Project B

These pork spare ribs are glossy and sticky. They aren’t melt-in-your-mouth like slow cooked ribs are, but I prefer the definite, though still tender, bite to these ribs. I like to gnaw on bones from time to time.

The quality of the meat obviously determines the quality of the final product, but the marinade is delicious enough to redeem supermarket meat.

A note on quantity: greedy people will easily manage to eat a kilogram (two pounds) of ribs each.

Spicy pork ribs

For one measure of marinade:

1 tb Thai sweet chilli sauce
1 tb grated ginger
2 cloves grated garlic
1 tb honey, warmed until runny
1 tb soy sauce
1 tb tomato sauce
1 tb hoisin sauce
1 tb Worcestershire sauce
2 tb Stone’s Green ginger wine
1 tspn salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a jug or bowl.

You’ll need x + 1 measures of marinade, where x is the number of kilograms of pork ribs you’re cooking. Basically you need one measure of “clean” marinade, for basting the ribs with near the end of cooking time — you don’t want to baste with marinade that has had raw meat touching it if the ribs are only going to be cooking for another 10-15 minutes.

Cut your racks of ribs up into single ribs. Arrange them in a non-reactive dish of some kind — I use a very large plastic bread bin. Pour over all the marinade except one measure. Stir the ribs around until well coated. Let the ribs marinate for between 1-3 hours.

Pre-heat a fan-forced oven to 180C. Line your (large!) baking trays well with baking paper. Arrange the ribs fat side up on the baking trays.

The marinade left in the bottom of the container you used to marinade the meat in is your “dirty” marinade. The measure of marinade that you reserved is your “clean” marinade: it may need thickening up a bit with some more hoisin sauce.

Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes, turning and basting the ribs at the half hour mark, and basting again at the 40 minute mark, with the “dirty” marinade.

When the ribs are done, take them out and turn the oven up to 200C.

Now baste the ribs with your “clean” marinade, and put them back in the oven to get completely browned, sticky and glossy. You may need to do this one tray at a time, as most ovens are not capable of browning two full baking trays of ribs at once (the bottom tray does not brown).