Most people who cook ribs will make the claim that their recipe is the most awesomest way to cook ribs that there evah was or could be.

Ribs

I will not say this as I know that I am not a great cooker of ribs. Instead, I will just bring a sampling of the varieties of ribs recipes that are available.

Now to start with, I guess we need to discuss just what exactly we mean when we use the term “ribs.” In my family when I was growing up, it was pork spare ribs. My father would often make ribs in the oven though occasionally he would cook them on a grill in the summer, usually when we’d been invited to a cook out at friends’ houses. A ribs purist would shudder in horror at the way he prepared the ribs but they were always tasty and tender so I will often follow his steps:

• Take a slab of spare ribs and cut them into the individual ribs.
• Par boil the ribs (I add some olive oil and salt to the water before boiling pretty much anything)
• Remove the ribs from the water after say 3 or 4 minutes. Let cool.
• Marinade the ribs in the barbecue sauce of your choice (I do like the Jack Daniels sauce myself).
• Bake in the oven at 350 until ribs are falling off the bone or on the grill away from the direct heat.

As I say, the purists are probably shuddering at this point but for me, the purpose of cooking the ribs is to have a tasty, tender piece of meat and this method does work.

Here’s a bunch of ribs recipes from The Food Network.

This recipe claims to be the “Ultimate Barbecue Ribs.”

This web site is called Amazing Ribs and pretty much refutes everything I wrote above about how my father made ribs.

This is a Google search for “Ribs on the grill.”

This is a Google search for “Ribs in the oven.”

This a search for “cooking ribs.”

This search is for pork ribs.

This search is for beef ribs.

However you like your ribs, I hope you enjoy them during these hot summer days. Share your methods or any special places you might have found hidden away somewhere that is your go-to spot for great ribs.

Photo from Isaac Wedin licensed under Creative Commons