A few weeks ago I put a recipe up here for a fireman friend. He’d been struggling a bit to feed the hungry firefighters on his team and asked for a recipe. Well, apparently it was a big success so I told him I’d put up another recipe when I was inspired.
So today we’re going to talk about country style pork ribs. These are not the pricey babybacks or spare ribs, but rather the larger, heavier ribs that usually come five to a package at the store. One person can eat two, with sides so plan accordingly. (FTR, they’re not actually ribs. They’re usually pork shoulder and the bone along the edge is the scapula).
The trick with these ribs is that if you don’t give them enough time in the oven they’ll be tough. That’s why they’re cheap. In fact, in general I find that if something is cheap it needs to cook a long time to be good. That’s the case with these. But the great thing is they don’t need any prep. Salt and pepper, foil and time. You’ll finish with your favorite barbecue sauce and then make sure you grab two for you before you put them out because they’ll disappear in a hurry. I’m also giving you my secret recipe for really good barbecue beans. (The secret is Chorizo…)
The recipe.
This works for up to 15 LBS of ribs, depending on the size of your oven. It also works for one package. So it’s a very flexible recipe.
Ingredients
Country Pork Ribs (figure two ribs per person)
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
Store bought barbecue sauce
For the barbecue beans
2 16 ounce cans Store bought barbecue beans
2 tubes mexican chorizo
2 packages grated cheddar cheese
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.
Liberally spray cooking spray on as many baking trays as you will need for your ribs to make one layer on each tray with a little airspace in between. If you don’t do this then you have to clean your own dishes because when you’ve finished cooking you’ll have a sticky mess.
Drizzle olive oil on the ribs and rub it around to create a light coating. Salt and pepper the ribs. I season them pretty liberally using about 50% salt and 50% pepper. (Pork doesn’t generally need a lot of salt).
Make one layer on each baking tray and seal tightly with foil. Place in the oven and let them cook for 2 hours. if making more than 10 lbs of ribs add 1/2 hour to the cook time.
Remove the ribs from the oven. Be careful as there will be a lot of liquid in the pans. Leave the liquid in the pans for the next step. The ribs can be left out (covered) at this point for up to four hours. So you have a lot of flexibility. One hour before you want to eat, preheat the oven to 275 degrees, baste the ribs with your favorite barbecue sauce (coating them liberally), and place them back in the oven uncovered for one hour. When you remove them from the oven they’re ready to serve.
For the Beans
Empty the two cans of barbecued beans into a large sauce pan over medium low heat. Squeeze the chorizo out of the tubes into the beans. As the beans heat the chorizo will melt into the beans. Once the chorizo is fully dissolved pour into a well greased 9X13 casserole (Pyrex) and top with cheddar cheese. This can also wait at this point. If you refrigerate (up to you) then place them in the oven covered with foil for 60 minutes when you’re finishing the ribs, removing the foil half way through. If the beans are still warm they’ll be done in 30 minutes and they don’t need the foil.
Serve with a salad with ranch dressing. If you want to kick up the salad crumple tortilla chips in it and add some hot sauce to your favorite ranch dressing.