Smoked Spare Rib Tacos
Traditional southern BBQ is awesome. Mexican food is awesomer. So I took a staple of southern bbq, St. Louis cut spare ribs, and put them in a taco. American bbq and Mexican food fusion is what I like to call Mexique.
The origins of Mexique (my version) started when I used to travel around the US for my work as a videographer, often in the south. When we traveled in the south we always went out for bbq, where I fell in love with it. When we returned to San Diego I always stopped on the way home for tacos and roughly 256 ounces of Mountain Dew. It was during that Mountain Dew high that I came up with the idea for Mexique. I get all my best ideas when I’m drinking alcohol or Mountain Dew. But I only remember the ideas that were born during Mountain Dew consumption.
What you’ll need -
spare ribs -I used St. Louis cut but plain ole spare ribs or baby backs are fine
corn tortillas
white onion
cilantro
tomatillo salsa (salsa verde)
salt
pepper
garlic powder
Mexican chili powder - most grocery stores have New Mexican, California, ancho, or chipotle chili powder. Any would work, although the flavors aren’t the same. But they all would blend well with the other spices.
cumin
brown sugar
aluminum foil
a smoker, or grill - youtube has 100’s of videos to show you how use your grill as a smoker
Start with seasoning or “rubbing” your ribs. Season them well, but you don’t have to smother them in rub like many do with traditional bbq. Here are the ratios. I’m not going to give you exact amounts because it’s easier to convert ratios. This isn’t rocket science. Just put the rub on.
2 parts chili powder and cumin
1 part garlic powder, and brown sugar
1/2 part salt and pepper
Once they’re ready put them in the smoker (just use whatever wood chunks/chips you have, this isn’t a bbq competition) at 225 degrees for 3 hours. After 3 hours take them out and wrap them in aluminum foil. Double layer it if you can, you don’t want a hole to let all the juice out. Wrap them with the meat side down. The reason you do this is so they will basically braise in their own juice, and they won’t dry up. They’ll be moist and juicy, just like Dom Deluise.
Put them back in the smoker for another 2 hours. Pull them out and check them. Here’s where you take another turn from traditional bbq. With traditional bbq you’d want to put them back in without the foil, so they don’t lose the “bark” on the outside of the ribs. But we’re making tacos. So we’re going to leave them in the foil. Leave them in until you can pull the bones right out of the meat. In traditional bbq the meat should come clean off the bone, but it shouldn’t fall off the bone. When you cook it longer it falls off the bone and becomes more tender. This is what we’re going for here. We’re essentially overcooking the meat so you can pull the bones right out of it. That wouldn’t work well for eating ribs by hand, but it’s perfect for tacos.
After pulling out the bones chop up the rib meat into smaller perfect for taco sized pieces. Throw them on a hot pan to crisp them up a little so they get a texture similar to carnitas.
While you’re doing that, heat up some tortillas, and serve the tacos with some diced white onion, cilantro, and tomatillo salsa (salsa verde). You can use my recipe for the tomatillo salsa here:
If you use store bought salsa that’s ok. Just don’t buy that awful stuff in the jars. Get real salsa. Guacamole (home made) would be excellent on this taco as well, but you knew that already. Ok, bye!