Recipe: Saucy Grilled Ribs

Recipe

Saucy Grilled Ribs

ribs

One of the inherent qualities of most barbecue sauces is that they contain sugar, honey or other sweetener. Such ingredients give flavor to the sauce as they cook, but they also have the unfortunate quality of burning quickly, often resulting in blackly charred, undercooked food. Which is why most real barbecue methods precook the meat by either boiling it, baking it or smoking it slowly, all without sauce. The meat is fully cooked, then finished off by coating with sauce and grilling for only a brief time, just long enough to impart flavor to the food but not so long as to burn the sugars in the sauce.

Precooking the meat is indeed the way to go. But for me, one of the best reasons to cook food on a barbecue is that it eliminates messing up, or heating up, the kitchen. So by using this recipe, I manage to precook the meat on the grill and still use a flavorful marinade before cooking it. Except for a small amount of ketchup, the marinade is void of sugary substances, so it cooks without burning. When the meat is almost done, the sweet ingredients are heated in a saucepan with the remaining marinade to make the final barbecue sauce. The sauce coats the meat, and the meat is returned to the grill for its final fling. The end result: the kitchen is cool and virtually pristine, and the meat is cooked to perfection, moist and juicy, without being burned.

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon paprika
juice of 1 grapefruit (about 1/2 to 2/3 cup)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
4 to 5 pounds pork spareribs, trimmed of fat
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Preparation

Mix together all ingredients except for the pork ribs, honey and brown sugar. Place the ribs in the marinade for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Remove the ribs from the marinade, scraping off as much marinade as possible. Grill the ribs on low heat about 30 minutes, turning frequently.

Meanwhile, place the marinade in a saucepan with the honey and sugar. Heat to boiling and cook on a low boil for 3 minutes. Turn of the heat and set aside until the ribs are done.

When the ribs are just about cooked through, baste them all over with plenty of the sauce. Cook another 15 minutes, turning and basting often, until they reach a deep, rich color.

Serve the ribs with extra sauce and a whole slew of napkins.