Slow Oven-Grilled Whole Sparerib Slab

Thinking back to when I first bought a slab of spareribs I remember I bought them just because they were on sale for $0.99/lb. Google searches for "cooking whole spareribs" or "how to trim spareribs" and "cooking spareribs" didn't help since I wanted to eat those ribs THAT NIGHT. I decided to prepare these ribs almost as-is, straight from the packaging. That's what I wound up doing way back then (2 years ago), but didn't have nearly as good a recipe.

If you've never prepared ribs before, don't have a grill, didn't consider marinating an option, don't even have a sharp knife to trim ribs if you wanted to, this post is for you.

Slow Oven-Grilled Whole Sparerib Slab
adapted from How to Cook Everything, Bittman

Equipment:
small bowl
baking sheet, 13x17" or a foil boat manufactured at home -- get creative
aluminum foil
butter knife
paper towel
saucepan
measuring spoons and cups
oven and stove-top
steak knife

Dry Rub:

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
4-6 lb spareribs

Mix these ingredients in a small bowl.

Fast Barbecue Sauce:
2 c ketchup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 c water
1/2 c rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar, the same stuff you can clean your showerhead with
1/2 c minced onion
1 tsp minced garlic

After the ribs are in the oven, dump these these ingredients into a saucepan. Mix well and stir occasionally over medium heat about 10 minutes.

So here's this slab of ribs, purchases for $0.99/lb, about 5.5 pounds total.

First, crank the oven up to 300°F.

Get your largest baking/cookie sheet out -- hopefully it's about a 13x17". Just get the biggest thing you have that has a rim. Line it with foil. Ideally, there would be no holes or open creases in the bottom of the foil. You want to catch all the crap in the foil to prevent from having to throw away (or better yet, washing) your baking sheet.

Face your fears and cut the rib packaging open over the sink, letting whatever juicy/bloody mess pour out straight into the drain rather than the kitchen counter.

If you want, rinse the ribs. I didn't bother, but did dab the wettest portions with paper towel. Throw that slab onto the foil-lined baking sheet. When the slab hangs over the edge, do your best to tuck the slab ends to fit. If you have MAJOR overage, you might consider making a baking sheet/boat of foil.

Mix the dry rub ingredients now if you haven't already and sling half of it across the slab, rubbing it in with your fingers to cover the entire area.

Flip that slab over. Now you're faced with a meaty portion that turns into a loose boney mass (riblets), a hangy-flappy portion (skirt) and an obviously rib portion (ribs).

The objective now is to remove the thin membrane from the rib portion. With a butter knife, peel the membrane up from between two bones. Once you see it loosening, work that knife in there so it's loose enough to grab with a paper towel.

Using paper towel, grab that slippery membrane edge and peel. It might tear (like mine did), but just grab another loose edge and peel some more. Remove as much as you can. It should just take a minute or two to do.  You'll really be surprised at how easy this is. 

You could skip this step, but it seems to me that you'd want to do it just so your rub is not hindered from doing it's job by a membrane, which is sort of like an impenetrable plastic skin.

Sprinkle the remaining half of dry rub over the membrane-free rib slab, rubbing it with your fingers to cover the entire slab with seasoning.

Flip the slab back over, rubbing the rub around some more if it isn't even. Place the slab and baking sheet in the oven, on the middle rack. Don't worry about covering it, just get it in there and note the time*.

In two hours, remove the ribs from the oven and you should see something like this.

Crank the oven up to 500°F. Drain the runny fat off into a cat food can or an olive jar or anything you have that's not plastic. Don't dump it down the drain or you're potentially asking for nightmare that includes a visit from the plumber and, depending on where you live, a fine from the city.

Slather that slab with some of the BBQ sauce you've prepared. Put the ribs in the 500°F oven.

After 10 minutes, pull the ribs from the oven. They should look something like this.

Slather the ribs with some more BBQ sauce.

Carve away at the ribs, separating the meaty/riblet flap from the spareribs. Cut the ribs into serving size portions, 2-3 bones per piece.

And serve with the remaining BBQ sauce, there should be plenty.



Painless, right?

Truth be told, cutting the ribs into serving sized pieces was more difficult than trimming the ribs before cooking. When raw, you can actually see joints and skirt and riblets. Once cooked, it's just a big mass and you kind of want to know what you're doing. I had a hard time and I've trimmed ribs a few times by now.

Whatever you do, don't throw away anything but bone and little bits of fatty parts.  If you have a big portion of anything that isn't bone, you're wasting some edible flesh.  Trust me.  If you made these at home, you're in the privacy of your home.  Don't be shy about getting all Fred Flintstone on the ribs and riblets and skirt and meaty flappy thing. Get dirty.

*If you have potatoes, scrub them clean and put them in with the ribs after the ribs have been in the oven an hour. The potatoes will be done when the ribs come out before the 500°F finish. If you have corn-on-the-cob, about 30 minutes before the ribs come out before the 500°F, get a big pot, fill it with water and dump in a bunch of salt. Get the water boiling and place the cleaned ears in there for 6 minutes. Scratch that boil corn business - baked corn is much simpler!

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