”
I emailed my friend back to tell him what had happened. It was an accident… a divine intervention turning a complete failure into triumph!!!
The question is, can I duplicate what I did…..
2 comments:
That is great! ha ha I am so hungry now because of this and want some ribs! You asked yourself if you could duplicate this...reminded me of a LOA teacher who said that a lot of the one that do well wouldn't know how to duplicate the system and will wonder why they can't get the knack after they have fallen. That is why it is important to pay attention & know the law of the universe (in this case for you..the recipe) so that it can be duplicatable. I can see a message to everything. I look forward to your articles. All the best, Silvia
For years when I would see St. Louis style ribs on a menu I wondered what in the world people think we do to ribs in St. Louis that make them unique to other parts of the US and then I stumbled upon the answer (or at least one answer) it's not the sauce or the way they are cooked it's the way the ribs are cut (St. Louis once had a huge stock yard and packing district).
Thank you for sharing this culinary adventure ... it's inspiration to expand our culinary horizons and trust that experimentation in the kitchen can (and often does) have very tasty results.
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