Asian-Spiced Rib Tips Recipe

October 19, 2021October 19, 2021

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Michigan had a bye week last Saturday, but still rose a few spots in the rankings. Now at 6th overall, the Wolverines host unranked Northwestern before a huge showdown with rival Michigan State.

Northwestern is 3-3 overall and 1-2 in Big Ten play. Their only wins have come against Indiana State, Ohio, and Rutgers. Their three losses have been by an average of 24.3 points.

When I think of what to make for Chicago, the obvious dishes are deep dish pizza or Italian beef. But there’s another option with deep Chicago roots that stood out — rib tips! I love rib tips, but I put a twist on them for this recipe.

What are Rib Tips?

Rib tips were popularized in Chicago by African-Americans who migrated to the city from the Mississippi Delta. Chicago was once a huge butchery hub, so lesser cuts were plentiful, and that’s essentially what rib tips were.

They are cut from spare ribs to create St. Louis cut ribs. Since they are the part closest to the belly, rib tips are full of flavor, like a combination between spare ribs and pork belly. They do have cartilage pieces that you have to eat around, but that’s a small price to pay for the flavor they impart.

“The interesting thing about tips is, in my humble opinion, rib tips are the perfect combination of what people crave in a rib and the fatty richness of bacon,” said Erick Williams, chef of Chicago’s Country BBQ. “Because there’s a good amount of gelatin and fat in rib tips and when they’re cooked slow and long they give you a little bit of a chew. You get the texture and some of that moistness that you get out of bacon, and then, at the same time, you still get that unique flavor that you only get from ribs.”

A Brief History of Rib Tips

According to Chicago Eater, those migrants “brought a style of cooking defined by quickly smoking meats over direct heat and covering it with sweet sauce.”

Meathead Godwin has a great historical breakdown of Chicago style barbecue on his site, Amazing Ribs. He describes two great migrations of African-Americans to Chicago. The first, from 1910 to 1930, brought about 50,000 of farm hands, tenant famers, and sharecroppers to the Windy City. The second, beginning with World War II, brought a few hundred thousand as the city was a major aircraft and war goods manufacturing center.

The Mississippi Delta style barbecue that many of them brought featured ribs, rib tips, hot links, pulled pork, and chicken. The most well-known was Lem’s Bar-B-Q, which opened in 1954 and is still in business.

Back in the day, the strip of rib tips that was discarded from the spares was given away by meatpackers for free. That made it a no-brainer for Southside pitmasters to add to their menus. However, they have gained in popularity in recent years.

“Over the last five years, [rib tips] have gotten very popular and, the more popular they get, the more the price goes up,” said Honey 1 BBQ pitmaster Robert Adams Sr. in 2016. “I used to get them for 60-cents a pound and now they’re $1.50 a pound.”

That said, they’re easy to get if you’re willing to use a knife. I love to buy full spare ribs and then slice off the tips, cook the St. Louis cut ribs, and cook the tips separately.

How to Cut Your Own Rib Tips

Take your full rack of spare ribs and find the point where the top bone ends. Mentally draw a straight line from there to the top of the bone on the other end of the rack. Use a sharp knife to cut straight across that line. It will take some muscle as you will cut through some breastbone.

A Few Notes

Once you’ve trimmed your rib tips from the spare ribs, you have a choice to make. You can leave the strip whole, which many of the restaurants do. Or you can slice them into smaller pieces, which is what I like to do. It’s personal preference.

Some say keeping it whole helps keep it moist. I like the additional surface area I get for seasoning, smoke, and sauce by slicing them into smaller pieces.

Cooking rib tips is very similar to cooking actual ribs, except they won’t take quite as long.

Also, depending on how spicy you like your food, you can increase or decrease the amount of chili paste in the recipe. That’s the only source of heat in this recipe.

The Rib Tips Recipe

First, apply a thin layer of yellow mustard to your tips. This just acts as a binder to help your rub stick and doesn’t impart any flavor to the final product. Now, season with your barbecue rub. For this recipe, since I was going for an Asian flavor profile, I used Lane’s BBQ House Divided 2.0. Typically, I use my Down With the Swine rub for ribs and rib tips when I’m going for a more traditional barbecue flavor.

Fire up your smoker to 250 degrees indirect using your choice of wood. I like cherry when I cook ribs and tips, but you could use apple, hickory, pecan, or even oak.

Once your smoker is up to temperature with no dirty smoke, place your rib tips on the rack and close the lid. Let go for about an hour and a half, as long as you maintain a consistent temperature.

In a saucepan on the stove, warm up your sauce. Mix together 2 tablespoons of chili paste, a tablespoon of BLiS Barrel Aged Fish Sauce (you can substitute regular fish sauce if you want but I highly recommend this stuff), a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, a teaspoon of rice vinegar, a tablespoon of yellow curry paste, a tablespoon of apple cider, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a few cloves of minced garlic.

Stir together and heat on medium-low until the sugar has dissolved and all ingredients have come together and thickened slightly. Set aside.

Once your rib tips have taken on a good amount of smoke and started to darken (but not burn), place them in a foil pan along with a few pats of butter, brown sugar, and a drizzle of honey. Cover with foil and place back into the smoker for another hour or two.

Check to make sure they are tender and the meat is pulling back from the bone. If they aren’t, re-cover them and cook a little longer. If they are, remove the foil from the top and glaze them on all sides with your sauce. Put back in for about 20 minutes until the sauce sets.

Once the sauce has set, they are ready to eat. Top with sesame seeds and scallions and serve hot. No need to rest.