Smoked Baby Back Ribs with Cornbread and Tangy Sweet Spinach

After a trip to the farmers market I had picked up some beautiful pork baby back ribs.  My plan was to smoke the ribs after giving them a nice rub.   Then make my own bbq sauce that had real depth of flavor.  I would make a sweet and tangy greens with spinach to bring something fun to the plate.   I would finish it off with a simple cornbread to wash it all down.

So first order of business was the BBQ sauce.  That was the part of this dish that would take as long as the ribs.   So I assembled a list of all star ingredients to really help me make a robust and flavorful BBQ sauce.    Here was my list:

Scallions
Leeks
Dried Thai Chilis
Dried New Mexican Chilis
Mushrooms
Chives
Thyme
Brown Sugar
Water
Cider Vinegar

I chopped it all up and threw it in a stock pot to boil it down and concentrate the flavor.  I then combined it together with ketchup, worcestershire, brown sugar, and honey.

I whisked it all together and cooked it down so I could develop a nice sauce with it.

Now cooking down and thickening it up is the most critical step to having a wonderful bbq sauce.   Here is a picture of the sauce cooking down into a sweet and sour delicious bbq sauce.

I them developed a rub to develop some nice flavor on the porky goodness while I smoked it.   So I combined together the following spices and seasoning:

Salt

Black Peppercorns

Brown Sugar

Garam Masala

Red Pepper Flakes

Paprika

I mashed them all up in my mortar and pestle.   I then rubbed it down all over my beautiful farm fresh pork baby back ribs.   

I then smoked the ribs for 4 hours with hickory wood chips.   I love hickory wood chips and how they make ribs taste.   They are one of my favorite chips to smoke with.  

I then boiled the spinach in a tiny bit of water with the drained vegetables from the bbq sauce stock.   I mixed it all together and added some honey to sweeten it up a bit.     I quickly baked up a nice batch of cornbread and voila.

Delicious

Brooklyn

Smoked

BBQ

YUM!