Good morning people!

Welcome back.

No, you’re not hallucinating – you’re not are you? Cuz I’m jealous if you are – we are indeed cooking with gochujang again. Two good reasons for this; it’s goddamn delicious and I still had some in my refrigerator.

Those are both good fucking qualified reasons right there.

We dabbled in this delicious, smoky, spicy Korean condiment before including just a few weeks ago when we made this beauty.

That’s our slow roasted gochujang chicken. And I mean, just DAMN!

Some foods have an almost “ear worm” type capability. They will get stuck in your brain and refuse to leave until you act on that bastard! And you must consume it!

Korean/Asian fusion cooking does that to me. It’s the combinations of sweet, spicy, citrusy, garlicky and downright funky notes that simply must be devoured immediately in order to bring proper brain satisfaction and restore normalcy to your fucked up head.

Shit man, throw a charcoal grill into the equation to bring out additional smoky notes?

We’re talking world class satisfaction right there, Son.

The basic combination of garlic, lime, scallions and ginger can be your bass line for a whole bunch of Asian style cuisines and once you’ve acquired the taste for it?

You’ll see.

I can only think of one other type of cuisine that has the “I have to eat it now or I won’t ever stop thinking about it” vibe and that’s Mediterranean food. Gyros in particular.

But that’s another episode.

When contemplating your protein for this application don’t you want to get the most savory, fatty, succulent cut of deliciousness that you can to apply the gochujang treatment towards?

Doesn’t this motherfucker just scream “RIBS!”

I see you over there Andy Reid and yes you are part of todays’ choir.

Ribs. Always a good choice.

Hey I like that! How would that look on a t-shirt?

Sorry, not available for purchase. Yet.

Shit howdy, I’m excited now.

Let’s make some goddamn ribs!

Pork ribs specifically.

These are basically a St. Louis cut. Not baby back ribs but a more meatier center rib cut because we want as much porky satisfaction as possible.

Here’s a fun story. In the past when purchasing the packaged ribs – like those seen above – it came with two full racks of ribs per pack.

Did this package come with 2 racks?

No goddammit. It did not. Which meant having to go back to the fucking grocery store the day after I bought these.

Why didn’t I get the memo that you are only selling single racks at a time? You bastards!

We’re in the middle of a fucking pandemic, dammit and I didn’t WANT to go to the store on consecutive days.

It’s against the whole “safer at home” shit we’re trying to do.

Let a motherfucker know before taking this drastic type of action in the future will you?

Shit.

Let’s get back to this.

Since my grill is still one of the little Weber dealies we won’t be able to cook this for the complete cooking time required over charcoal. Which means, we must do a pre-cook.

Remember last year when I was doing all of the Instant Pot recipes and extolling it’s virtue like it was the second coming of Christ?

To be honest? I’ve pretty much fallen out of love with my Instant Pot. I mean, it’s convenient as fuck and very fast in preparation but it has the same “watered down” taste that I also find in a Crock Pot. It’s “OK” but not outstanding, know what I mean?

We’re going back to old faithful and we’re going to slow roast in the oven before finishing on the grill.

Get yourself one of these things here.

Yep, we’re going disposable pan for the oven roasted portion of our meal. Easier clean up and you can keep it around until after the meal is served as a handy rib bone collection device!

Aha!

Oh the things you will learn here.

Let’s get to rib preppin’.

Extract the racks from their cryogenic plastic bags and remove the silver skin on the bone-side of the ribs.

We’ve covered this before but gently loosen the silver skin with a sharp knife then using a paper towel, grab the skin and pull it down the length of the rib rack to remove. You may have to do this a couple of times to remove all of it. Repeat for both racks.

Now let’s get ourselves a braising solution for our oven pre-cook.

Todays braising solution recipe comes from none other than Alton Brown. Recipe here. Note; we are not making the dry rub part of that recipe, just using the braising solution since it’s a tasty yet flavor neutral solution.

Alton Brown’s braising solution.

1 cup white wine

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Simply add everything into a bowl.

Season the ribs on both sides with some salt and pepper. I also added some “essence” to each side to elevate the long term flavor profile of these bones.

Wrap the ribs in a couple of layers of aluminum foil then add half of the braising solution to each foil pack. Seal the packs tightly and place into our disposable roasting pan. It may be easier to slice each rack in half or 1/3rds before wrapping in foil but I’ll leave that up to you.

SAFETY TIP! Always put a baking sheet under that disposable pan. That shit is flimsy and we don’t want it folding in half when you remove it from the oven, thus covering your unsuspecting feet in near boiling hot meat juices.

That shit wouldn’t be cool at all.

The ribs will slow roast in a 275 degree oven for 2 1/2 hours. If you want a “fall off the bone” rib cook for 3 hours but I prefer my ribs to stay slightly attached to the bone.

While the ribs are slow roasting let’s get to work on the rest of our meal.

Gochujang “barbecue” sauce.

This is a Sunday Gravy original recipe

1/2 cup of gochujang

1/4 cup of ketchup

juice of 1 lime

3 tablespoons of sweet Thai chili sauce

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of oyster sauce

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

5 cloves of garlic – minced

4 green onions cut into 1″ lengths

2″ piece of ginger sliced thin

1 additional tablespoon of vegetable oil for sauteing.

