Indoor Tailgating
There's supposed to be some kind of football game on today. Sounds implausible, I know. It's February and all. The college football championship was almost a month ago, and the Vikings quit playing... oh... round the middle of November by the look of things.
Still... it's football. It's on television. I have to watch. Even if it's my brother's freakin' favorite team playing for the championship. Grumble.
But I'll let the Bears and Colts fans around here talk about the game itself. I'm going to talk about the game food.
I tend to avoid Superbowl parties because:
A. I hate parties.
B. Too many distractions from watching the game. And being the last meaningful football game until next September, I have to be able to soak up every tiny detail. I'm like a bear (pun definitely not intended) getting ready to hibernate.
But that doesn't mean dinner has to come in a box and get cooked in a microwave. I've got nowhere to go today. Plenty of time to cook some tailgate-ish food, and celebrate the nation's football holiday in style.
I've tried to master barbecue in the past. The real thing, not the Minnesota term for any food cooked outdoors on a grill. But real barbecue requires wood and smoke and frankly I've never quite gotten it right yet. Plus it's ten below with 30 below wind chills outside right now. Not real barbecue weather.
On the other hand, pork ribs are some of the best tailgate food imaginable, and I had a hankerin'. Good thing my kitchen comes equipped with an oven. Because while you can't make real barbecue in an oven, you can make darned good ribs.
I learned the technique from Alton Brown's Good Eats show a few years ago, and have used it to reliably make excellent ribs ever since. They blow away any of my experiments with smoke cookery so far.
Here's a link to the recipe, which I find awesome just as written. But the cool thing to get from it is the technique.
The basics of the rub are a ratio you can play with: 8:3:1. That's eight parts sweet, three parts salt, one part spicy. After that you add a pinch of this and a dash of that to your heart's content.
Like any rib-rub, you apply this generously. No... REALLY generously. You basically coat the thing in the rub, and then you let it refrigerate in it for a few hours. A couple of hours is acceptable.
The next technique is the braising liquid. Again, the one in the recipe is good. Here you're looking for that acid / sweet balance. But you can play with the ingredients in the same proportions for all kinds of flavor combinations. I've substituted bourbon for the wine but otherwise followed the same recipe today. Experimentation = fun.
You cook the ribs "low and slow" just like real barbecue, though in this case you're technically braising. The reason for the long cooking time and low heat is that the heat needs to break down the connective tissue in ribs just right. If you do it right it's tender, juicy, and flavorful. Mess it up and you either have very tough or very dry meat.
After a few hours you set the ribs aside, and pour the braising liquid into a saucepan. You reduce this until it's nicely thickened. This becomes the sauce for your ribs. And believe me, it is WAY better this way than anything you can buy in a bottle. Once again, take the time to reduce it right.
Then you coat the top of the ribs with a touch of the sauce and stick them under your oven broiler, just until it starts to caramelize. Take out the ribs, cut them into two rib segments, and toss them with the rest of the sauce.
After that you just bring a lot of napkins, a few wet-naps, and dig in.
Though I'm more of a wine than a beer guy these days, that just wouldn't feel like a tailgate. So I bought myself some Surly Furious, from the Surly Brewing company in Brooklyn Center, MN. I love Surly Bender, but have never tried this one before. It's supposed to be super-hoppy, which is what I was going for.
Anyway, as a result I'll be certain to enjoy the game even if the teams involved don't cooperate with that goal. Happy Suberbowling, and bon appetite.
Still... it's football. It's on television. I have to watch. Even if it's my brother's freakin' favorite team playing for the championship. Grumble.
But I'll let the Bears and Colts fans around here talk about the game itself. I'm going to talk about the game food.
I tend to avoid Superbowl parties because:
A. I hate parties.
B. Too many distractions from watching the game. And being the last meaningful football game until next September, I have to be able to soak up every tiny detail. I'm like a bear (pun definitely not intended) getting ready to hibernate.
But that doesn't mean dinner has to come in a box and get cooked in a microwave. I've got nowhere to go today. Plenty of time to cook some tailgate-ish food, and celebrate the nation's football holiday in style.
I've tried to master barbecue in the past. The real thing, not the Minnesota term for any food cooked outdoors on a grill. But real barbecue requires wood and smoke and frankly I've never quite gotten it right yet. Plus it's ten below with 30 below wind chills outside right now. Not real barbecue weather.
On the other hand, pork ribs are some of the best tailgate food imaginable, and I had a hankerin'. Good thing my kitchen comes equipped with an oven. Because while you can't make real barbecue in an oven, you can make darned good ribs.
I learned the technique from Alton Brown's Good Eats show a few years ago, and have used it to reliably make excellent ribs ever since. They blow away any of my experiments with smoke cookery so far.
Here's a link to the recipe, which I find awesome just as written. But the cool thing to get from it is the technique.
The basics of the rub are a ratio you can play with: 8:3:1. That's eight parts sweet, three parts salt, one part spicy. After that you add a pinch of this and a dash of that to your heart's content.
Like any rib-rub, you apply this generously. No... REALLY generously. You basically coat the thing in the rub, and then you let it refrigerate in it for a few hours. A couple of hours is acceptable.
The next technique is the braising liquid. Again, the one in the recipe is good. Here you're looking for that acid / sweet balance. But you can play with the ingredients in the same proportions for all kinds of flavor combinations. I've substituted bourbon for the wine but otherwise followed the same recipe today. Experimentation = fun.
You cook the ribs "low and slow" just like real barbecue, though in this case you're technically braising. The reason for the long cooking time and low heat is that the heat needs to break down the connective tissue in ribs just right. If you do it right it's tender, juicy, and flavorful. Mess it up and you either have very tough or very dry meat.
After a few hours you set the ribs aside, and pour the braising liquid into a saucepan. You reduce this until it's nicely thickened. This becomes the sauce for your ribs. And believe me, it is WAY better this way than anything you can buy in a bottle. Once again, take the time to reduce it right.
Then you coat the top of the ribs with a touch of the sauce and stick them under your oven broiler, just until it starts to caramelize. Take out the ribs, cut them into two rib segments, and toss them with the rest of the sauce.
After that you just bring a lot of napkins, a few wet-naps, and dig in.
Though I'm more of a wine than a beer guy these days, that just wouldn't feel like a tailgate. So I bought myself some Surly Furious, from the Surly Brewing company in Brooklyn Center, MN. I love Surly Bender, but have never tried this one before. It's supposed to be super-hoppy, which is what I was going for.
Anyway, as a result I'll be certain to enjoy the game even if the teams involved don't cooperate with that goal. Happy Suberbowling, and bon appetite.
Posted by Doug Williams on
Sunday February 4, 2007 at 5:27pm
I think Surly prices it high intentionally because they're positioning themselves as an elite micro-brewery. However I think they sell growlers right at the brewery itself, which are probably a lot less expensive glass for glass.