Spare Ribs

From Laura:

I have been neglecting my cow. Since the last post we have consumed a huge 4 pound round steak, a couple of patties and an utterly ridiculous amount of beef ribs. The beef ribs are definitely the most interesting story. I had family coming for Thanksgiving, my sister and brother in law with whom we have shared a couple of Famous Dave's dinners. My daughter was also coming home with one of her friends, a student from Mainland China who I have never seen not wearing a suit that is generally 2-3 sizes too big for him. His name is David.

So, with the .25 Cow package we received 3 packages of Beef ribs frozen solid. Each package contained 4 ribs, split in half. I have never eaten Beef ribs before much less cooked them. I thought what I was seeing through the shrink wrap was at least 75% Bone so I defrosted all of it. That's right -all 3 packages. Giving me 12 large Beef ribs. Let me put it this way, I broke out the Nesco to cook all of this.

I looked up some Beef Rib Dry Rub recipes on the internet, rubbed my ribs and let them sit overnight. I lined them all up in the Nesco, laid down some steaming liquids -- cheap red wine, water and beef stock -- and cooked them for about 4.5 hours at 225. The recipe mentioned that I should cook them long and at low temperature so that the Beef Fat could be "rendered" ( How appetizing!).  In the last hour or so I slathered all of it with my favorite Bar-b-que sauce. I produced about 8 pounds of cooked meat, at least 60% fat. I have to say that the meaty parts were very full of juicy goodness... but the fatty parts were so unappetizing just thinking about it engages my gag reflex just a tiny bit.  I am not sure if I will ever bother to cook beef ribs again. I have recently perfected my Pork ribs, so I really have no incentive.  I have a satisfactory bar-b-que sauce delivery system.  There was a definite Fred Flintstone type of appeal to the whole thing, It seemed like I should be scratching myself in odd places while eating, or grunting something primitive. My guests at dinner made polite noises, but I could tell that the two dogs in attendance were the only ones that were really excited. I ended up tossing about four ribs, the most "waste" we have had so far.

About the round steak- I will say this: PRESSURE COOKER. I split the steak and did two separate recipes over the course of a couple days. One involved red wine and vegetables, the other - UBA (Universal Binding Agent i.e. Cream of Mushroom soup). The UBA-enhanced round steak was clearly the better choice, but it brought back memories of my Mom's pressure cooking artistry, which is generally not a great thing. I think she used to buy round steak that had seen better days to put it delicately. At some point she would cook it up in a gravy/soup type sauce in the pressure cooker, maybe throw in a can of peas, or mushrooms if she was feeling "fancy" and serve it over toast or bread for supper. Both my round steak dinners kind of tasted like that. Not good eating, but you weren't going hungry either.

Tomorrow: Flatty burgers...