Jim's Famous Ribs

Truth be told, they are actually Jim Smith's famous ribs. In 1972, 38 years ago, at our first duty station in our first apartment in Rota, Spain, our downstairs neighbor, Jim Smith, used to invite us for his spare ribs, and we've been making them this way ever since. Coincidentally, we also use Jim's wife's recipe for potato salad to this day.

Here's how he taught us to make his famous ribs:

For our barbecue last night, we served 18 people with the following:

16 lbs of Spare Ribs (We have found the meaty ribs at Costco to be quite satisfactory)

Separate the ribs and cover with marinade.

The ingredients for the marinade are as follows:

Equal portions of Kikkoman Soy Sauce and White Vinegar. For some reason, it has to be Kikkoman brand. We don't know why, but the taste just isn't the same with any other soy sauce.

Here are the quantities we used to serve 18:


9 cups Kikkoman Soy Sauce





9 cups White Vinegar




4 bulbs Garlic, peeled and thinly sliced


Marinate the ribs overnight. We keep it in a bucket in a cooler to keep the meat from spoiling.



Grill on the barbecue until done. Jim also used to sprinkle (pour?) some garlic powder on the ribs as they cook. (The picture below shows just a few ribs because I kept forgetting to take a picture of the grill when it was full.)


The finished product, succulent and delicious.



Finally, serve to a bunch of your friends.



5 comments:

Liz M. said...

Is the watermelon in the cooler a key part of the marinating process??
These are delicious!!!

Bonnie said...

ha ha. i loved the watermelon in the cooler !! i can't wait for summer time to get here ... or even spring time would do ... really, we could probably even do it now. i just want to gather a bunch of people and make these ribs !! yum yum yum !!!

Sabba and Nanny said...

Everyone wants to be around when Jim's Famous Ribs are served--even the watermelon! Good eye, Jill!

Kath said...

No, the watermelon went there when the fridge got full of the jello salad, potato salad, edamame salad, green salad, veggies for dipping, and the dip that was also on the menu for said BBQ! It ran there in an act of self preservation!!!

jamestownboys said...

This sounds DELICIOUS. :) Thanks for sharing :)