My take on Fast Food Ribs...

I have really been longing to make a visit to Burger King to savor some of their new BBQ Pork Ribs, but I have been so busy I have not been able to take the time to get fast food.

I find myself wondering how they make their ribs. I mean, when I make ribs, it takes several hours, yet Burger King is fast food, meaning they will get your food to you in a minute or two. Their motto is "Have it your way", so if I want I should be able to custom order my ribs, like say "Hold the mustard slather and sauce" or something like that.

So the King must be making their ribs in minutes, not hours. My first thought was naturally that these must not be "real ribs" and are probably something like a McRib from McDonalds. However, I have read the news stories and seen the pictures. These are real pork ribs with bones in them!:shock: This is when I realized that those ribs are going to suck, like really suck, bad. You can't cook a real pork rib that fast. You can reheat one, but please, let's not go there.

So I began wondering if I was the Burger King, what kind of fast food ribs would I make at my restaurant? This is the result of that wondering.

Since I am making my ribs from scratch, and not making "real pork ribs", I have a lot of creative leeway.

First I arranged the "bones" like so...


Then I applied the pork "rib meat". This is a blend of spicy and mild.


I decided I would give these ribs a mustard slather, everyone knows pork ribs use a mustard slather, right?


I gave it some Ployboy's Bovine Bold rub because it seemed fitting with this being about Burger King and all, and the use of Bovine Bold will make customers wonder if they are eating pork ribs or beef ribs, which is always a good idea.


Since Burger King flame-broils their food, I figured I would replicate this by grilling offset on my kettle. I put the ribs on meat side up. I could have put it meat side down, but figured the meat might stick to the bones better if cooked this way.


Here they are a few minutes in...


And a few minutes later (notice the pig honey).


At this point I decided to flip them. I lost some rub and slater during the flipping on the meat side due to my flipping technique, so i may have to sauce them up real good to fix the appearance. Anyway, here's the bone side...


A few minuntes later and they were 165 (they were coming up to temp when I snapped this). I figure if chicken ribs are done at 165, then these should be ready to go.


So here they are right off the grill (notice the pullback)...


And here they are sliced...


I arranged this so you can see the interior meat. Also, I did not cut clean between the bones on one rib and wound up slicing through the bone, as you can see right there. On the right is a piece I sampled. The meat comes off the bone clean, but does not fall off the bone.


I ate a couple ribs and was stuffed! After I thought about it I figured out why...each rib is just about 1/2 pound of meat!

I think the bones could be improved. They were the least tasty part of the ribs. The meat was great however, so as long as you don't eat the bones I think you will be very pleased with these ribs. And they were done in just minutes!

Thanks for checking out my ribs.

Wow, lots of comments!:shock:

I think they would have looked better with sauce too, but with these being my first attempt at these kinds of "ribs" I wanted to try them dry to get a feel for what the ribs realy tasted like. I had sauce on the side for dipping, and honestly, if there is a next time I will sauce these, I liked them better with sauce.

I liked the rib meat, it was good. It's kind of somewhere between and fatty and a pork sausage burger. I didn't care for the weiners in the middle as much, but I'm just not a big hot dog fan either for that matter. If I could find some thin Kielbasa or other kind of sausage, maybe even brats, I would rather do that. They were not at all fall off the bone, you could hold one like a regular rib, and bite off some meat. The meat was not as attached to the "bone" of course, but the outer meat had cooked around the hot dog and held on good enough to stay together. I was actually kind of surprised at that.

As for patents or these being the next big thing...I guess they would need a name first. I was thinking about calling them "Ribs", but since that name is already taken I have to come up with something different. "Hot Dog Ribs" could have worked I suppose, but I don't want to frighten the kiddies or their puppies.

With some work, using different meat for the bones, some fine-tuning the bark, some glaze, I think they would make a very novel entry for an "Anything Butt" category, and could easily be made very tasty, and I'm not just saying that because I made them. They were good like this and has a lot of room for making adjustments really.

I still haven't had the ribs at BK, but I would be very surprised if they were better than these.

BTW, my wife saw me taking pics of these, looked at me funny, and hasn't said a word to me since.