Barbeque Ribs in your Oven

One of the pleasures of summer has to be barbecue and in particular ribs, juicy tender pieces of pork slathered  in sauce... But Summer's still a long way off and I do feel that a hearty pork dish such as ribs are good winter fare as well suited to cold weather as they are to hot.

I have a simple recipe for ribs that's a lazy cooks dream - there's virtually no prep and very little clean up is required - and it's cooked in your oven so there's no need to be outside to enjoy some of the finest barbecue you may ever taste! 

Sounds good? 

Here it is:

Oven Cooked Ribs.

What you will need:

Baby back ribs - this is my preferred type of rib, they are meatier than spareribs yet not too fatty. I find that one rack of ribs is plenty for 3 people.

Dry rub (see below).

Your favorite bottled barbecue sauce.

Aluminum foil.

A large roasting dish/tin, at least one inch deep, the ribs will yield a fair amount of liquid as they cook.

Notes on Dry rub.
You can buy and use any sort of premixed meat rub that takes your fancy or you can make your own.
The simplest rub is the 1-2-3-4- Rub. 1 tablespoon of chili, 2 tablespoons of sweet paprika, 3 tablespoons of sugar and 4 tablespoons of salt. Simply mix these together and add whatever other spices take your fancy. I like to add some smoked paprika, black pepper, ground cumin, ground coriander and a little oregano. Sometimes I swap out the sweet paprika for ground ancho. Play around and use whatever you like and have to hand.  

What you do:

Preheat oven 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pat the rack(s) of ribs with a paper towel to dry them.

Cut each rack in half to give you half racks comprising of six ribs - give or take one or two.

Put each piece onto a large piece of aluminum foil, and press the rub all over the meat -  both of the sides and ends until all the meat is covered with rub.

Wrap the meat in the foil, and seal up the package tightly (fold the foil over itself - the ribs need to steam inside this pack so you don't want any holes or gaps in the package - wrap the whole thing in another piece of foil if needed).

Put in the roasting dish/tin and place in the oven for two and a half hours.

Remove from the oven and open the foil packages (watch out for the steam!).

Brush the topside of the ribs with a generous layer of barbecue sauce and return to the oven for fifteen minutes.
Remove from the oven, brush with more sauce and put back into the oven for a further 15 minutes.
Take out of the oven and rest for 10 minutes before cutting into individual ribs.
Serve with extra barbecue sauce on the side.