After stirring up a ‘slaw hits the fan’ moment last week on that other fly fishing blog with our left coast inspired riff on the slaw dog, and given the fact that we’ve endured another week of summer like temps here on the South Sound (pushing the low 70s already, dammit), I figured it was time to return to home country and talk about ribs this week.
Friend, mentor and otherwise reprobate Ed called one afternoon a few years ago and said he needed a rib recipe for ‘some swanky company’ coming to dinner in a couple of days. (More on the company below.)
Those calls from Ed aren’t really calls for recipes, they’re calls for us to come over and basically cater a dinner for him and whatever curious crowd he’s rounded up for the meal.
Ed suggested we conjure up some sort of upscale rib recipe for the smoker; I can’t recall the exact conversation but I do remember him using the words ‘refined and classy’.
My argument that using the words ‘refined and classy’ to describe a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-gnaw-on-the-bone meal like ribs was pea-brained fell on deaf ears.
We hemmed and hawed and bantered back and forth for a while and finally settled on this recipe given Ed’s affinity for balsamic vinegar among other things, thereafter known as Ed’s Swanky Company Ribs.
Pork has a surprising affinity for mustard-based rubs in the smoker and the balsamic-red wine-soy sauce-Dijon mop is simply killer, particularly patiently applied and built up to a smooth, lacquered layer.
Smoked slow and low over a mild wood (oak with a touch of fruitwood is our go to here) these ribs are different than any you’ve had before. Try this once and you’ll wonder where they’ve been all your life.
Ed’s swanky company loved ‘em.
Seems he’d run into one of the heirs of the HP companies fishing on the Swan a few days before; he’d saved their fly fishing bacon with a couple of loaner flies and kindled a friendship that has lasted to this day.
4 slabs of your fave baby backs or spareribs, membranes removed, rinsed and patted dry
Mustard Peppercorn Rub
1 tbsp. black peppercorns
1 tbsp. green peppercorns
1 tbsp. red peppercorns
1 tbsp. white peppercorns
1 cup nice honey mustardBalsamic Soy Rib Mop
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1/2 cup grainy Dijon mustard
7 gloves garlic, minced
Make a rub. Toast the peppercorns in a small pan over medium heat until fragrant and a few have popped. Grind in a mortar or spice grinder, combine well with the honey mustard.
Slather the ribs (fingers best here) with the mustard-peppercorn rub and let rest covered in the fridge for no more than 12 hours.
Make a mop. As you fire the smoker, combine all of the mop ingredients in a small bowel, stir well and let rest.
Smoke ‘em low and slow. Noting the wood recommendations above smoke for 4-5 hours (not over 225), mopping every 30 minutes or so. (Can be grilled over a slow fire, though best over indirect heat as the honey mustard and mop have enough sugars to burn; not as tender as smoked but damned good.)
Serve. Best hot from the smoker or grill, cut ‘em up and go to it.
Enjoy.