Applewood Smoked Pork Back Ribs with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Tying to update this blog on a tri-weekly basis may have been a little over zealous of me, maybe I should start with one or two updates a week. This guy should count as at least 2 blogs though as it is for both a BBQ sauce recipe and a rib recipe using said BBQ sauce.

Ingredients:

BBQ Sauce:

3 Apples

1 Onion

Olive Oil

1 Clove Garlic

1 Tbsp Mustard Seeds (black or regular)

4 Cloves

1 Bay Leaf

2-3 cm Cinnamon Stick

4 tbsp Honey

1/4-1/2 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

2 tbsp Tomato Paste

3 Ounces Bourbon Whiskey

Pork Back (or side) Ribs

Salt and pepper to taste

A lot of commercial BBQ sauces are tomato based. I wanted to build this sauce from the ground up, using as many whole ingredients as possible. I knew I was going to use Applewood chips to smoke the ribs so an apple based BBQ sauce just seemed right. Making the applesauce is pretty simple. Wash, cut and core your apples then throw em in a pot with about 3 cm of water and boil till the apples are soft. 

The reason for three different apples? I couldn't tell say! I read that applesauce should be a blend so I grabbed two of my favorites: Golden Delicious and Pink Lady. The Fiji came into the mix because... well... it was just there. I'm going to experiment with different apples, maybe even go all food labs on this recipe to find out what the best apple ratio is.

While your apples are cooking (big surprise coming...) sauté onions, garlic, salt and pepper! This is going to be blended so don't worry too much about size. Also, you are going to want to dry roast the mustard seeds, bay leaf, cloves, and cinnamon. When they are toasty grind them to a fine powder in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle.

 

The apples aren't round, the onions are browned, and the spices are ground. Combine everything in a blender and add the honey, tomato paste, and apple cider vinegar. 

You can't really see the honey or the vinegar, but it's in there... somewhere...

Blend this concoction until it is pureed. While the blender is blending you get to do one of my favorite things. De-glaze and flam-be! Add the bourbon to the still hot onion pan. Reduce and then lite on fire. Be careful! Ask for a parent or guardians help. Use a BBQ lighter to stay far away from the flame. Or, as I did, a match taped to a spoon. 

YEAH! FIRE!

Once the alcohol is burnt off, and maybe some of your hairs, add the puree from the blender and mix it up. I planned on letting it simmer but even on low small bubbles were popping and getting sauce 5 feet up my walls.

It's not the most photogenic sauce, but it sure is tasty. I think I might add some molasses next time to darken it up. Once it cools store it in the fridge for a few days to let the flavors mellow and blend. This is the first time I've ever made this sauce and the first time I've ever made BBQ sauce so it's a miracle it actually turned out. This sauce was great on grilled chicken and made for some amazing burgers when paired with smoked Gouda, basil, garlic scapes and a poppy seed bun (with ketchup and Billy Bee Honey mustard too of course).  Another iteration is sure to pop up sometime. Now its time for ribs!

These ribs are simple and only require a few ingredients:

Ribs

Water

Bourbon

Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Cut the ribs up. I like individual ribs so you get more surface area on the grill.

Put the ribs in a pot and add a liberal amount of bourbon, at least an ounce or 2. cover with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling reduce to simmer for 2.5 hours. It's long, but it makes the most tender, moist ribs I've ever had. Once fully cooked drain the ribs and cover in BBQ sauce. I let the ribs marinate for a day in the fridge but an hour should do it. Fire up the ol' charcoal grill and throw some applewood chips on. I usually use dry chip but this time I soaked them in water for about 30 minutes. This way I could slowly cook the ribs to add a deep smoke flavor. They take about 30-45 minutes to smoke then they are ready to eat. At this point the ribs will look so good you might forget to take a picture of them showing how good they look. Such was the case with my ribs so I am sorry to say, there is no final product, again. Rest assured, I will make them again and pictures will be taken!

So that's how you make delicious Applewood Smoked Pork Back Ribs with Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce. Now here is a picture I drew of a skeleton pirate with an eyeball for a head.

