* HOST: Let Texans brag about brisket, and Carolinians praise pulled pork shoulder.

For the rest of us, the ultimate symbol of barbecue and test of a grill master's mettle, is ribs.

Today, I'm making spice rub baby backs with chipotle bourbon barbecue sauce.

These are everything a rib should be.

Korean style short ribs.

Koreans have figured out how to grill this rib in 4-6 minutes.

And I'll take on a Project Fire mystery box.

Whoa!

From the Pearlstone Campus in Reisterstown, Maryland, I'm Steven Raichlen and this is Project Fire .

* ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following... * STEVEN: Ever since God formed Eve from one of Adam's side bones, the rib has been indispensable to human happiness, but which rib you eat depends on where you fire up your smoker or grill.

In the American Midwest, ribs generally mean baby backs or other pork ribs, while in Korea, the bone of choice is the beef short rib.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, lamb ribs reign supreme.

In today's show, I'll give you three of the best ribs ever.

MALE VIEWER: Hey Steve, big fan.

I went to go get some beef short ribs, because I wanted to cook them in my Kamado smoker, and all they had was pre-cut up ones, which look fantastic, but wanted to get your input.

I was really hoping for something whole and put together in terms of a rib roast.

STEVEN: Excellent question, and don't be sorry you got the short section instead of the long bones.

Grilled beef short ribs are one of the glories of Korean barbecue.

Koreans have evolved an ingenious way to grill them.

Notice, I said grill, not smoked.

I give you kalbi, Project Fire style.

* First, the marinade.

It starts with that triad of Asian flavorings, chopped fresh ginger, garlic, and scallions.

This is the signature flavor of all Korean dishes.

Then, add brown sugar for sweetness, and yellow kiwi fruit, green will work fine.

The juices in the kiwi help tenderize the meat.

Now, pound these ingredients together to mash the kiwi.

Next, add gochujang, Korean fermented chili paste.

This is optional, but it definitely gives the marinade a kick.

Then, rice wine or sake, sesame oil just gives you a nutty flavor, soy sauce for that salty umami flavor, and finally, freshly ground black pepper.

Whisk these ingredients together until the sugar dissolves, and there's your marinade.

Here's your beef short rib.

In the West, you'd be looking at 4-6 hours of smoking time.

Koreans have figured out how to grill this rib in 4-6 minutes.

Stand the rib up, cut it in half along the bone.

Now, gliding your knife along the top of the bone, cut to within a quarter inch of the back, then gently fold, make another cut to within a quarter inch of the end, and it's almost like unwinding a roll of paper towels, and then score the surface of the rib lightly.

This helps the rib cook evenly.

Then turn it over, and score it lightly in the opposite direction.

That's one.

Once again, glide the knife on top of the bone, butterfly open, a second cut, lift and fold.

We'll score lightly, score the other side.

Pour a little marinade into a baking dish, arrange the ribs, then pour a little more marinade on top.

The idea is you want to cut this rib into a very thin sheet of meat.

Remember, short ribs are a tough cut full of connective tissue so the thinner we can slice the rib, the more tender it will be.

By the way, the colder your beef, the easier it is to do the cutting.

And marinate the ribs in the refrigerator for 4-hours.

[fire swooshes in] I want to grill with a lot of surface area, so I fired up the gas grill.

We'll brush the grill grate clean, and oil it with an oiling cloth.

For the vegetables, I have onion slices, skewered garlic, and green onions.

Brush the vegetables with sesame oil.

Sesame oil, one of the signature flavors of Korean barbecue.

Then, season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Arrange your green onions on the grate, followed by these little garlic kebabs.

Next, your sliced onion.

Grilling time, roughly 3-5 minutes per side for the vegetables.

Don't forget to turn the garlic.

Here are your green onions.

I can take the onions off now I think.

Looks like the garlic can go another minute.

Now, the beef ribs.

Lay them on the hot grate.

* Once the beef ribs are sizzling and browned on the bottom, turn and grill the other side the same way.

