Sunday, January 09, 2011

Grilled Country BBQ Ribs with Nephew's Cherry'Potle Sauce



Tonight I decided to grill some country ribs and Greek grilled potatoes. I lived in Greece for a couple of years, and it was fun coming up with the Greek variation of potatoes for the grill. Be sure to check them out. They are really tasty.

If you're not familiar with country ribs, they may be called something else in your area. Basically, they are the rough cut in and around the rib area that might be thought of as leftovers in the meat industry. While country ribs may not always be beautiful, since some have bones and others do not, they are meaty and can make an inexpensive grilled meal.

As far as grilling the country rib odd cuts, I do them more like pork chops than ribs, since they really are not ribs. Generally, I offset charcoal and let country ribs smoke low and slow, so they are tender and gets lots of flavor. Instead of taking a couple or more hours, they run around 45 minutes to an hour on smoking. That's why I'd consider them more in the pork chop range as far as grilling.



Here are the grilled country ribs from tonight. Two had bones, and one cut was solid meat. So, they are a little different. Still, the meat for tonight came in at $2.50, and you can't beat that with a stick. Plus, we really get more meat all in all than with racks of ribs.



In addition to slow smoking the country ribs, I like to try different barbecue sauces on them. Tonight, we had Nephew's Cherry'Potle (cherry chipolte). Nephew's has a great range of sauces and with fruit flavors. They don't overdo the fruit taste, so you get some sweet and some heat.

Dylan sent me a selection of his gourmet sauces. He's out of Raleigh, NC where I attended NCSU. I was really hoping his sauces would be good, but they have turned out even better than I hoped for. Tonight, the boys' dad who dropped over and sampled the ribs said:

"Yum. These are the best country ribs you've made so far."

I must confess that I was thinking the same, but it was nice to get a confirmation on that. I did the BBQ random ribs the same as always, so it was the cherry barbecue sauce that pushed them over the top to make the grilled country ribs super yummy. You can, of course, sauce your ribs up with any sauce you like, but an exceptional barbecue sauce can make a huge difference.

Regular readers may remember that I tried Nephew's Pumpkin Barbecue Sauce on a pork loin, and that smoked grilled dish turned out great as well. That was back around October or so, but the pumpkin is excellent even when it's not the holiday season.

I think the Nephew's barbecue sauce line will be offered in Raleigh at Whole Foods and around the area soon, but you can always order online. The sauces really are impressive, and our low cost dinner tasted like a million bucks tonight. Can't beat that!

6 comments:

Wayne said...

Thanks for the review! Wish his line would get carried in the Charlotte area.

CA said...

I hope Nephew's Barbecue Sauce gets down this way too. It really is exceptional BBQ sauce. Worth the shipping - but would be really nice to be able to get it off the shelf. Some day . . . I think. This sauce has been winning awards and rightly so.

bcarrera said...

I've tried apple chipotle bbq sauce, but not cherry. Of course here in Brazil, everything has to be made from scratch so......I'll add it to my "try when in the states for the summer list"

Dylan Moody said...

Wayne, I am coming that way next month and will be looking for retailers so if you know of a smaller retail shop please let me know.

Cyndi...ditto...and thanks again for the great review

CA said...

Dylan - There is a great barbecue shop in Mooresville. I've not been yet, but friends tell me that I've got to go. That area is close Lake Norman, so there are more foodies there versus my immediate area. I need to check on the name of the shop and address. I'd planned to visit over the break, but the sinus thing has had me running behind on everything.

chris said...

I agree, I really like the country ribs because they are meatier then the rack ribs. I'm in NY and I can't find that sauce. I do use STUBS sauce a lot which has a nice little spice to it.

Chris