Texas Barbecued Beef Ribs
From Cook's Country
Traditional Texas barbecued beef ribs are placed in pits for up to 10 hours. The low heat and smoke slowly permeate the meat, melting away fat, building flavor, and creating unforgettable crust. We wanted to streamline our recipe for Texas Barbecued Beef Ribs to work on our backyard grill without shortchanging the ribs. Our beef ribs contained a lot of connective tissue, or collagen, which needed a steady supply of low heat to break down and tenderize. Since we didn’t want to spend a full day smoking our ribs, we turned to a surprising technique: steaming. To speed things up before smoking on the grill and to tenderize the meat, we steamed the ribs in the oven on a tray of water covered with aluminum foil. After steaming, we smoked the ribs on the grill over indirect heat (banking all the coals to one side of the grill and placing the ribs on the empty side) using wood chips to duplicate the smoke of a pit. The surface of the meat dried and formed a spicy, crusty bark.
Serves 4
Beef ribs are sold in slabs with up to 7 bones, but slabs with 3 to 4 bones are easier to manage on the grill. If you cannot find ribs with a substantial amount of meat on the bones, don’t bother making this recipe.
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