We love BBQ ribs but I have to be honest with you, I haven’t really been using the BBQ lately to do my ribs. They’re more like oven baked ribs because I’m too lazy to turn the BBQ on 😛

Big chunky beef ribs. This spice rub works well with any type of ribs, I also use it on my beef brisket.

You can change the quantities and the ingredients as you like. I sometimes add some chilli flakes, I always mean to add mustard powder but somehow always forget, and if I have some thyme (fresh or dried) I’ll throw that in there too. I think the brown sugar is important though. It makes it a little more caramel-ly but I’m sure you can use regular sugar if you don’t have the brown sugar.

If you have too much spice mix, put it in a jar and save it for next time.

I like to coat the ribs the day before if I can and if I have a bottle of cola around I’ll cover the coated ribs with it. I didn’t this time so it was just a dry rub. It ends up being one of those meals where it can sit in the fridge for a few days before I can get around to cooking it and by the third day I suddenly remember I have something that needs to be cooked right now. It’s sometimes a life saver when I don’t know what to have for dinner 😀

You can drizzle a bit of BBQ sauce on it before it goes into the oven.

Once it’s all be coated and marinating for a while I pull it out and discard the cola (if using) and throw it in the oven for a few hours in a baking dish covered tightly with alfoil or a tight fitting lid. I was careless with it once and there was a bit of a gap in my alfoil, the verdict around the table was that the ribs were too dry. So now I’m really careful about no gaps!

It does look a bit dry but it’s fine! There’s actually a lot of fluid in the bottom.

But a good coating of BBQ sauce makes it all better. And it does help to keep the meat moist.

At the half way mark I pulled it out to take a look. I was using a roasting pan with a lid so it’s easier that alfoil to lift up to take a peek. It did look dry but it may have been because I hadn’t used fluid when I was marinating. But I powered through and basted the ribs with a BBQ sauce. A store bought BBQ sauce L I actually had one cooking at the time but it wasn’t ready for me to use and I didn’t think I could wait any longer because I was worried the meat would dry out if there wasn’t any fluid. (There was actually a lot of fluid in the bottom but it was mostly fat) Also, my BBQ sauce turned out to be more of loquat onion relish… And! The ribs weren’t dry at all!

Ideally, you would leave your ribs in the oven for the 3-4 hours and then once it’s all melty and soft you would pull it out and baste with BBQ sauce while grilling it on the BBQ. It makes it all shiny and tasty! And sweet. And shiny. But also tasty.

Since I’m too lazy for BBQ’ing and let’s be honest, since I destroyed my father in laws BBQ by burning to almost the ground I don’t like to go near them anymore, I finish the ribs in the oven. What you can do at the end of the cooking time is baste the ribs with BBQ sauce every 10 or so minutes until you’re happy. I’d be likely to do it once and call it done, I didn’t baste at the end this time mostly because I was running late and I should have. It makes the whole thing look tastier.

Why I don’t BBQ anymore and thankfully we had a spare BBQ in the shed.

If I have time I like to do potato skins and if I’m really organise some jalapeno poppers. But today it was just a baked potato and coleslaw.

Soft and melty and tasty!

BBQ Beef Ribs

Ingredients:

• 2 kilos of beef ribs
• ½ cup of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon mild paprika
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons onion powder
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoon pepper
• Chilli flakes/ground cayenne pepper/chipotle pepper (optional)

Method:

• Mix all the ingerdients together and coat ribs. Leave to marinate overnight or for at least 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Place the ribs in an oven proof dish and cover tightly with alfoil. Place dish in the oven and cook for 3-4 hours.
• During the cooking time, check the ribs and baste with some BBQ sauce if you think it’s necessary.
• Uncover ribs and baste with BBQ sauce and put tray back into oven for 10-20 minutes or grill on BBQ until done.

*You might up end with more BBQ rub than you need, it’s easy enough to put the unused leftover into a jar and keep it for the next time.

A few weeks ago we took a big Black Angus cow to be processed so we could take it to the market. It was for the October long weekend we figured people would want a whole bunch of BBQ cuts and very few roast. We had sausages, steaks, rissoles, and a bunch of other things. We’re given a list of cuts by the butcher and it tells us what we can have done with the cuts. It’s very straight forward. As we were going through the list we’d ticked things off as mince, which could then be turned into sausages or rissoles, but for some reason I had gotten to the chuck and I said “I’ll take the chuck as a pot roast, thank you” instead of getting it minced and turned into sausages. In hindsight, not the greatest idea. What was I thinking?! At the time I didn’t even know how to cook a chuck pot roast and I was trying to sell it at the market! Also, no one wants a pot roast on a 35C day. *I actually wrote this blog a few weeks ago, so the time line doesn’t quite make sense. But it makes for a good story right?!

Chuck is one of those cuts that you normally get to do a casserole, use as pie filling, and anything else that involves slow cooking. Which for me is perfect, I can get it going and not worry about it. Seeing as I had a spare chuck pot roast or two in the freezer I figured I’d give it ago. Turns out it’s really not hard. In fact, it’s dead easy.

Look at how pretty it is!

I used my trusty cast iron pot (I discovered I owned a much smaller one than the one I had been using and it fits my little rolled roast perfectly). I browned my veggies with chunks of bacon I found in the fridge. I added some apple cider vinegar to lift the goodness off the bottom of the pan. I put my roast on top of my vegetables. I put the lid on and then I put the whole thing in the oven and left it for 4.5 hours. I came back took the lid off for a half hour. Rested my meat, made gravy, and had an awesome dinner. I want to say quick dinner but it took hours to cook so not really a quick dinner. But I did only spend 20 minutes putting stuff together. I did make some mash! I forgot about that!

Using the vinegar was something I hadn’t done before and I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. I thought I had added literally a glug too much. I put in one glug and I thought “that’s not enough, I’ll go another” and as soon as I put in the second one I thought “nope, that’s too much” but I couldn’t do anything about it then. But! It didn’t matter, you could taste the vinegar but it wasn’t overpowering. Next time I’ll stick with one glug though. I’m sure glug is a real unit measure …. 😛

Crisp tasty beef fat!

Chuck Pot Roast

* The recipe also works for the rolled rib roast that we bring to the market as well.

Ingredients:

• 1.5kg chuck roast
• 3 carrots (cut into large chunks)
• 3 sticks of celery (cut into medium lengths)
• 1 onion (quartered)
• Bacon chunks (optional)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• Thyme

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C
• Brown carrots, onion, celery, and bacon (if using) in a heavy bottomed oven- safe pot
• Add apple cider vinegar to pot and using a wooden spoon lift any bits stuck to the bottom
• Place roast on top of the vegetables, put the lid on, and put the pot into the oven
• Cook for 4-5 hours
• For the last half an hour take the lid off the pot to crisp up the fat and check the temperature of the roast with a thermometer (well done is 77C)
• Take the meat out of the pot and rest covered with alfoil for 30 minutes
• Remove the vegetables from the pot and use what’s left in the pot to make the gravy

Notes:

• Instead of apple cider vinegar use a cup or two of red wine, it adds more liquid to the bottom and the resulting gravy is amazing.

The first time using a chuck roast. I was not disappointed.