Herb-spiced baby back ribs with chimichurri mop sauce

This is what happened when set out to make some ribs with a difference. Not that there’s anything wrong with the many excellent variations on barbecued ribs that already exist. In fact, various forms of these tasty morsels are a regular feature of the Monkeyshines Menu when we break out the charcoal grill; usually inspired by recipes in the excellent Barbecue Bible and/or Barbecue USA, both by Steven Raichlen. However, this time we wanted to take things in a bit more of a herbal direction.

Ingredients

1 rack of baby back ribs

For the rub:
2 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp Aleppo pepper flakes
1 tsp salt

For the mop sauce:
4 tbsp minced parsley
2 minced garlic cloves
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

First, make the rub: grind the spices in a mortar and pestle. Peel the papery skin off the back of the rack of ribs, and coat the ribs liberally with the rub (You can see that we just used a half rack of ribs; I’ve scaled the recipe up for a full rack.) Wrap or cover and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

 

The ribs are cooked using a two step process. First, they are wrapped well in aluminum foil and cooked in a low temperature (200 F) oven for 5 hours. This seems like a long time, but it guarantees that the ribs will be literally falling-off-the-bone tender. At some stage towards the end of these 5 hours, make the mop sauce: first, mix all ingredients apart from the olive oil, then gradually whisk in the oil (as if making a vinaigrette):

Remove the ribs from the oven, take them out of the foil packet and cook on a hot charcoal grill for about 10 minutes per side, basting with the mop sauce. This should be enough to give them a nice char; careful as you turn them though; they will probably be very tender and you don’t want to lose them!

As shown above, we served the ribs with some grilled corn and trumpet mushrooms. Enjoy!