Dad’s Secret BBQ Rib Sauce Recipe

Yippee for the warm weather at long last. And with warm weather comes eating outside and easy meals and blowing the dust off the BBQ. One of my very favorite things to cook on the BBQ and devour with my hands, licking the sauce off my fingers and smearing it all over my cheeks is BBQ pork spare ribs. I cooked my Dad’s sauce yesterday for the first time ever and it kinda blew mine out of the water a little but my ego can take it.

You have to get your hands on the American style rack of pork spare ribs and you can find these in any Woolworths or Tasman Meats and if you want some really big ones and you have a Costco store near you, check theirs out. They look like Fred Flinstone should be eating them.

The sauce is really easy, just a quick saute of onion and garlic, toss in all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for an hour. It goes thick and caramelised and you can literally eat it off the spoon but when it’s poured all over crispy, golden ribs the only sound you will hear is lip-smacking slurps and the ping of the bones into the bowl. Feel free to tweak the quantities of tabasco, cayenne and sweetness depending on your tastebuds but I promise this isn’t very spicy.

1 large rack of American style pork spare ribs per person
Beef stock to cover
1 tbsp. sea salt

Place the ribs and the salt in a large pot with a lid and cover with beef stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for approximately one hour or until the meat is almost falling off the bones. Drain and if you’re not cooking them straight away, allow to cool slightly before covering with foil and refrigerating. (Some ribs are bigger and have more meat on them than others and may require up to 2 hours cooking time). Meanwhile make the sauce.

Ingredients

1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
410ml can tomato puree
140ml tub tomato paste
200ml apple juice
1/4 cup vinegar
cracked black pepper
big slurp of Tabasco sauce
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/3 cup yellow America style mustard
1/2 cup treacle (molasses)
2 tbsp. brown sugar

In a medium size saucepan, heat 2 tbsp. olive oil and gently sautee the onion and garlic until tender. Add all the other ingredients and stir to combine. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. If the sauce gets too thick, you can thin it with a little chicken stock. Remove from heat and set aside.

Season the rib racks with sea salt and cracked black pepper and brush a little olive oil over both sides. Put onto the hot grill side of your BBQ for a few minutes on each side until lightly browned and crispy. Now turn down the heat and slather them with the sauce and turn every few minutes, continuing to add more sauce for approximately half an hour.

Carolyn started her blog Pinkpostitnote.com just over a year ago as a way to deal with her obsession of trying new recipes from the copious collection of cookbooks that she owns (and continues to buy). She is particularly fond of “man” food, both cooking it and eating it. She will happily elbow people out of the road at the sight, sound and smell of a pulled pork burger. When she’s not lying awake at 5am wondering if she should buy chooks and a cow to deal with the constant need for eggs and butter, she’s dealing with all the paperwork associated with owning a bunch of tip trucks and her favorite time of the day is wine five o-clock.