Test Kitchen tips: St. Louis-style ribs

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A couple of years ago, we ran a Culinary SOS recipe for the spice-braised pork ribs from Urban Tavern in San Francisco. The recipe calls for St. Louis-style pork ribs. If you’ve never heard of these before, St. Louis-style ribs are spare ribs that have been trimmed to give them a clean, mock baby-back look.

You can have your butcher trim the ribs for you, but it’s just as easy to do at home (plus, you can cook up all the trimmings along with the ribs for some extra nibbles). Continue reading below for a quick tutorial on trimming the ribs yourself.

If you have any kitchen tips or questions you’d like us to explore, leave a comment below or email us at noelle.carter@latimes.com.

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-- Noelle Carter
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1. Trim the flap, or ‘skirt’ of meat, underneath the ribs.
2. Feel along the ribs for the joints so you know where to cut (it’s easier to cut through cartilage than bone).

3. Trim the ribs along the joint.

4. Remove the ‘rib tips’ from the rack.

5. Peel away the silverskin -- the membrane underneath the ribs -- from the rack.