* Once the short ribs are grilled, transfer them to a wire rack.

This keeps the bottom from getting soggy.

And last of all, your grilled garlic.

To serve, arrange your grilled short ribs on a platter.

Last of all, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and thinly slivered scallions.

It's a Korean barbecue rib feast.

To put it together, a spoonful of rice, green onion, an onion, some garlic, kimchi, Korean pickled cabbage, and finally, for the beef, the way Koreans eat ribs, they cut the meat into bite size pieces with scissors, so you can pick them up with chopsticks.

All right, let's see how we did.

The beef.

Mmm...oh man, that beef is crusty, succulent, sweet with sugar, nutty with sesame, salty with soy sauce, and surprisingly tender thanks to that butterflying and scoring technique.

Now, I'll taste a piece of onion.

Mmm, sweet and smoky.

Finally, the green onion.

I love those singed edges.

Korean grilled short ribs.

It's barbecue in a hurry.

* [fire swooshes in] Meaty slabs of pork ribs stung with spice, bronzed with smoke, and slathered with sweet, sticky, barbecue sauce.

If that sounds like your vision of paradise, Nirvana is nigh.

* The baby back is a great rib for newcomers.

It's meaty, tender, well-marbled, and relatively quick cooking.

The first step is to brush your baby backs with Dijon mustard.

We're just layering on flavors.

First, you have the pork, then the mustard, then the rub, then the apple cider, and finally, the barbecue sauce.

That's not to mention the wood smoke.

Turn them over, then brush the other side the same way, and don't forget to brush the edges.

We're using ribs from a heritage pork called a Berkshire.

It's an old-timey heritage breed that's raised for flavor, not for meat yield.

The next step is to prepare the rub.

The rub starts with equal parts salt, black pepper, brown sugar.

Then, we'll add chili powder, and a touch of celery seed for sweetness.

I like to mix the ingredients with my fingertips, so you can break up any lumps that may form in the brown sugar.

Sprinkle your ribs on both sides with the barbecue rub.

* To smoke the ribs, I'm using a pellet grill.

I've turned it on, set it to 300 degrees, and I'm fueling it with hickory pellets, the classic smoking wood of the American South.

We'll close the hopper, we'll open the smoke chamber, and arrange the ribs on the grate, convex side up, that is the rounded side up, so the melting fat will baste the meat as it smokes.

Cooking time is about 4-hours.

Meanwhile, the bourbon chipotle barbecue sauce.

[fire swooshes in] Now, a great barbecue sauce is both a study of contrast and balance.

It starts with ketchup, the base of so many American barbecue sauces.

Then for sweetness, brown sugar, molasses, and sweet Thai chili sauce, which has a great garlic chili flavor.

Next comes the acidity.

First, freshly grated lemon zest, then cut the lemon in half, and squeeze the lemon juice into the sauce.

Then add Worcestershire sauce.

Next, we start heating the mixture up, first with mustard, that'll echo the mustard on the ribs, and minced chipotle chilies, those smoked jalape�os from Mexico.

We add New Mexican chili powder, and a little celery seed for spice, and then bourbon, because everything tastes better with bourbon.

We'll start heating the mixture up, whisk it together.

The beauty of this sauce, it's sweet, but not too sweet.

It's spicy, but not quite fiery.

The sauce has been simmering for five minutes, it's nicely reduced.

Back to the ribs.

Here are the ribs after 3-hours.

I've been spraying them with apple cider every hour.

This helps keep the meat moist, and also adds an extra layer of flavor.

We'll cook the ribs another half hour, and then start brushing on the sauce.

[fire swooshes in] At three and a half hours, you want to check your ribs, very smoky, and brush the ribs with barbecue sauce.

Once the ribs are sauced, I like to cook them for another 30 minutes to roast the sauce right into the meat.

[fire swooshes in] Okay.

It's been four hours, and those ribs look great.

Now, how do you tell when ribs are done?

If you look at the ends of the bones, you can see the meat has shrunk back by about a quarter to a half an inch.

