There is nothing more succulent and surprising on the taste buds than some juicy pork ribs, and believe it or not you can get the exact same taste and flavours by using your oven to that of using your outdoor BBQ. Let’s face it the weather can be as temperamental as it comes and a perfectly planned BBQ can often lead to desperate dashes indoors, but if you know how to cook the perfect rack of pork ribs indoors, then the party doesn’t have to stop.
There are a couple of ways you can cook ribs apart from BBQ’ing them, and the more popular ways tend to be grilling them or oven cooking them. What you will find with oven cooked ribs is a much tenderer and tastier end-product because the moisture is still very much locked into the meat. When you grill them you will find that they can be drier and not as tender, although there is nothing wrong with grilling ribs as you get a different texture and taste.
The other benefit to over cooking is that you can really marinate them with your choice of flavour, and this is where the BBQ taste comes from. Let’s show you how to oven-cook the perfect pork ribs.
First of all there are so many different flavours you can choose from here and it doesn’t have to be BBQ flavoured. You can go for sweet, spicy, or a mix of your own styled marinade the choice is yours.
For this example we are going for a sweet BBQ marinade.
Firstly take the ribs out of the fridge and season them on both sides with a mixture of slat and pepper, and be generous with this step. Once you have done this you can now put the ribs into a roasting dish and cover them up with foil. Preheat your oven to about 250F and once hot place the roasting dish onto the middle shelf and then let the ribs cook for about 2-2.5 hours.
Whilst the ribs are cooking you can now start preparing the marinade, so first things first you will need to get a saucepan, pour in some olive oil and then get that heated up.
Once hot you can chop up and onion, finely, and then drop this into the saucepan. Stir the onion around for a few minutes and then add in your mixture which will include ingredients such as ½ a cup of ketchup, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of hot sauce, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and some salt and pepper.
Stir all this together until the sauce has been made, and you are happy to use it as a marinade.
Tip: Make sure that when you are cutting up your onion that you dice it up thinly to avoid any chunks from appearing in the marinade as you want the sauce to be as smooth as possible.
By now your ribs should be finishing up so take the roasting dish out of the oven and carefully pour the BBQ sauce over the rack of ribs making sure that each rib has been covered evenly. If not, use a brush to complete this job.
Place the ribs back into the oven for a further 5 minutes until the ribs are brown in colour and you can see the sauce bubbling on the top of them. Once finished take the tray back out and leave the ribs on the counter top in order for them to cool down and for the juices to redistribute through the meat.
Here’s the great thing about ribs, you can literally serve them up with anything you like (well almost anything). If you are feeling particularly healthy you can serve the ribs with some freshly cooked green beans, broccoli and fresh potatoes.
For the perfect summer time dish you can serve your BBQ ribs with a fresh and crispy salad, some boiled rice, or create your own homemade coleslaw which really compliments the taste of the succulent ribs.
If you have your BBQ mind on then you serve them up with some chips, and some rustic crusty bread and butter to really get your appetite going, or you could simply swap the chips for potato wedges which are sure to get your guests interest.
Or you could simply eat them as they come on their own which many people enjoy to do, simply save some of the marinade to one side and put it into a dipping pot so you can dunk your ribs are you eat them. Just make sure that you have some wipes at arm’s reach because it can get pretty messy when eating ribs that have been cooked like this!