Found a recently opened Caribbean grocery place just a few miles away, and decided to welcome the hesitant arrival of spring with some island food.
The ribs are a sort of jerk rib, with a guava BBQ sauce. Two racks of pork spare ribs were trimmed down, making st louis cut ribs. This really at least halved them in weight...the rib tip section was huge. For the rib tips and the flap section I used a traditional BBQ rub. For the ribs proper, I used a blended marinade of scotch bonnet pepper, orange zest and fruit (leaving out the pith) lime zest and juice, Angostura soy sauce, a fig balsamic vinegar, some allspice/clove/cinnamon, garlic, and a large number of scallions. These all marinated overnight. Then, I put the ribs (and the trimmings) on the smoker...gave them a good four hours smoke (mostly apple wood), and it got a bit spitty weatherwise so they finished in foil in the oven. They were basted at end of cooking with a guava paste (Goya brand) based BBQ sauce, hat tip to Steve Raichlen (again). Strangely not as spicy as expected and a bit too citrusy (overzealous with the microplane I guess).
The rice and beans are basmati rice (what I had on hand, a great long grain rice) and kidney beans, with coconut milk, a green scotch bonnet pepper (halved, then removed after cooking), green onions (bruised whole, removed after cooking), a sauteed onion, several cloves garlic, the diced up smoked flap from the spare ribs, several spices (the usuals, allspice etc), a hint of soy, and salt and pepper. Surpisingly mild, but nice mellow flavor.
Then some bulla cake that I did not make myself (nice sweet spicey flavor), some fresh pineapple, and a Dark and Stormy with Goya ginger beer and Bermudan "Black Seal" rum.
![](http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2/nicneufeld/JamaicanRibs.jpg)