Cooking for Air Force enlistee - need some help

[Steve M.]

I have a office lunch I'm smoking two 13 # turkeys on Friday. I won't be able to return home until 2pm. The dilemma is, for dinner (6:30'ish) I am also supposed to prepare ribs for a young man leaving to enlist in the Air Force. He is a close family friend and has always enjoyed my ribs. I sure don't want to compromise his last taste of good food before he departs.

Is there some process that I can use to "pre-cook" the ribs somehow and finish up when I return. I have time on Thursday afternoon / evening to do the ribs if necessary.

Since I have never done any rib cooks, other than smoke and serve, I don't know what my options are. Any suggestions?

 

[K Kruger]

Well, you can cook a higher heat and shorten the cook (I do ribs this way) or you can cook ahead of time and reheat for serving. If cooking ahead you can take just to the point of tenderness and remove the ribs then allow them to cool before storage in the fridge. Ribs can be reheated on a grill using direct or indirect heat, or both, in a microwave, in simmering water (provided they were vac-packed after cooling), or foiled in an oven.

Some who sauce ribs during cooking normally, skip the sauce when cooking ahead and instead sauce when reheating on the grill. Others sauce anyway and reheat already sauced.

 

[Eric Aarseth]

Can your 6:30 start be cocktails and appetizers and while your guest(s) are enjoying those, you can finish up the ribs in normal course. Dinner may not be served until 7:30 or 8:00 but it will be fashionably late. You can forewarn dinner will be a little later and no one will have contrary expectations.

Part of the fun is watching someone taking the ribs hot of the grill.