Chinese Five Spice BBQ Ribs
2019-02-05 00:02:38
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For the ribs
- 8 cups of chicken stock
- 1/4 cup of soy sauce
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 six inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into 4 pieces ot, diced
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 medium carrot, diced
- 2 stalks of celery, diced (about 3/4 cup)
- 2-3 racks of baby back pork ribs (about 4-6 lbs) or however much will fit into your pot
For the glaze
- 1 tablespoon of canola or safflower oil
- 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic
- 2 tablespoons of chopped peeled ginger (I omit this cuz I don't care for the taste of ginger)
- 1/4 cup chopped green onions
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
- 1 cup dark corn syrup
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of Chinese 5 spice powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of sambal chili paste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large Dutch oven/pot, combine chicken stock, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, carrot, onion and celery. Bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and nestle the ribs in the braising liquid. Cover the pot and bake until the meat is tender, about 90 min.
- While the meat is braising in the oven, prepare the glaze. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the garlic, ginger and scallions and cook over medium heat until fragrant, about 4 min. Add soy sauce, hoisin, corn syrup, ketchup, five-spice powder, and chili paste. Increase the heat to high and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the mixture has thickened slightly (about 20-25 min).
- Line a baking sheet with foil. Remove the ribs from the braising liquid and place them on the baking sheet. Reduce the oven temp to 350 and brush a thick coat of glaze on the top and underside of the ribs. Bake for 30-45 min, brushing the ribs with additional glaze at about every 15 min until done. Let ribs rest for 5 min and cut into portions.
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The day finally arrived. My food was prepped, my recipe tested and it was time for my own little cooking show to begin (still scared to death mind you). The customers showed up, they asked interesting questions, and liked my dish (Root Vegetable Salad with Fried Eggs)! In fact, one tiny patron (age 4) said, “excuse me but can I say something, this is very artistic.” Literally out of the mouths of babes. My fear melted away and I knew I was hooked.
My first attempt at making Focaccia di Recco was a colossal disaster. And it wasn’t because I used sugar instead of salt, or set the oven to broil instead of bake (yes, I’ve done both). No, this disaster was 100% because of a pan. More specifically, my favorite pizza pan with the little holes on the bottom.
Opening the door again, I was blasted with a full-on bellow of smoke so thick that I couldn’t even see across the room. And right on cue, my trusty smoke alarm began blaring it’s familiar song. Turns out I had nicked the bottom of the dough and created a cheese “escape-hatch” through (you guessed it) those little holes in my pan. I was left with an empty shell of a crust and 8 oz. of cheese on the bottom of my oven. I shut off the oven and ordered take-out.
My fondest memory of food always centered around making mandoo (aka. Korean dumplings or potstickers). Perhaps that’s the reason I love to eat them so much. However making them always seemed like such a chore. I didn’t appreciate the labor of love that my mother always put into the vat of filling she made every holiday season, particular for New Year’s Eve. 
Our entire family would gather around lunchtime every New Year’s Eve and devour a big bowl of rice cake soup (made with pure bone broth, of course) to satiate us before beginning the process of filling hundreds of dumplings. My mother made the dough early in the morning and portioned it out into big round dough balls. My father and uncles would each take turns rolling out each rested dough ball into the largest round sheet of dough that covered our entire kitchen table. Then, using an upside down stainless steel rice bowl, cut out each individual dumpling wrapper from the gigantic sheet of dough. With a pile of dumpling wrappers ready to go, my aunts and all of us kids would gather around the huge bowl of mandoo filling and begin the process of filling each wrapper to make the prettiest dumplings around. We would have contests to see who could fold the prettiest dumplings. My older brother always won. To this day, he’s still the best dumpling maker.
Because our extended family was so big, we often needed to make several hundred mandoo to enjoy in our dumpling rice cake soup, a Korean tradition always consumed on New Year’s Day. Plus a bag of frozen mandoo for each family to take home and enjoy at a later time. It was the highlight of my entire year, more so than Christmas or Thanksgiving. You see, New Year’s Eve was the one time a year that our entire family gathered together to laugh, tell stories, and make dumplings for hours on end, much like the scene in the movie… Crazy Rich Asians.
He inquired as to how many of us liked the tiny cabbage-shaped veggie ….. and of course, no one raised their hand. He assured us that after preparing this recipe we would all become Brussel sprout converts. We smiled politely at his statement though I know we were all very doubtful. We followed his instructions for our cruciferous side dish while secretly looking forward to the Baby Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting dessert that was to follow. But guess what? After roasting those little cabbages and tossing them with Chef Paul’s amazing dressing, we all were in agreement that it was our favorite part of the meal. We unanimously said YES to Brussel sprouts.
In any profession there is continuing education. Sometimes it is required, other times it is inspired. Inspiration to learn something…just because. I often have these moments of inspiration in the kitchen. Sometimes I immerse myself in a unique cuisine or an underutilized ingredient. But I recently had a very unexpected inspiration to educate myself. There were a couple interactions that inspired me…
I spent a Saturday afternoon educating myself. My challenge was to develop a nutritional high protein convenience snack made with “real” food that tasted good. I needed variation in texture and depth in flavor. I tried sweet, I tried savory. I tried TVP – that’s where I drew the line. TVP, textured vegetable protein. This is the main ingredient in dishes like vegan “chicken nuggets” and vegan “beef tacos.” It provides the protein and texture without the meat. Uh, really? Not sure this qualifies as “real” food.
After many trials and an entire pantry of ingredients utilized, I finally landed on a snack I was pleased with. High protein, lactose-free, and no refined sugar mini muffin bites. Nice texture and good flavor. I sampled them to a few of my best critics. Thumbs up all around. Most importantly, my girlfriend with five kids loved them. Then she asked if she could leave out the egg and throw all the ingredients in a food processor to make them into “protein balls.” Nooooooo! Enough with the protein balls!
First of all, a few things can still be purchased: 
The day before, make many of your side dishes. Bake your potatoes the day ahead and use the Powder Horn Potato recipe below. It is one of our family’s favorites. Did I mention that at our house it is all about the sides?!