The Story of 3 Pork Back Ribs

Once upon a time 2 men and a lady walk into a bar.  The first man, Mr. Bold, had a traditional personality, with a touch of boldness and spiciness.  The second man, Mr. Promise, had some interesting traits and showed good promise, but yet was very nontraditional.  The lady, Miss Sweetie, was a simple attractive lady looking for a man to take care of.

At first, Miss Sweetie was attracted to Mr. Promise, as his nontraditional ways.  However as they talked, she noticed something was not quite right and his personality was very dull, even though he did have a nice minty scent to him.

Miss Sweetie decided to pay a visit to Mr. Bold’s table.  Right off the bat, Miss Sweetie and Mr. Bold hit it off.  Their personalities were a great compliment to each other, and she realized that she wasn’t really looking for someone to take care of, but someone to help take care of each other with.  With Mr. Bold’s personality, she knew she has found what she was looking for.  The two were inseparable after that night.

This story is about three rib recipes.  One using my traditional BBQ rub (Mr. Bold), which provides a bold BBQ flavor, with a kick of spiciness to it.  The second one (Miss Sweetie), was a recipe I put together to come up with a sweet rib recipe (for my wife). The final recipe, Mr. Promise, was a recipe I searched for online.  I was trying to find a use of dried Spearmint (the minty scent).

I knew Mr. Bold was going to come out of the smoker with a lot of flavor.  I had some small hopes for Miss Sweetie.  I was kind of interested in what Mr. Promise would end up like as it had a lot of good strong flavors with dried spearmint and Dijon mustard.

The results were Mr. Bold and Miss Promise had amazing flavors.  I definitely hit the sweet spot with Miss Sweetie, and this became my wife’s favorite rub recipe to date.  Not sure what happened to Mr. Promise, but it definitely seems the ingredients cancelled themselves out, and came out with a very dull flavor to them.

Ingredients:

• 3 racks of pork back ribs
• Jay’s BBQ Rub
• Miss. Sweetie Rub (below)
• Mr. Promise Wet Rub (below)

Instructions:

Prepare the pork back ribs by removing the membrane from the back side of the racks.  The simplest method to do this is to separate the membrane on one end with a butter knife or another dull type knife.  As you separate it grab hold of the part that is coming off and slowly pull across the rack of ribs to remove the entire membrane.  This takes a bit of getting use to, but once you do, you will be able to remove the membrane from a rack of ribs in under a minute.

Rub the first rack of ribs with Jay’s BBQ Rub, the second with the Miss. Sweetie Rub, and the final one with the Mr. Promise rub.  Wrap each one separately in aluminum foil and let sit for about 4 hours.

After 4 hours, place in smoker and smoke at 225 degrees for 4 – 5 hours.  The meat should be pull tender, should be able to separate the ribs by giving a slight tug between 2 bones.  Another good sign of them being done is the meat will start pulling back from the end of the bones.  Ribs should not be falling off the bone tender (usually sign of boiled ribs).

Miss Sweetie Rub:

• 1/4 cup turbinado sugar
• 1 tablespoon sweet French basil
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard seed
• 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
• 1 tablespoon sweet Hungarian Paprika

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Store in air tight container until ready to use.

Mr. Promise Wet Rub:

• 4 cloves Garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon dried Mediterranean oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried spearmint
• 1 tablespoon apple cider
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh zest of lemon
• juice of 1/2 a lemon

Combine all ingredients into a blender and mix well.  Transfer to an air tight container and place in refrigerator you are ready to use.