Deviled Country-Style Pork Ribs

Rib Date: September 21, 2014

Ribsters: Wiss family, Stults family

We celebrated our good friend Barry Wiss' anniversary of his 29th birthday with a little dinner party at the house, featuring the final entry into Rex's Rib Review, at least as we now know it. 

They say (whomever "they" be) "Always leave 'em wanting more."  I can't say the Deviled Country-Style Ribs did that.  At least not for me.

The Deviled Country-Style Ribs most closely resembled an old school diner-style breaded, fried pork chop.  Simple comfort food.

The recipe comes from Iowa, which makes sense.  It was a contribution to Steven Raichlen's, "Ribs, Ribs, Ribs" book by his assistant, Nancy Loseke, a native Iowan. Loseke's grandmother, born on an Iowa farm and raised there since 1898, used to make breaded pork chops for Sunday supper, and it was those Sunday suppers that inspired this recipe.

The ribs are brined for 6 hours in a salt, brown sugar, water solution.  They get dried then smothered in a wet rub (shallots, garlic, tarragon, white wine, mustard, pepper) then covered in bread crumbs ( gluten free for us). 

I set up my Weber grill in the three zone arrangement-- coals on the outsides, drip pan in the center-- and cooked the ribs over the indirect portion for about 45 minutes.  My wife, the sexy sous chef, did all the hard work-- the prep-- I did the cooking, which was in the dark by then.  That's kinda hard.  Right?

Grilling in the dark

We've all known guests that come over empty handed.  Kim and Barry Wiss, joined by her Mamma, Gramma Pat, are opposite of that.  They bring too much stuff!  This time it included a bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc, a bottle of Champagne, a mountain of shrimp Pat just brought in with her that day from New Orleans.  And they brought nachos from C Casa in the Oxbow.  A little OTT.

We served the Deviled Country-Style ribs with some mashed taters and white gravy.  Excellent decision it turned out!  And some nice wine Kim brought home from work. She works at Antica Napa Valley winery, which makes good wine, especially their Sangiovese.

Comments from the Ribsters

Finished ribs

My wife Gillian agreed they tasted like a breaded pork chop, a comment with which Kim agreed, adding that they tasted better smothered in gravy.  Doesn't everything?  Barry, upon hearing that, got seconds and successfully employed the smother technique.  He concurred.  Better with gravy. 

Gramma Pat wasn't a fan.  "Too thick," she said.  She basically said if you want a breaded pork chop, have a breaded pork chop.  Don't try to turn a rib into one.  Hard to argue with her logic.

As for me?  Again, an interesting recipe that was fun to try, but I won't be repeating anytime soon. 

Well, that wraps up this little three year project.  I'll post a separate concluding message sometime soon.  I'm debating between just calling it quits all together or morphing this into something else, as some have suggested.  If you have a suggestion or comment, make it on the blog or feel free to tweet me at @RexStults or email it to RexStults@sbcglobal.net.