Indian Spiced Ribs
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Indian spiced ribs sound kind of weird, but Indian cuisine is one of my favorite cuisines. It’s easily in my top three favorite cuisines. I thought of this recipe while making ribs for a few friends who were hosting a cookout, and at the time I really wanted butter chicken or biryani. While creating this recipe I was surprised at how this ended up being a butter chicken recipe but for ribs because I only wanted to cook the ribs with a dry rub. However, that didn’t work out, which brings me to the best part of this dish, the sauce. For me, the sauce makes or breaks any rib recipe, so I was ecstatic when I came up with the recipe for the sauce and surprised at how good it was.
Some people will debate or argue that the meat from baby back ribs shouldn’t fall off of the bone, that there should be some meat left on the bone when you bite it to add some texture to the meat, or that having the meat fall off of the bone defeats the purpose of eating ribs all together. Honestly, I couldn’t care less, but per request these were made to fall off the bone. Also you may notice that I’ve made a few slices to the membrane on the bone side of the ribs. I did that to allow the extra flavor from the dry rub to penetrate the meat, and I’m not sure if that’s actually happening. However, some people say it’s courteous to remove the membrane entirely, which is way too much work, or they leave it on to prevent too much of the meat’s juices from draining away. Either way, I don’t think it matters, and you should be the boss of your own ribs. Anyways, this was a fruitful experiment, so if you try it, which you should, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Happy Tasting,
Steffon
Cook Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Category: Barbecue, Indian, Pork, Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp garam masala
- 1.5 Tbsp turmeric
- 3/4 Tbsp curry Powder
- 2 Tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 Tbsp ground cardamon
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 Tbsp ground ginger
- 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 full rack of baby back ribs
- 3 Tsp olive oil
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 1 peeled thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated
- 2 cloves of chopped garlic
- 2 Tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/3 cup mango chutney
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
- 1/3 cup tahini
- 1.5 Tbsp garam masala
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 cup of coconut milk
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1.5 Tbsp of deli mustard
- 3 or 4 Tsp of Worcestershire sauce (optional)
- Salt to taste
- To make the dry rub just take all of the ingredients in a small sealable container because you'll have a lot left over, and mix them all up.
- Take your baby back ribs and make slices to the membrane on the bone side of the rack. Then apply and rub the dry rub on both sides of the ribs. In the picture shown above I'm almost positive that I used too much dry rub, since I ended up brushing some off anyways. So just as a suggestion, don't use too much dry rub, but you can rub your ribs any way that you want.
- Once your ribs have been rubbed, you're going to wrap them in aluminum foil with the seam and the bone side facing up.
- Now you're going to bake these ribs low and slow at 250°F for 2 hours.
- While the ribs are baking you can start making the Indian barbecue sauce. Start by adding the olive oil to a sauce pan and heating it over medium-low to medium heat. Then add the shallot, ginger, and garlic and sauté until the shallots become translucent or the mixture becomes very fragrant, which shouldn't take more than a minute.
- Once the mixture is fragrant add the rest of the ingredients and stir until they are all combined.
- Now bring the heat to medium-high until the mixture begins to boil. Once it boils bring the heat back down to medium-low or medium so that it's at a steady bubble, not vigirous bubbling. At this point I would keep an eye on the sauce while it reduces because if it boils too violently for too long the taste will change, especially once it begins to thicken. I ended up checking on it every 10 minutes or so to stir, taste, and make adjustments to the flavor and heat. This process will take 40 minutes depending on how thick you want your sauce to be, but I recommended that you let it reduce for at least 20 minutes.
- Once your sauce has finished reducing, let it cool, and then store it in your refrigerator until you need it.
- When your ribs have finished the first round of baking take them out to cool because you need to drain all the leftover liquid from it. You can do whatever you want with this liquid: throw it away, make another sauce, add it to the Indian barbecue sauce (I don't recommend this because there's already enough fat in it, but maybe it'll work. Who knows?).
- After the ribs have cooled and you've drained all the liquid take whatever barbecue sauce you're using and brush it on both sides of the ribs. Then you're going to put the ribs back in the oven, bone side down at 350°F. Every 10 minutes you're going to brush more sauce on the meat side of the ribs, which should be facing up, and be generous with the sauce. I did this step four times, but you can do it three times to keep the meat sticking on the bones.
- Once you're finished your ribs are ready to serve! I cut mine up before serving and brushed them with any left over sauce.
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