Dry Rub for Ribs

When my kid finally got the diagnosis of SIBO *AND* Fructose Malabsorption, she about had a fit. No more barbecue sauce? How can one even live? Well, I haven't solved the no BBQ sauce problem but I did do a ton of research and came up with this recipe for a dry rub that my whole family LOVES. Its a start.

Without further ado, here's my recipe for pretty damn good dry rub on baby back ribs. Enjoy!

Preheat your oven to 350 for the first step. You have some choices with this one, after the initial cooking. If you choose to barbecue for the finishing touch, you'll want to get your grill going soon. You be the judge about timing, everyone has a different skill level and type of grill. Me? It takes me 30 minutes to get a charcoal barbecue to the cooking stage. Others might be using a gas grill. Or you can cook them on broil. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ingredients

2 - 4 lbs of baby back ribs. I'm told that you need to remove the "sheet" from the back of the ribs, which can be done with your fingers. Just pull that sucker off. My butcher does it for me, so, shrug. No advice on that one.

1/3 cup smoked paprika

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp chili powder

1 1/2 tsp dried ground mustard

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp cumin

parchment paper

thick foil

Instructions:

Dried Ingredients:

Mix dried ingredients in a bowl and set aside. There will be leftovers if you're only doing 2 pounds. Make sure when you're doing the next step to keep your rub dry to not transfer germs to the mixture.

Ribs:

Place a sheet of parchment on top of a pretty big stretch of foil on top of a cooky sheet. Set ribs on top. Massage in 2 - 3 tbsp of the rub on one side and then the other, taking care to get the sides too. I'd go ahead and slice half way up between the bones at this point, to make the last part easier.

Wrap them up in foil.

Cook for approximately an hour, until they are cooked through. Warning, at this point the foil packet will be full of liquid.

Barbecue/Grill:

If you are using a barbecue or grill for the last step, when it's ready, take the ribs out of the foil and throw them on. Cook them about five minutes on each side.

Broiler:

If you are using your broiler to crisp them up, take the ribs out and slip the parchment paper out, pouring off the liquid. Put the ribs back and pop the cookie sheet w/ foil and uncovered ribs on the rack. I keep my rack about half way up in the oven. Keep a good eye on them while they're in there, flipping them at about 3 - 10 minutes to brown them evenly on both sides. My broiler isn't the best, and it took twenty minutes total cooking time, thus the time variance. I'm told that some broilers are so hot that things will burn almost immediately, so be careful here.

That's it! Finish slicing them up and serve!