One of my standard ways of making a great BBQ pork rib is to bake ribs coated well with a spice rib for an hour and a half, then rest/slice and grill them off with a finish coat of some kind of BBQ sauce. Please understand that I'm using the word 'BBQ' here in the California sense, not the Texas sense: a smoked rib is a great thing, but not always possible and not always even desirable.
Another way one can approach this, sans smoker, reverses that order: the ribs are cut into two-bone sections, pre-grilled for color and flavor (no rub, just salt and pepper), then baked with a glaze that caramelizes during cooking. The result is meat that is incredibly tender and saturated with flavor, and it's a great method when entertaining: do-ahead ease and absolutely zero last minute effort. Just serve!
I made these yesterday and one of my guests declared them the best ribs she's ever eaten.
Ingredients:
1 18 ounce jar apricot jam
1 stick butter (1/4 lb)
Juice of one lemon
2 additional lemons
2 large onions
hot red chile pepper like cayenne or smoked hot paprika, or red pepper flakes
2 slabs pork ribs (I used conventional, but of course baby backs are fine)
Preparation:
Remove the skin and cut the onions in half and thinly slice each half. Leaving the peel on, trim the ends off the lemons, cut each in half lengthwise, and thinly slice.
Trim extra fat and any ugly bits off the pork ribs but leave membrane intact. Cut into two-bone pieces. Dust with salt and pepper then grill until the meat is nicely colored on both sides.
In two baking pans, scatter half each of the lemon slices and onions on the bottom. Place ribs face down (membrane side up, that is) in the pans--it's okay to crowd the pan to get them all to fit. Consider using disposable aluminum pans for this--you'll get a lot of baked on goo that's rather hard to clean up. Scatter the rest of the lemons and onions on top of the ribs.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the apricot jam and lemon juice. Add salt and cayenne (or other chile) to taste--go bold, a lot of the heat will disappear during cooking. Pour the glaze over the ribs.
Bake at 350 for one hour, turn the ribs over, then bake for another 30-45 minutes until the glaze bakes on and the meat turns a delicious mahogany brown.