Dark Chocolate Mousse Pie with Ancho Chilies and Honey

Before I get into this recipe I would just like to mention that this is the first time I have ever tempted to make a mousse. It definitely didn't turn out as moussey as it should have, but it still tasted great. That's all that really matter though right? All in all this was a pretty great pie. I'd also like to mention that this is my first entry in an online cook off. So if you like it you should definitely vote for me.  Just go here and select "vote for Kuribo's kitchen" and submit. It's THAT easy. The rules are pretty simple, there are two ingredients, honey and ancho peppers this week, make food, blog it, compete! I came up with this idea while I was thinking what to make for dessert on Sunday just as I fell asleep one night last week.


I should also mention that I made this pie for my Dad on Father's day. Happy Father's Day Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all the other Dad's that may or may not be reading this blog! Now on to the pie!


I wanted a graham crust with a nice honey flavor. Since I've always loved Honey Teddy Grahams I figured they would be perfect.

I smashed up 225g of these little guys in a big bag with a rolling pin.. It ended being about the whole bag, minus a few casualties. I could have just left them in the bag for the smashing, but then you wouldn't be able to see the carnage.

Once all their delicious little bodies have been crushed beyond recognition dump them into a bowl. Add about 3 tablespoons of butter and mix it up till the crumbs form little balls. You want this to be nice and mold-able to line your pie plate. I'm not sure how big this one is, probably 12 or 14 inches.

Roll it, pat it, mark it with a B, put in the over for ba- erp, just bake it in the oven at 375 deg F for about 8-10 minutes. It will look pretty much the same, golden brown, but crispier. Marking it with a B is optional.

You can start making the mousse while the crust is cooking. I basically followed this recipe here. I changed it around a bit though. Instead of using mild red chillies I used ancho chillies, as per the contest rules, I didn't add chocolate liquor and I used brown sugar instead of castor sugar. This could be one reason the mousse was a little flat, the egg whites  seemed to fluff up nicely though, so maybe not. 

One other change I made was that was completely necessary: I had 250ml of cream where the recipe calls for200ml. Thinking it would be used directly in the mousse and not thinking I would use it again (I planned on using cool whip on top) I decided the best idea would be to increase all the ingredients by 10%. As I mentioned early, I've never made mousse before, nor had I read the recipe in its entirety. So I add 62.5g butter, 1.25 tablespoons of crushed anchos (I added more later, probably about 2 tbsp in total), 3.75 egg yolks/whites, etc. So I finish the mousse and realize the cream was for the whipped topping. I didn't need to add 10% extra of each ingredient after all. Awesome! Oh well, I ended up using the whipping cream to make whipped cream to which I added about 3 tbsp of honey. This was definitely a better topping than cool whip. So, how about some tasty pics now?

Some delicious ancho peppers. This is the first time I've ever used/tasted ancho peppers so I'm glad they went well with the dark chocolate. This recipe consisted of a lot of firsts for me; I'm glad it didn't blow up.

Ancho butter going it the Belgium dark chocolate. I'm not sure what the cocoa content was, but it was probably at least 70%, it was quite "dark" tasting.

The egg whites were very happy to be whipped with the sugar. Kind of looks like the Sugar Smacks frog... Kind of... 

This is from just before I put the whipped cream on. If I was sure the whole pie was going to be eaten I would completely cover it in the honey whipped cream to full up the shell a bit. There were only four of us eating the pie and we had already feasted on steak, ribs, smoked shrimp, and smoked salmon (more on that later this week), so I figured whip on individual pieces would be best.We might have had some vegetables too, but I got a little delusional from all the meat. 

The final result!

I've always been a big fan of chocolate pies, this one did not disappoint! The chilies and the dark chocolate were a perfect match. The filling was pretty rich but the lightness of the honey whipped cream and Teddy Graham crust evened it out. 

So that's how you make a delicious Dark Chocolate Mousse Pie with Ancho Chilies and Honey. Now here is a picture of a Mexican frog. Don't forget to vote!