Basic boil-then-bake BBQ pork ribs recipe

This is based on the Simple BBQ Ribs recipe.

This is easy to make.  The ribs are first boiled, then baked in an oven.

500g of ribs is enough for smallish portions for 2 people.  It could be enough for 2 mains if accompanied by some fairly substantial sides.  It's pretty easy to adjust the recipe for a greater amount of ribs.

• pork ribs, approx 500g
• garlic powder, 1/2 tbsp; OR garlic, 4 cloves, roughly chopped
• salt, 1 tbsp
• ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp
• barbeque sauce, 1/2 cup

Boil ribs

Place ribs in a large pot with enough water to cover.

Add garlic, salt, and black pepper.

Bring water to a gentle boil, and cook ribs until tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.


Bake ribs

Preheat oven to 165C (325F).

Remove ribs from pot, and lay them out flat in a baking dish.

Pour barbeque sauce over ribs.

Cover dish with aluminum foil, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 to 1.5 hours.


Note

• There's two types of pork ribs: Loin back (aka baby back) ribs, and Spare ribs (aka St. Louis style spares).  The latter takes a bit longer to cook.  I believe I used the former type for this recipe (the packet of ribs I used didn't specify what type they were).  I would imagine that this recipe would work pretty well without any adjustments for both types.  Shops also sell "boneless" ribs, which aren't actually from the ribs area.  I'd use the proper kind of ribs for this recipe.  More details on the types of ribs here.

Variations

These are from comments on the original recipe.

• The ribs can be boiled and coated in BBQ sauce in advance, and kept in fridge (e.g. in a zip-lock bag), or even frozen, until you're ready to bake them.
• The liquid from boiling the ribs can be used to cook accompaniments in, and thus impart some flavour to them.  For example, boil some potatoes (to have whole or mashed) or other vegetables (e.g. carrots, beans, cabbage, broccoli) in it, or cook rice in it.
• add various additional items to the water to cook the ribs in
• some onion (about 1/2 an onion)
• worcestershire sauce (about 1/2 tbsp)
• before putting the BBQ sauce on the ribs, put them under a grill (or on a BBQ grill) for a few minutes.  Apparently this will make the meat texture more like grilled ribs.
• at the very end, put the ribs under a grill (or on a BBQ grill) for a few minutes to give them a little bit of a char.
• leave the ribs in the water for between an hour to a couple of hours after boiling it.  Periodically baste the ribs with more BBQ sauce.  I'm not sure what difference these make, as the results were quite good without doing either of them.