3 Day Ribs + Slow Cooking During the Week

Marinating ribs while the sun is still up.

The question of cooking during the week has plagued the American public ever since women emancipated themselves and abandoned the kitchen for the workplace. Cooking a hearty, American  style meal is difficult if you get off work at 5 or 6 and you want to eat before 8 to avoid feeling gross in bed. Specifically, cooking a meat protein source that is not a wealthy man's cut like a fine steak can be challenging when all you've got is a small window of time.

The meats I regularly purchase and cook include ribs, roasts, butts, shoulders, and bellies. Not only do I prefer the taste of melty slow cooked fat and collagen, but they are usually cheaper to boot! One of the opportunity costs of removing the housewife or househusband from the equation is that it is tough to cook anything but more expensive meat after work (pun?). Well worth it for equal rights and opportunities, but a pity for the amateur, cheap gourmand.

Cooking a heavy cheap(er) piece of meat requires multiple steps:
brining/marinating (1-48 hours)
acclimating to room temperature (30-60 minutes)
browning (10-25 minutes)
roasting (1-6 hours) braising (1.5-3 hours) stewing (1.5-4 hours)
resting/cooling (20 minutes - 4 hours/next day)
warming (20 minutes) grilling - 'gotta get the grill going' (45 minutes)

The fast possible combination would be: acclimating (30 min), roasting (1 hr), and then resting (20 minutes) = 1 hour and 50 minutes. In this case you have not browned your meat, you haven't brined or marinated it, and you've roasted it at a higher temperature then you might have done otherwise.

All this means is that you and I have to plan ahead!

Cooking a half rack of pork back ribs over 3 days.

Los ribs - ready to get started

Monday: Marinating (25 minutes of effort)
Assemble the ingredients for the marinade:
leftover coffee from the morning, poured back through the grounds to give it more body.
2 chipotle peppers
molasses
2 allspice things
bay leaves
pinch of salt

Stuff to make a marinade.

Heat it in a pan for a few to soften the chilies and melt in the molasses.

Cool it.

Forgot that I would need to cool the marinade so I split it up between some ice cold mugs.

Put it in a freezer bag with the ribs, and suck the air out.

Place in fridge on a plate.

Tuesday: Roasting (15 minutes of effort)
 Take the ribs out of the marinade, let them come to room temperature.
Reserve the majority of the marinade.
Double wrap them in foil with a little marinade.
Roast them at just above 200 degrees F for 4-5 hours.

Put them back in the fridge

Wednesday: Grilling (1 hour of effort)
Get the grill going hot.
Reduce the marinade with more molasses, vinegar, tomato paste, almond dust, or whatever to make a sauce.
Brush the sauce on the ribs and grill em for 15 min fat down until they are crispy for real.
Then finish 5 min bones down with the grill covered.

Grilling the ribs and some butternut squash stuffed with red kale and goat gouda.

They are super soft!