upn30memphis

© mu foo

Many restaurants that serve barbecue ribs don't cook them in smokers, but Memphis-style ribs are always slow smoked with hickory to produce a beautiful smoke ring. A smoke ring is the pink coloration that is just under the surface of a great barbecue. Many restaurants boil ribs, brush them with sauce, slap them on the grill for a few minutes and then serve them.

Restaurants that use smokers will typically use a dry spice rub on the ribs, smoke them for two hours, baste with a spiced vinegar solution, wrap them in foil, smoke for another two hours and then remove the foil and smoke for two hours more. These smoked, Memphis-style ribs are delicious with or without barbecue sauce since the spices from the dry rub are cooked deep into the meet. Black beans, french fries and cornbread are great traditional sides to accompany these barbecue ribs.

© Camelot Party Rentals

I recently helped a friend plan an outdoor party. She lives a fair distance from me so, while I was going to join her a few of days before the party to help prepare, we did the initial planning over the phone, with both of us online. The menu we planned was to include a variety of meats and we enjoyed perusing the internet for ideas. In fact I had suggested a variety of meats because I'd read that meat and savoury herb stewing techniques were developed in Anglo-Saxon England before common use in Europe. So we were going to celebrate this aspect of our culinary history!…and throw in some barbecue to include a more modern element as well! In our persual, we eventually found out that it's possible to actually buy beef online! This piqued my friend's interest and it also proved to be a good way for us to do the planning together, since we could look at the selection at the same time from our respective locations. As we explored further, we were both surprised to see that even wild game meat is available online. Were we the last to know? In any case, that fit in perfectly with our menu theme. Having our Anglo Saxon ancestors in mind, we took a moment to appreciate the amazing change in human experience, with technology allowing such a vastly different means of procuring meat! The outcome was a great success and I also enjoyed seeing how the internet continues to bridge people, points in time, and what have you, in unexpected ways!

© miikkahoo

The Hotel InterContinental likes to spice up their lunch and dinner buffets with exotic additions, often from celebrity chefs like Rosebud Benitez. She hosts the popular TV cooking show "Quickfire: 10-Minute Kitchen Wonders", which airs several times daily on GMA News TV. One of Rosebud's winning recipes that the hotel chain will be featuring is her grilled barbecue pork ribs.

These ribs are slowly cooked in cola soft drink, which helps to flavor and tenderize the usually tough cut of meat. They are then grilled and basted with lychee and rum sauce. Other tasty dishes from Rosebud that will be featured at the hotel include a pasta dish coated with pesto sauce made with cashew nuts, basil leaves, cilantro and sesame oil, and battered prawns enhanced with a dip of red curry sauce.