Ribs

Last Sunday, Jess and I caught a show called Bittman Takes on America's Chefs. We'd seen it before, and the gist is that this Bittman guy visits top chefs and cooks with them. While the chefs tend to use expensive ingredients and complicated techniques, Bittman tries to make a comparable meal that is completely attainable by the average non-chef. In last Sunday's episode, Chris Schlesinger (the chef) made his famous slow-grilled ribs, which can take up to 6 hours to cook, while Bittman countered with a much quicker version, which he finished in less than an hour. Jess found the recipe online and bought some back ribs to make this week. We finally got to making them today. Here's how:

Chris Schlesinger's Rib Rub
makes ¼ cup and takes 5 minutes
1. • 2 tablespoons paprika
   • 2 tablespoons sugar
   • 1 tablespoon salt
   • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
   • 1 tablespoon black pepper
   • 1 tablespoon chili powder
2. 1. Stir all the ingredients together in a bowl, then transfer the mixture to a covered container. Keeps for at least one summer.

This made enough for 4-5 racks of back ribs (ours was about 1.5 lbs). I lit the charcoal, and went back inside to massage the ribs with the rub Jess mixed up. Then I went back outside to watch the fire die down and push all the coals to the back of the grill. The ribs went over the un-charcoaled front half of the grill and the lid went down and both vents got opened for 30 minutes of indirect cooking (following Bittman's recipe). After that, I moved the ribs over the coals and left the grill open for 15 minutes of direct heat. I made sure to watch them, since the fat kept falling onto the coals and flaring up and I didn't want the ribs to burn. After that, they came in side and rested for a few minutes before we ate. We were a little too hungry to think of taking a picture, so here's one that looks like how our ribs turned out.