Smoky Apple Honey Glazed Ribs

My love affair with ribs continues now that summer is finally here. Typical Heather, I never follow the same recipe twice (and I use the term recipe loosely!). I knew  I wanted the ribs to have an apple flavour and some heat but was a little unsure of how it was going to come together.  So I played around in the kitchen and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

1 rack of pork back ribs

1 apple sliced up without skin

1 cup beef stock

2 cloves garlic minced

1 tbsp smoked paprika HOT, I buy this at the Spice Trader on Queen St. in Toronto, they have amazingly good spices!

pinch of cumin

1/2 red onion

1 tsp market mustard, I use Kozlik’s

2 sticks of cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1 tsp ginger, again from the Spice Trader

freshly ground salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1) rub the ribs with pepper

2) place ribs on a baking sheet with beef broth, apples, onions, cinnamon sticks.  Cover tightly with foil, place in oven at 200 for 2 hours. Ribs should not be submerged in broth, just sitting on-top.  You can do this meat side up or down.  For this recipe, I choose meat side up, out of the liquid

3) mix your remaining dry spices together.

4) remove ribs from oven and place covered in fridge for 1 hour.  After the hour remove ribs and rub with all your dry ingredients and place back in fridge for 2 more hours.

5) remove the cinnamon sticks then take the reserved drippings from the ribs and place on stove top and reduce down by half adding garlic and mustard.

6) take ribs out of fridge and bring up to room temperature.

7) set BBQ to 250.

8) Remove reduction from the stove and add the honey.

9) place your ribs on the BBQ in the centre (where there is no heat) using only the two outside burners at medium to keep the temp up to 250. Cook bone side down.

10) slowly glaze your ribs but do not let them flair up, you don’t want them chard, you want them sticky.

11) right before you are going to remove the ribs flip them over for 1/2 min to create the sugary glaze from the honey.

I served them with a Apple Coleslaw, a perfect companion to cool the ribs.

I give this a 10/10, they were exactly what I was hoping for.  Give this recipe a try and let me know what you think!