Forensic Friday is upon us once again. And with the warmer weather peeking in, it’s time to get some solid cooks in. If you’re close to us, you know the end of winter came crashing down – hard – on our homestead (literal), so we’ve been busy trying to pick up them pieces. As we move on from that, it’s time to move forward with some new ideas. And one of those new ideas I’ve been meaning to get working on is Bachan’s.
The Prep Table
I’ve had this particular slab in the freezer for awhile – so it was past time to thaw ’em out and finally make good use of the Bachan’s Japanese Barbecue Sauce I’ve been reading so much about. Naturally, I picked up their “Hot and Spicy” variant, because that’s what I do. Normally, I don’t do a crazy coated sticky rib, but I thought I would give it a whirl this time around. We’re going to fire ’em up like we usually do and finish ’em hot.
In another break from tradition, I’m going to cook these a little bit longer and get that fall-off-the-bone rib. I like a rib with a little resistance – where it stays on the bone just slightly – enough to let you bite through it with ease, but still stays on there. We’re going to change that today.
As we dial up our RecTeq to 225, we’re throwing some of our Fine Swine Pork Rub on there. It hasn’t let me down yet, why break from tradition. In similar fashion, we’re going to get our additional accompanying ingredients together.. for the spritz and the wrap:
And just in case a whole slab of ribs isn’t enough, we’re going to whip up a nice corn pudding… because I don’t do sides enough on here.
Let’s get going!
The Process
We’re just throwing these in and letting it take on as much smoke as possible. The sugar in the rub starts to caramelize a bit, but we have to keep it moist at the same time. Every 45 minutes or so, I’d peek in and see how it’s going. Give a splash of some apple cider vinegar/apple juice and keeping a sweet flavor to it. We’re doing a hot/spicy sauce, it should line up just fine with the sweet splashing of the juice.
After about 2-2.5 hours, we’re going to wrap them up. They’ve grabbed the smoke, now we have to cook ’em down. When I do the foil wrap, I throw down a good stripe or two of parkay, some sprinkles of Fine Swine Rub, a couple Tbsp of brown sugar, and then lay the meat down. I’ll hit it with a little bit of ACV/Juice and then wrap it up. We’re going to let it cook for another two hours or so.
After the first hour of the foiled ribs, I’ll go throw a heat glove on and pick up the slab. If it’s still pretty rigid, I’ll leave it on there. If it starts to get some pliability .. some bend .. I know we’re getting close.
Fired up the second RecTeq since we’re going high heat for the corn pudding and threw that on there towards the end of the cook. Any day you have both your RecTeq’s fired up – it’s a good day.
What we want to see when we remove it from the foil is what you see above. The meat has pulled away from the end bones there, and has cooked up beautifully. My routine tells me to put an ever-so-light BBQ sauce coating on there, but this is not routine.. this is Bachan’s time to shine.
The Result
A pleasant smell from the sauce was promising. Put a nice healthy coat, brushed over it so there was an even application, and kept it in for a little while longer. Remember, we want these fall-off-the-bone, and definitely Bachan’s infused.
This was getting along just fine too. Was still pretty soupy, so we kept it in until we definitely had to pull it.
What say we dress this up a bit? Sprinkle some sesame on there, the obvious scallion…
So yeah, I’m a believer in that Japanese BBQ Sauce after all. It was a nice break from your traditional sauce and a definite welcome to the palate. I can’t wait to incorporate it into some more recipes! Oh yeah, did they fall off the bone?
Nice to be grilling, now let’s get to spring and enjoy what we got! We’ll see you on the next one! Don’t forget about our search function on the website to find my rib recipe(s) ! Nothing changed on this one other than longer cook time and the BBQ sauce!