Perfect Pork Ribs

The best part of summer holidays - aside form the sunshine and hot weather - is the prominent role of the grill. In the days beforehand, you can find some really excellent deals on meat. For Memorial Day, we were back in Wisconsin and returned with some brats. For Father's Day, we scored some serious duck breast. As Independence Day approached, we picked up an amazing load of ribs.

A small sampling of  our recent rib purchase, pre-seasoned and ready to grill

Just in time for your Independence Day cook out, here is the best pork barbecue sauce ever, followed by some basic grill instructions.

For the Sauce, you will need

:

Salt

Sugar

White Wine Vinegar

Apple Juice

1 Lemon, Juiced

2 Jalapenos, Coarsely Chopped

Golden Raisins

All you need for perfect sauce

You will also need a blender. My counterpart is partial to the immersion blender.

In your blender cup, add several handfuls of raisins and the 

jalapenos and blend until thick and coarse. 

Raisins and jalapeno make a sweet-spicy pork glaze

Proceed to add in small quantities the remaining ingredients, blending and tasting until you have a smooth sauce that is spicy and tangy and sweet.

Blend well

Prepare the Grill

My counterpart is also partial to the charcoal grill, and the small ones work out well for us.

First, line the grill and the lid with heavy duty aluminum foil. This will help conduct the heat and will make clean up much easier.

Line the grill with foil and crease it

Also line the lid

Using more foil, create a small shallow pan for water. This will create a water bath that will help control heat levels and prevent the meat form drying out. You can also purchase these in the store in packages of 3 for about $2.50, but it is also pretty easy to make your own.

Fold in the edges of your foil to create a rim

Fold up the edges again making a wider fold. These are your sides.

Pinch the corners together

Here is your water bin

Place it inside the grill on the lower grate and add water.

It really holds water

To protect the flavor of the meat, start the charcoal in a separate fire-safe container, like a charcoal chimney pictured below. 

To prevent the lighter fluid from tainting your meat, start the charcoal outside the grill

Let the lighter fluid burn off and the fire die down and then add the smoldering coals to the grill.

Hot coals but no flame

To get a nice smoke, ad some wood chips. If you have trees in your yard, select some green branches as they will create a highly desirable smoke that will add to the flavor of the meat without burning too hot and charring the exterior. Wood smoke contains some trace minerals, like chromium and iron, which are transferred to the meat while it smokes. Smoking the wood also releases the naturally-occurring sugars, called cellulose, which mingle with the rendering fat and help form the meat glaze.

Remove leaves

Add the top grate and cover until some smoke has built up inside the grill.

Mmmmmmm smoke

Grilling the Meat

Place your meat in the cool end of the grill, away from the direct heat of the charcoal and over the water bath. 

Have a spray bottle of apple juice on hand. This will keep the meat moist and will also help a nice grill glaze form on the meat. Place the cover on the grill and relax.

The best grill results come from slowly cooking the meat over low heat. Periodically, you will want to check on things to add more wood chips, moisten the meat with apple juice, and to make sure that there are no flames.

While cats are very good at detecting when meat is ready to eat,

we still recommend the meat thermometer

As the meat is smoking, you will also want to introduce the sauce. My counterpart gets good results from using a squeeze bottle he picked up at the green Bay 

Restaurant

 Supply store, but you can also use an old ketchup or mustard bottle that has been well cleaned.

Smoke the meat until it is heated through. The most reliable method of determining this is still the meat thermometer.

If you are grilling vegetables, use a separate grill. The grills we used can be found at Wal-Mart and run about $10.

Cut the ribs apart and serve with more sauce.

You Say Aioli, I Say Mayonnaise

Gareth takes a certain amount of pride in his cooking, as he should. He produces a consistent quality of food like I have never eaten before. My first year living with him, I gained 20 pounds and have been fighting to keep the weight in check for the duration of our relationship.

His recent delving in Spanish cuisine has resulted in much experimentation with emulsified sauces, most of which I refer to as mayonnaise. He has a tendency to cringe at the word, as if it could only refer to Hellman's Best, and then informs me that the sauce I am eating with such enthusiasm is actually an aioli. Which inevitably leads us to a discussion about the fine line between the two.

Both contain a base of egg yolk, oil and acidity - usually vinegar, citrus juice, or both. (Gareth has gotten exceptional results with orange juice.) As he has explained it to me, an aioli contains some vegetable matter - most often garlic. But it actually goes a little further than that. A real aioli starts with a mortar and pestle. The fresh garlic is "muddled" - a technique in which the pestle is used to gently mash the garlic, releasing all its aromatic qualities. Then, oil is added and further muddled. The mixture is added to egg yolk and citrus juice and blended until emulsified.

Either sauce works well as a dressing for fish and vegetables fresh off the grill. We are still discussing what to call that. I say salad, he says..... well he's not sure what it is.