Tag: meat

Oven-barbecued Country Ribs

Sometime in the late 1950’s our family acquired its first charcoal grill. Before then we had cooked over open fires, mostly on the shores of lakes near Hayward. The meat was skin-on wieners from one of the local butcher shops or grocery stores and dessert was marshmallows toasted over the coals. Cooking utensils were a can opener and sticks of hazel brush for roasting the wieners and marshmallows and stirring the can of beans.

If we didn’t forget them, there would be spoons for serving Mom’s potato salad and eating the beans and salad from paper plates. Over the years I learned that you could open a can with a jack knife, carve sticks into substitute spoons and eat off birch bark plates. I also learned the truly valuable skill of how to build a fire, even if it had rained just a few minutes before we got to our picnic place.

Later I learned to toast sandwiches over an open fire when I began going deer hunting and ice fishing with my father. By that time I had my own jack knife and the patience to find the perfect stick with two twigs branching off the central stem to make a toasting tool. Besides learning to read a fire properly so my sandwich did not turn black or get too smoky, I also learned how close I could put my wet gloves to the fire without setting them ablaze.

Thus, when we got our first charcoal grill, I became the outdoor chef. The grill was a shallow flat tray on a tripod base. There was no cover; the kettle grill was not yet on the market. But ours worked just fine and in addition to wieners, we were soon enjoying hamburgers, bratwursts, chicken legs and pork ribs from the grill.

One year I even tried to grill some meat from a bear we had shot. My mother had given up trying to cook it. She explained, “It’s just too fat. When I fry steaks, they’re floating in fat. I tried making a roast, and the pan was half full of grease. Even Dad said it was too fat for him.”

I had what seemed like a logical suggestion. “Pick out a nice roast. We’ll cut it into two-inch cubes, and I’ll grill them for dinner. The fat will drip out and the meat should be delicious. We can brush on some barbecue sauce when it’s close to done.”

The incident is stamped indelibly in my memory. It was a cold New Year’s Day. I set the grill up on the front porch. I carefully arranged a big pile of charcoal briquets in the grill, lit them and waited until the coals were an even gray. Heaven help me, but I think I may have wiped the grate with some lard or bacon grease before I put the chunks of meat on the fire.

Everything looked promising for the first three or four minutes. When I turned the meat, the bottom sides looked perfect. A couple of coals flared up as fat dripped off the meat, but as this often happened I was ready to sprinkle a few drops of water on the hot spot. However, more flare-ups occurred and rapidly grew into a conflagration. The remaining water seemed to fan the flames when I tossed it on the grill. Have you ever seen four pounds of flaming bear meat sending black smoke into the sky?

My father came out the door and told me that we had to put the fire out. “If we don’t do something quick, someone will call the fire department and we’ll have a fine for a false alarm. If it is a false alarm,” he added, looking at the flames rising above the eaves on the porch.

My mother rescued us. She came out with her big tea kettle and bravely doused the flames.

I don’t remember what we had for dinner that day, but I do remember that we gave the bear meat to Uncle Ruel and his family. He said that it was some of the best bear meat he had ever tasted.

Today I don’t do much grilling outside in the winter. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like standing out in the cold while the meat cooks, but it might be that I have learned how to make tasty country back ribs in the comfort of the kitchen. Once you put them in the oven, they cook for at least two hours, so you have plenty of time to read a book, watch TV or even take a nap if you have a good timer to wake you after an hour or so to check that the liquid in the pan has not boiled away.

INGREDIENTS:

Non-stick cooking spray or vegetable oil
2 – 3 lbs. country pork ribs
1/4 cup water or wine
1 T liquid smoke seasoning
1/4 – 1/3 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. rosemary
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. cayenne powder
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
About 3/4 cup barbecue sauce

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 325º and grease a nine by thirteen-inch covered baking pan or casserole.

If necessary cut the ribs into serving-size pieces and place them in a single layer in the pan. Pour a quarter cup of water around the meat and add a tablespoon of liquid smoke seasoning. If you have a mortar and pestle, grind the salt and spices together or just stir them together in cup and sprinkle the mixture evenly over the meat. Dribble your preferred barbecue sauce over and around the meat. I use from two-thirds to three-fourth cup of sauce, depending on how much meat is in the pan.

Cover the pan and put it on a center shelf in the oven. After an hour, check to make sure that there is still adequate liquid in the pan. Add a little water or wine if necessary. Check the pan every thirty minutes or so after the first hour.

Serve with more barbecue sauce and your choice of bread, potatoes and salad.

