Food + Foto Week 1: Hoisin-Broiled Ribs Recipe

Since I'm in the Souvenir Foto School featuring food, I'll be posting recipes each week.  Some will be new to me and some will be regulars. Hopefully the pictures will improve each time! 

I had country-style ribs on hand but didn’t know what to do with them.  I didn’t want to make BBQ ribs because this wasn’t a full slab (it was cut into individual pieces already) and I prefer to do BBQ ribs over the grill.  Which it’s too cold for that now.  I was looking for something Asian and found this recipe on epicurious.com. It's not too different from the Hoisin Honey Chicken Wings recipe, but I did say I liked having hoisin on hand in my pantry.  And I'm a meat and potatoes kinda girl, so anything would probably work.  After the first bite, Doug said with his mouth full “I love you a lot.”  So I may come back to this recipe if I have the meat on hand. 

Hoisin-Broiled Ribs with Sesame Seeds

1/2 cup (generous) hoisin sauce

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

3 medium garlic cloves, pressed

2 1/2 pounds country-style pork loin ribs, cut into individual ribs

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Combine first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Transfer to large shallow dish. Add ribs to marinade; turn to coat all sides. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat broiler. Line baking sheet with foil. Arrange ribs bone side down on foil.  MmMmmM meat...

Transfer marinade to heavy small saucepan and boil until very thick, about 7 minutes.

Brush ribs with marinade. Broil 4 minutes. Turn and baste ribs generously; broil another 4 minutes. Turn again and baste.

Sprinkle ribs with sesame seeds and broil until seeds are golden brown, about 1 minute.

Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake ribs until cooked through, about 20 minutes. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Reheat in 350°F oven for 20 minutes.) Transfer to platter and serve.

Mama Stuart’s Notes –

1.      Refer to Thanksgiving Tip #3. I should probably follow my own advice…I had to soak up the blood and disinfect my meat drawer. Ick.

2.      I didn’t have enough honey, so I added some brown sugar to make up for it.

3.      I don’t use rice vinegar often, so I never buy it.  I used regular vinegar instead.

4.      I like my food to be tasty/spicy/have a good kick, so I squirted some Sriracha sauce in the marinade.

5.      Before I marinated the meat, I seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

6.      As with most nights, I fell asleep with Mia at 9pm so I didn’t get to marinate over night.  I made it the morning of and marinated for about 8 hours. I put the meat and marinade in a freezer bag on top of a cookie sheet inside the fridge, to prevent accidents like in Note #1 above.

7.      This marinade was enough for my 4 lbs of meat. I guess 1 lb/person is a good rule of thumb since this meal easily fed Doug and I for two meals.

8.      Meat + kimchi + rice = yum!

9.      Only one pot and one baking dish to clean, yippee (for Doug)!