Ribbed for my pleasure

It's a sad fact, but quite often I am guilty of quickly scanning a recipe and thinking that although I don't have all the ingredients or really enough time, I can probably wing it. 

And quite often I am wrong. 

And the last bank holiday weekend was no exception. The forecast was good, with a whole day extra of weekend courtesy of May Day. 

So having spent big on a half leg of lamb (great butterflied and grilled fast directly over the coals) I threw caution to the wind - and my wallet to the wolves - and added 2 racks of ribs. 

Quickly scanning the internet for a recipe, I found one on the Guardian - from an award-winning BBQ chef no less.
I had no more than 50% of the ingredients listed; no oven thermometer and only 3 hours to spare rather than the 4 or so mentioned, but I pressed on anyway.

And I'm pleased I did. Because somewhat unusually the end result was really really good. So here's what I learnt.

The first stage of slow, indirect, cooking in a lowish heat, can be done in about an hour. The crucial thing is to apply a dry rub with some paprika and sugar and a few herbs (well that's all I had anyway).

The wrapping in foil needs to be super-tight because the sweet stuff of honey and sugar - is apt to leak unless it is. But again it doesn't require every ingredient and the full amount of time.

What really makes the difference is a decent BBQ sauce - with some heat and depth to contrast with the sticky ribs. And my big tip here is to use some dried chipotle chilies along with plenty of brown sauce and ketchup. They make a real difference to the flavour. In fact the sauce I had was made a couple of weeks before from a hairy bikers recipe. Given the high sugar and vinegar content this will keep perfectly well in the fridge for that time. 

I'll never know if my ribs would have been as good if I'd followed the recipe, but it did prove that sometimes we get too concerned about following a recipe to the letter, when actually using our own judgement would work out just as well.