NOTES: Feel free to adjust the seasonings, but start with at least a teaspoon of liquid smoke seasoning. Make sure your oven is at or slightly below 325º when you start cooking the ribs. If you worry about the pan going dry, feel free to check the amount of liquid after forty-five minutes or so. You don’t want to boil the meat, so be careful not to add too much water.

Bob’s Liver and Bacon

My mother believed in providing nourishing meals to her husband and children. As you might expect, this led to some conflicts. My father, for instance, did not like cheese or mushrooms, but he ended up eating macaroni and cheese and cream of mushroom soup, and we kids faced a monthly dinner of liver and onions.

My sisters and I didn’t like the combination, but we choked down a little as we listened to a lecture about how much iron it had. Iron, we learned, helped our bodies make red blood cells, which we needed if we wanted to be able to run fast and work hard. We thought that we would do just fine with hamburgers, pot roast and fried chicken. I may have once pointed out that molasses cookies were a good source of iron too.

My mother was right, as you might expect. Liver is an excellent source of iron plus vitamins A, B and C along with other important minerals such as zinc and phosphorus. And if you are concerned about the calories and fat in the foods you eat, pork and beef liver have fewer calories and less fat than the same amount of steak or roast. One warning: liver contains so much vitamin A that it should not be eaten more than once a week.

Still, there is the problem of getting the family to eat liver. Jerri and I both remember liver and onions but not with fondness. That combination may have originated in England, where it is still popular and Americans developed a taste for it too. Liver and onions was so much in demand in the United States in the past century that fine restaurants advertised the dish and many cafes offered a liver and onion special once a week.

When Bob and I moved into our apartment in Madison, we agreed to share the kitchen chores equally. When Bob cooked, I did the dishes and he reciprocated. To begin with, we fried hamburgers, pork chops and chicken, opened cans of vegetables and boiled potatoes. After a few weeks, we began broadening our diets with other dishes. Bob introduced me to his mother’s hot dish and I reciprocated with Gus Gauch’s macaroni and cheese.

Sometime that summer Bob made me like fried liver. Instead of making liver and onions, he created his own recipe. it’s a winning combination of fried liver, bacon, creamed corn and boiled potatoes. Bob told me that his mother made liver and onions and gave him the same lecture I got about how it was good for him. Years later she confessed that she didn’t like liver and onions when she was having a second serving of Bob’s liver and bacon.

I brought the recipe with me when Jerri and I set up housekeeping in Virginia. Jerri’s salary as a teacher and my teaching fellowship provided enough money to live on if we were careful. One way to economize was to have liver and bacon twice a month. We could put a meal on the table for less than a dollar.

Economy was not the only reason we included liver and bacon on the menu. We actually looked forward to having a dinner of tender liver and home-smoked bacon from the meat market just a few blocks from our apartment. Today, unless you are very lucky, you will have to make do with frozen liver, but your dinner will turn out fine anyway and you can put a nourishing and tasty dinner on the table for under seven dollars.

Here is what you need.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. beef or pork liver
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large or 4 medium potatoes
1 tsp. salt, divided
1/4 to 1/3 lb. bacon
1 can creamed corn
3/4 cup milk
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

PROCEDURE:

If the liver is frozen, thaw it. You can do this simply by putting the package in the refrigerator in the morning; the meat will be thawed when you are ready to cook dinner.

Put the slices of liver in a shallow bowl, cover them with milk and let them sit on the counter for fifteen or twenty minutes while you peel the potatoes. If necessary turn them once or twice to make sure that all surfaces are in the milk for at least a few minutes.

Peel the potatoes, cut them in quarters and put them in a saucepan with about three-fourths of a teaspoon of salt. Bring them to a boil and cook them for twenty to twenty-five minutes until they are tender. Test them with a fork. Larger pieces take longer to cook. Drain the potatoes and leave them in the covered saucepan to remain warm while the meat finishes cooking.

While the potatoes are cooking, put six to eight slices of bacon in a frying pan and cook them over low heat until they begin to brown on both sides. Remove them from the pan before they are crisp. Leave all the grease in the pan.

Mix a quarter teaspoon of salt and a grind or two of black pepper with the flour on a plate. Raise the heat under the frying pan to medium. Drain the liver slices, dredge them in the flour and fry them for about three minutes on each side. Check for doneness by cutting into one of the thicker pieces. It should be barely pink when you take it from the pan.

Warm the creamed corn in the microwave or in a small saucepan while the liver is frying.

Diners can smash their own potatoes and cover them with creamed corn, choose their slices of liver and bacon and dig in. Pass the salt and pepper as some folks may like to grind a little pepper on their corn (as I do) or add a bit more seasoning to the meat.