So, I'll take the ribs off.

Smoky aroma, nice sheen from the sauce.

So, just lift them up and then they slice beautifully.

* All right, and rack number two.

* We'll just drizzle a little more sauce on top, and let's see how we did.

Mmm...these are everything a rib should be, sticky on the outside, meaty inside, tender, but not mushy.

Sweetness from the molasses and the bourbon, infused with wood smoke.

You know, I've smoked a lot of ribs in my day, these might just be the best ribs ever.

[fire swooshes in] NORA SINGLEY: The challenge here is to give Steven an interesting cut of ribs that might be a little unusual, but one that he can really showcase, and I think that this ingredient does exactly that.

I don't know how you feel about this ingredient, to be totally honest.

CHRIS LYNCH: Yeah.

NORA: I love this ingredient.

CHRIS: Do you?

NORA: Yeah.

CHRIS: It's interesting.

NORA: It's a little rare.

CHRIS: No, you don't see a lot of it, you're right.

NORA: Well... CHRIS: Should we cover it?

NORA: Please.

CHRIS: All right.

[fire swooshes in] STEVEN: It's time for another Project Fire mystery box.

So, let's see what I have.

Whoa, lamb ribs.

Actually, from the size of these, I'd say these are lamb riblets.

Well, I'm on familiar ground here, because my wife and I love lamb ribs.

At this point, let's go over to the pantry and see how I can round out my ideas.

NORA: A lot of people know lamb chops, or lamb shank, or shoulder, but lamb ribs are awesome.

CHRIS: So I think Steven will handle this challenge particularly well, because he is very familiar with lamb, and I think that it'll be a home run for him.

STEVEN: I'm feeling Greece behind this mystery box.

Greek flavors, Greek preparations, Greek lamb.

So let's see, fennel, that is certainly a popular vegetable in Greece.

Oranges, orange and fennel goes great together.

I want some Kalamata olives, fresh herbs, Greeks love fresh herbs, so I've got Rosemary, fresh mint.

Definitely need some yogurt, and just because it's staring me in the face here, some feta cheese.

And I need some dried herbs and seasonings, granulated garlic, granulated onion, and oregano.

And with that, my friends, I'm ready to roll.

[fire swooshes in] So the lamb ribs, I'll season with Greek herbs and spices.

Indirect grill, it's going to take about 45 minutes.

By way of smoke, instead of using hardwood, I'm actually going to use these fennel fronds to generate smoke, and I'm going to lay them right on the coals like that, and then I'm going to lay some fresh rosemary and some fresh thyme on the coals.

I'll place the heat diffuser in the grill, close this to keep the smoke in for the moment.

Now, on the ribs, these are lamb riblets, and they come with a pretty thick layer of fat.

So I'm going to score the tops of the ribs, and this will help some of that fat melt out.

So go like that one way, and then I'll come like this the other way.

That's one.

* I already smell that herb smoke, very fragrant, very delicious.

* Now, arrange your lamb ribs, bone side down on the sheet pan, and season the ribs first with coarse sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, then onion powder, garlic powder, and dried oregano.

Oregano, one of those keystone flavorings in Greek grilling.

Then, we'll turn the ribs over and season the other side the same way.

* Now, back to the grill.

I've set the grill up for indirect grilling.

There's a ceramic heat diffuser plate under the grate, so I'll arrange the lamb ribs on the grate, leave about a finger's width between each one, so some of that fennel and herb smoke can circulate around the ribs.

I wish you could smell this.

It's incredibly fragrant.

So there are the ribs.

I'll close the grill, I want to open the vent.

I'm looking for about 400 degrees.

Indirect grilling, it's going to take about 45 minutes.

[fire swooshes in] All right...next, so I'm going to make a grilled fennel orange salad.

For the fennel, I'll cut it from top to bottom into quarter inch slices.

Leave it attached to the root end, that will hold the slices together during grilling.

And then, we'll cut the oranges into slices about one quarter of an inch thick.

