What a week, huh? We saw the worst team in college football whomp on a school in the Power 2. We had rain delays and power outages delaying games. Clock controversies that are still being litigated, and the season has just started! What a silly sport we love. I can only imagine what’s still to come. All I know is I’m going to still be in the Sickos Committee Food Lab every week pumping out a new food fusion for you. And this week, I’m still kicking around the G5 and being fly like a G6.

Boise State played like they had the mandate of heaven. They caught an Oregon team off guard and really took them to the wire, almost walking out with a win. Meanwhile, Memphis is riding high at 2-0 with wins over UNLV and Arkansas State. We have a good matchup between the AAC and the new PAC-12 on our hands, and let’s make sure we’ve got some good eats to go with it.

Go into any football forum on the internet, and you’ll see as many people arguing about barbecue as they are arguing about football. Everybody claims their region’s style is the best. I’m not going to weigh in on that right now. I don’t want to wake up to an angry mob at my door. But I am here to pay homage to Memphis BBQ today. When I think about Memphis, I think about ribs. They’re a little smoky, a little sweet, a little spicy, and very delicious. There seems to be a split on whether you order them dry (unsauced) or wet (sauced), but all my research says dry is the way to go, so that’s what we’ll be doing here.

Now hopping across the country and going to Boise, how can you not think about potatoes? I mean, The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is played on Boise’s iconic blue turf. Idaho took the potato crown from Maine back in 1957 and never looked back. Baked potatoes are super easy to customize for a great meal too.

Makes about 12-13 tbsp

Every pitmaster has their own rub recipe, so it’s hard to define what makes a true Memphis-style rub. But the general consensus is that they’re a combination of salty, sweet, and a little earthy. You can definitely add some heat if you want. You might even be able to find a Memphis rub at your grocery store, but part of the fun is making your own to your liking.

My recipe is as follows:

Mix all these spices together and store in an airtight container. It’s good on ribs, pork, chicken, pretty much anything!

Now for the fun part, making the ribs! If you’re a traditionalist, you’ll want to get a rack of baby back ribs. But plenty of people will pick up some St. Louis style spare ribs for a meatier rib. I opted to get a rack of each. Remove your ribs from the packaging, flip them over, and carefully peel the membrane off the back of the ribs. Note, this step is optional, but it’s something I like to do. Plenty of people will leave the membrane on or score it with a knife, but I like to remove it. If you need some help, take a butter knife or a spoon and start to peel at the corner. Grab the membrane with a paper towel, and pull it away from the bones.

Proceed to sprinkle your rub over the ribs, making sure to press it into the meat. I know they call it a rub, but you don’t actually want to rub it because that will cause it to clump and give you uneven coverage. So just sprinkle and press on both sides of the ribs until they’re nice and covered in the spice.

For the cook, I preheated my smoker to 275°F and let it sit there for about 10-15 minutes to make sure the grill was nice and ready. Place the ribs on the grates, bone-side down, and close the lid. Do not touch the ribs for one hour to give them a good chance to absorb the smoke. After an hour, you can start to spritz the ribs with a mixture of apple juice and apple cider vinegar every 30 to 45 minutes. The occasional spritzing will help keep the meat moist to allow the outside to trap more smoke particles and let the sugars caramelize. This will give you that good bark!

It’s hard to use a thermometer to accurately check the temperature of ribs. You have to get the probe into the meat but not touch the bone. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to tell visually when they’re ready. The meat will start to pull back from the end bone. And when you pull the ribs up by one side, the meat will start to split. This is called the "bend test." When both of these happen, you know the ribs are ready to eat. For me, this took about 5 hours of smoking at 275°F, but your mileage may vary.

After you pull the meat off the grill, let it rest for about 10-15 minutes before you start cutting into them. If you’re serving your ribs dry, make sure to give them another good sprinkle of rub!

As you’re nearing the last half hour or so of the cook, it’s time to get started on the baked potato. Preheat your oven to 400F. While that’s coming to temperature, prep your potatoes by first giving them a good wash. I like to stab mine all over with a fork to allow steam to escape while they’re baking. I don’t know if there’s a legitimate risk of exploding potatoes, but I’d rather not find out. Cover the outside of the potatoes with some oil and a good sprinkling of salt. Then bake them in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour until they are fork-tender. Once ready, remove the potatoes from the oven and let them cool for about 10 minutes or so. When they’re cool enough to touch but still warm, take a knife to cut the potato in half. Scoop out the inside of the potato, leaving a thin layer on the inside of the potato skin. Place the potato in the middle in a bowl.

Put the potato skins back in the oven for another 10 minutes to help crisp the skin. While baking, add butter, sour cream, a splash of milk, and some black pepper to the bowl of potatoes. Mash and combine ingredients. Add some shredded cheese and chopped rib meat to the mixture and fold it all together.

Remove the potato skins from the oven, fill them with the mixture from the bowl into heaping piles, and place them back in the oven under the broiler for 3-5 minutes until the cheese has melted and the tops of the potatoes start to brown.

Remove everything from the oven one more time, add some sliced green onion and another sprinkle of the Memphis rub, and enjoy!

As a BBQ judge, we are trained that for a competition rib, it should not fall off the bone. There should be a clear crescent in the meat from where you take your bite. But for a backyard-style cook here, fall-off-the-bone ribs are more than acceptable. And actually for this dish it’s super ideal. Easy to remove and easy to chop up for a potato filling! I’m normally a saucy rib kind of guy, and living in the Midwest gets you used to KC-style BBQ. But these dry ribs were still great! And I love that I have a jar of spice rub that I can use on other things.

They worked great in the baked potato here. I’m not surprised, I mean bacon is a typical ingredient. Using pork ribs is a great substitute. The ribs are meatier than crumbled bacon, and the rub gives the whole thing a more complex flavor. Everything still pairs with the sour cream and the cheese for a very pleasant experience.

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