Foodie Friday: Easy BBQ Baby Back Ribs & Red Zinfandel

Foodie Friday!!!

Hello again everyone. I have so missed participating in Foodie Friday but now I'm back with a very tasty, summer recipe and some wine to go with it. You just might find yourself baking or grilling these babies real soon. Enjoy! Please visit Designs by Gollum for more tasty recipes.

Serves 4 (or 2 depending how hungry you are)

2 racks of Baby Back Ribs

2 TBSP oil (olive or canola works fine)

Garlic Powder

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 red onion

1/2 cup water or better yet - vegetable broth

1 bottle of original BBQ Sauce

You may want to cut the rib racks in half to make it easier to fit in a large pan.

Wash the ribs, pat dry with paper towel. Rub them with oil. Sprinkle with garlic powder - just a little; salt and pepper. Slice up onion and place in a shallow pan, top with ribs. It's OK if they overlap :-)

Add broth or water to the pan. Cover the pan with aluminum foil.

Cook at 350 for about 1.5 hour. Check for doneness. Meat should be tender and pull apart easily.

When done, remove foil, drain excess water from the pan. Brush ribs with BBQ sauce. Lots of BBQ sauce. I love it sticky, gooey, yummy. OK sorry.

Return to the oven and cook for another 15-20 minutes. Check it often so it doesn't burn. Keep adding BBQ sauce, and cook another 5 minutes longer. Oh yummy. This is a deliciously messy meal.

I serve this with Potato Salad, Garden Salad, Corn Bread, and of course a nice glass of Red Zinfandel.

Speaking of Zinfandel - here's Neil from On The Grapevine once again with a little background on the Zinfandel family of wines. Enjoy!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

whiteZinfandel.jpg">

Photo from Wines.com

Zinfandel is a very popular wine grape variety in the USA with 21,000 ha (52,500 acres) under vine in California alone. It is third only to Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the red grape growing stakes there. It is not popular in Australia where only 140ha (350 acres) are grown. In fact Australia exports most of this variety to the USA. It tends to be a little fickle from a viticulture point of view, demonstrating uneven ripening, rain damage and bunch rot as well as not coping well with mechanical harvesting.

DNA testing revealed that it was genetically matched to the Croatian variety Crijenak Kasrelanski (where it originated) and the Italian variety Primitivo. All three however have developed distinctive clonal differences in their country of cultivation over several hundred years. It is thought that the variety arrived in the USA into Boston via Austria around 1830 and made its way to California in 1850.

Wines made from this grape come in many different styles. In the USA, these range from rose¢s and light reds through to big alcoholic reds and fortifieds as well as late harvest dessert wines. White Zinfandel is a semi sweet blush ie. pale pink, wine that has picked up some colour from its short contact with the red skins of the grape during vinification. It could also be called a Rose¢ but this term is usually used for pink wines that are dry.

In the USA sales of White Zinfandel are six times that of the red wine.

White Zinfandel goes with pasta dishes (especially those with creamy sauces), fish, pork, lamb, hams, mild cheeses, antipasto, egg dishes, Asian and Indian food and most desserts.

Red Zinfandel wines can have an alcoholic content of 15% or more and many can be ‘hot’, big, full bodied and even jammy. But on average, with good wine making techniques, Red Zinfandel can have good fruit, with blackberry, raspberry, plum and cherry aromas and flavours. They can also have hints of earthiness, chocolate, leather and spice, but are not usually considered too complex. The tannins are usually moderate, generally balanced with good acidity and a pleasant mouth-feel.

Foods that go well with Red Zinfandel include sausage, beef, lamb, pork and venison, all either braised, grilled or roasted. Because of its lower tannin content, this wine can take some heat from chillies. Ribs with a spicy barbecue sauce are considered almost a classic match. Zinfandel friendly cheese include aged Parmesan, Dry Monterey Jack and Manchego. Zinfandel also goes well in recipes that include tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms and olives.

Visit Neil at On The Grapevine to read more about wine, grapes, and travel adventures.