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Apr 23, 2024

Getting Around

Sauce The Ribs

You can use any sauce you like, although I will give you my recipe later. I keep a bottle of store bought around, because sometimes you want sauce and you don't want to take the extra time to make your own. Doesn't happen often, but a bottle of your favorite (my current is Sweet Baby Ray's, but I've gone for Bulls Eye, KC Masterpiece and others in the past) can go a long way to making almost any meat barbelicious, using this technique.

Set your oven to broil and put one of the racks in the middle of the oven.

In a bowl, mix however much sauce you need for the meat you are preparing with the same amount or more, of water. Yes, we are thinning this stuff out a lot. We are going to use the broiler to thicken it back up and cook it into the meat.

I usually put a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of my baking pan, then put the cooling rack and the meat on top of it. This will be hard enough to clean as it is; the parchment paper will take care of some of the burnt stickiness. I usually start with the bone side up, so I can finish the meat side last.

Using a brush (I have a barbecue brush, but a bristle paint brush works just fine. Do NOT use a nylon brush or it will melt and add that great burned plastic flavor EVERYONE loves.) spread a thin layer of sauce on the meat.

Put the pan with the meat on the oven rack. Don't go play parcheesi. This is the only real time critical portion of the process, but you can wreck your day if you don't pay attention now. Keep an eye on the meat. You will see the sauce thicken up and begin to bubble. It might even burn just a bit. That's OK, your building up layers of flavor. Just don't let it get all black. When it reaches the bubbly point, pull it out, and brush on another layer. Put it back in the oven. Repeat until you have a decent amount of sauce, probably no more than three brushings for the back.

Flip the ribs over and do the brushings on the top side. I prefer more sauce, here, so maybe four or five brushings, building up the layer using the broiler.

Pull out the ribs and let them sit for ten minutes or more, if you can. I usually tent them with foil, but you don't really need to. Ribs don't really need to distribute the moisture, as with a thick steak or roast. But they are nuclear hot at the moment and just a little TOO fall apart for their own good. A few minutes will tone them up and make them edible.

Cut into two or three rib sections and serve.

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