[Puke]

death ribs, and the story of how they came to be:

since the early 90s, some associates of mine have been in the habit of making obnoxiously hot speghetti sauce. always from scratch, and in large batches that usually Last for several weeks. the challenge soon became to make a sauce that could not be eaten, (consuming a full plate of speghetti (i know im spelling that wrong) coated with copious (spelled that wrong too) ammounts of the sauce) and on one drunken night they suceeded. no one remembered quite how, but for a long time after we tried to recreate the process. sometimes we roasted our own peppers, sometimes we just dumped in hotsauces and cheese and wine.

Then we started eating the habenjero (spelled that wrong too) burgers from the prince of whales pub. about a eight inch of habenjero pepper paste smeared on top of a half pound burger. most people cant finish their third bite, but if you are in the business of eatting spicy food, you know its all psycological. after the second bite, you mouth cant actually get any hotter than it already is, so you might as well keep going. after eating two in a row, i decided three things. (1) those things tasted like crap (2) the endorpins going through my body were about as entoxicating as any drug on the street, and (3) if we put our minds to it, we could concoct something better than those lame burgers.

now, you have to understand that we could not actually make anything hotter than those burgers, not without inflicting chemical burns. and besides, you could not actually convince your nerve endings that anything was any hotter than that anyway, even if your flesh was peeling off. our goal was to make something that tasted better. we decided on ribs.

anybody who knows their hotsauce has heard of Daves Gourmet Insanity Sauce, which is about as hot as most things get. the problem is, it tastes like crud. We tried making the ribs with bunches of stuff, from my favorite sauce, Scorned Woman, to custom sauces made from various peppers, vegetables, and spices. then we found Blair's.

Blair makes a product called Blair's Death Sauce, which you can find with a simple web search, and you can buy it in cases of 12 bottles. each bottle comes with a little skull keychain, and i have on on the key to my motorcycle right now. Blair's sauce is as hot as Dave's, and it tastes GOOD. the next step up from the Death Sauce, is his After Death sauce, and thats what we used for the ribs. these days, there are other flavours and higher potency stuff, but i like to stick with the After Death sauce because it tastes a bit better than his more concentrated extracts, and for this project we didnt really need to get any hotter than we had gotten.

so. now we have our main ingrediant. for the Ribs, Draegers sells English Short Ribs that are about 10-11 inches long, 3.5 inches wide, and 2.5 inches tall. i have know idea what they weigh, but i think 4 of them set me back about $60 the Last time i bought some. your local grocer or butcher probably has something similar, so try to get something of sufficient size and have it cracked 3 times.

since these are death ribs, you are probably not going to taste any other garnishing ingrediants that you might othewise cook into a marinade. i can share some more mild rib recipies that have complex flavorful sauces, but these are a bit simpler.

coat your ribs in coarse ground pepper, and really rub it deap into the meat. you want every edge coated, since most of its going to fall off into the marinade as it soaks.

fry up some garlic, about 10-15 cloves ought to do it. chop them up into tiny little pieces (use a cuisinart if you are lazy) and slap them in a pan with about a quarter stick of butter. dont fry it too long though, because the chemicals in the sauce will break it down the rest of the way for you.

pack the garlic around the meat (some people think its good enough to just dump the garlic in. they could be right), and place the ribs with the pepper and the garlic into a pot big enough to hold them. it will probably take your largest stew pot.

then pour in the After Death sauce and some beer. You are going to want a very rich, dark beer. our beer of choice is Spatten Optimator, you may like Chimmay or Duvel (although they are not as dark). the purpose of the alcohol is to help break down the other ingrediants, tenderize the meat, and act as an agent to help soak the other flavours into the ribs. you should have gotten the 12 pack of blairs After Death sauce, and if your ribs are able to lay flat in your container you should use enough to cover them. if they have to stand up, you will probably not be able to cover them, so i think its a good idea to either stir the entire concoction periodically, or to rotate / flip the ribs. the basic mixture you will want to use is about 3 parts After Death Sauce to 2 parts alcohol. I think this came out to 9 bottles of sauce to roughly 2 bottles of Optimator, but will depend on the size and shape of your container.

let it soak for a little over 48 hours, and you are ready to grill. now, after having touched the sauce, it wont burn your hands. but SCRUB and WASH thoroughly until your skin is raw before touching your eyes, mouth, nose, or other mucus-membranes.

now to grill, you must observe caution. I always like a low heat and slow grill, leaving the inside a nice shade of pink for that perfect medium rare. the chemicals have probably partially cooked the stuff for you, so i doubt anything will be pink when your done. also, dont be supprised if the meat has already fallen off the bone when you take it out of the sauce.

these will be big hunks of meat, so it IS important to grill slow, and rotate often. putting them on the grill is easy enough, but be VERY CAREFUL when tending the grill and turning the ribs. the smoke WILL burn your eyes, and you dont want to inhale it. grill outside, and stay inside. only go out to make adjustments and turn the ribs. if the sauce spatters on you while it is cooking, you must understand that the bits that spatter are concentrated chili oil extract and will give you a chemical burn if you dont wash it off. wear goggles and gloves (or oven mits) when tending the grill. hold your breath while you are outside, or wear a mask. baste the grill from your remaining hotsauce to keep the meat from drying out (should not be too much of a problem if you soaked them long enough).

now Chop the things in thirds, and cut them off the bone if they did not fall off already. serve as you like, but have large quantities of beer and water on hand. I ate 2 (2/3 of a rib) and probably put down about 8 beers the Last time we did these.

they were as hot as the habenjero burgers, but with a rich jucy flavor that just made your mouth water for the taste at the same time your eyes were tearing and nose running from the heat. same endorphin high, to describe the feeling, you get a happy tingling feeling in your cheeks and all through your body similar to the feeling you get when your foot 'falls asleep.' you may feel like you are sweatting only to find your forehead dry when you try to wipe it. be sure to eat about a quart of icecream afterwards, or you will have serious stomach problems the next day, and visiting the water closet will be a painful experience unless you have had the icecream or other creamy coating substance.