Orange and fennel, a classic Mediterranean combination.

Brush the fennel and orange slices with extra-virgin olive oil.

Then, season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

So, I've set this grill up for direct grilling.

We'll give it a quick brush, oil it with our oiling cloth.

We'll start by grilling the fennel, so arrange the fennel slices on the grate.

Wide open at the bottom, I want to get this as hot as possible.

We'll just mark off the fennel on the bottom.

Great.

The idea is...I want to just char the outside of the fennel, but leave the inside cool and crunchy.

Once the fennel is browned on both sides, return it to the sheet pan.

Next, grill, the orange slices.

* [fire swooshes in] Finally, the sauce, and I'm thinking a riff on Greek Tzatziki, that yogurt dip.

I'll take a clove of garlic, and I'll finely grate it on a microplane.

Just gives you a very delicate garlic flavor.

Next, feta cheese, which of course, is the quintessential Greek cheese.

I'm going to grate some feta into the bowl.

This will add a nice salty sharpness to that sauce.

All right, so there's your feta.

And next, we have yogurt, fresh mint, and thinly sliver the fresh mint leaves.

So that's going to look great, and it's also going to taste great.

Fresh mint into the sauce, then we need a little salt, not too much, because remember the feta will be salty, freshly ground black pepper, Greek extra-virgin olive oil, and a little fresh lemon juice, and I'll mix these ingredients together.

All right, folks, and there is your sauce, now let me put it all together.

First, start by arranging your fennel and orange slices on a platter, then black Kalamata olives, they'll add a wonderful salty flavor, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Finally, a sprinkle of chopped fresh dill.

Now, the lamb.

Whoa, check out the lamb ribs.

They look fantastic.

The meat has shrunk back from the ends of the bones by about a half an inch, the top is crusty, sizzling, the fat has melted out, so these guys are ready.

Two, beautiful, three, and here is your Greek grilled lamb, and I'll take the sixth rack for myself here.

Let's see how we did.

You just want to cut the ribs into individual bones, stack these up, and then some grilled fennel, grilled orange, a couple of olives, and a spoonful of yogurt sauce.

[taps spoon of yogurt] So, the lamb...mmm, is amazing.

Crackling crisp with the fat on the top, it became so crisp and crunchy.

The lamb meat is moist and flavorful.

Now, let's see on the fennel.

Mmm...fennel has that wonderful crunch, sweet with that kind of anisey, licoricey flavor, enhanced by the smoke and the fire.

The orange.

Mmm...wow!

The orange is sweet and smoky, a totally new way to appreciate citrus fruit.

Now finally, I'll take a little dip in the sauce.

Mmm...it's hard to imagine improving on these ribs, but you know what?

The yogurt sauce with that tangy feta cheese, creamy yogurt, the fresh mint, it's the apotheosis of lamb.

Lamb, fennel, orange, and fire, it's as ancient as Greece itself.

For recipes and more live-fire cooking, visit stevenraichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Steven's book, "How to Grill Vegetables," and the classic, "Project Smoke," can be ordered online at stevenraichlen.com, or call this phone number for ordering and customer service.

ANNOUNCER: Steven Raichlen's Project Fire was made possible by...

This is The Big Green Egg, where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with the versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill, crafted in America for over 80 years... Green Mountain Grills, wood fired pellet grills... Blue Rhino...

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

And by the following... * STEVEN: Hey folks, it's time...

CREW MEMBER: Action.

STEVEN: Hey every...

I'm sorry, that was the wrong camera.

Chris and Nora have selected an ingredient that fits with today's the...

CREW MEMBER: One more time.

STEVEN: Chris and Nora have selected an ingredient... Nora, did I say?

I said Nora, right?

CREW MEMBER: You said Nora.

STEVEN: Okay.

CREW MEMBER: One more time.

STEVEN: Okay.

Lamb ribs.

All right.

I wanna, you wanna, so you got the reveal, right?

CREW MEMBER: Got the reveal... * *