Measure out the gochujang into a measuring cup and add the 1/4 of ketchup right on top.

Gather up the lime juice, chili sauce, soy and oyster sauces, the brown sugar and oil.

Add them to a bowl. Mix to combine. Give it a few extra stirs to incorporate the brown sugar.

Just like that!

Now let’s work on our aromatics. That would be the scallions, garlic and ginger.

We’re going to get these to a small dice by using our food processor. Chop up the green onion and add to the working bowl of the food processor.

Next: the ginger. Peeled and sliced please.

Add in the minced garlic.

Give them a whirl. Just a couple of pulses today. Fine mince, not soup.

Add the minced aromatics into a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil and saute the veggie bits for 5 minutes. Stirring frequently.

Next we are going to add the sauce and cook until thickened, maybe 5-7 minutes.

That shit is thickened!

When our 2 1/2 hours of slow roasting have elapsed, remove the ribs from the oven and carefully open the foil packets to allow the ribs to cool.

You may be tempted to sample one of these bad boys right now but keep your damn hands off of them. Besides we need to let the ribs cool down before taking them to the grill.

While the ribs are cooling go ahead and fire up your charcoal grill.

When the coals are ready and the grill isn’t “burning depths of fucking Hell hot” get them ribs on the grill.

These are only going to need to cook for a couple of minutes per side. Just need to give ’em a little of that smoky goodness that only charcoal or wood smoke can bring. Turn the racks over and give them a baste.

You want to cook for just a minute per side once you’ve basted with the sauce. Shit’s got brown sugar in it remember? Slather that sauce on good!

Finish cooking all of the ribs, cover them in foil and let them rest for a few minutes before serving.

For a side dish I wanted to try my hand at making Pad See Ew, everyones favorite take out Thai noodle dish. What I got was a pretty tasty batch of noodles but it was definitely not Pad See Ew. It wasn’t even in the same ballpark.

Instead let’s call them “tasty Thai style noodles.”

Thai inspired noodles.

Recipe inspiration via Recipetineats.com.

For the sauce:

2 tbsp dark soy sauce AKA “cooking” soy sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp white vinegar

2 tsp sugar

2 tbsp water

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

Gather your various Asian cooking sauces.

Combine all of the ingredients into a bowl. Mix well.

My protein for the dish today was boneless skinless chicken breast. Cut into smaller pieces. It’s probably a little over half a pound of chicken bits. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce to the chicken and stir.

Cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and put into your refrigerator. This can sit for a few hours so you can actually do this step before even beginning the ribs.

We are also going to need about 8 ounces of dried Thai “stick noodles.”

Not Thai Stick noodles, that’s something else entirely.

Cooking note: these need to steep in hot water – not boiling water – for 30 minutes. Factor this time in accordingly.

Finally we will also need 4-5 minced garlic cloves, some broccoli florets and 1 egg for the finished dish.

Add some vegetable oil into a very hot skillet or wok and get ready for action Party Guy!

Add the minced garlic to the skillet for maybe 15 seconds, stir this shit constantly. Motherfucker is HOT!

Next add in the marinated chicken.

Cook for just a minute or two per side until the pink has cooked out of the chicken.

Just like that! Next go ahead and crack that egg in there.

Stir the egg around fast, fast, fast. Next? In goes the broccoli.

You’re wokking the fuck out of this damn thing right now right? Fast stir, FAST! No goddamn distractions allowed.

Now in go the noodles. Stir to combine then finally add in the sauce.

Just a minute or 2 to get everything hot and you can drop the spoon and step the fuck back!

That shit was fun wasn’t it?

Like you’re Ben E Hana or some-fucking-body.

Now all we have to do is plate our meal the fuck up!

The ribs man! Look at those ribs!

Holy shit!

You’re going to need a fucking beach towel before diving in. Good god man!

How does it taste?

It literally has every goddamn flavor on the planet. Every. Single. One.

It’s also got the spicy kick from the gochujang and it’s got the one flavor that never gets it’s proper due.

Fat.

Holy fucking shit is fat a delicious flavor. This shit will run down your chin with fatty deliciousness. It’s also going to require some beers.

Strike that.

A LOT of beers.

You all know I love me some goddamn barbecue and I almost always go with the ribs at a barbecue joint but these fuckers?

Right here?

Yeah. They’re that good.

One last quick cooking tip: if you don’t have access to a grill and still want to cook these, you can! Follow the slow roast pre-cook instructions then you have 2 options.

Option 1: Open foil packs containing the slow cooked ribs and baste the sauce all over the ribs, re-wrap with the foil and finish cooking in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Option 2: Remove the pre-cooked ribs from the foil and let cool. Baste the ribs all over with the sauce and finish under the broiler on your stove until the ribs brown and get all caramelized and shit.

Both those options would work fine in a pinch.

Either way, you want these ribs. You NEED these ribs.

Have some ribs will ya?

I appreciate all of you being there.

This wasn’t the easiest week for me so your camaraderie and good humor have been very welcome indeed.

Be nice to each other out there and keep doing everything we can to keep this fucking virus under control.

We’re getting closer to seeing the other side, I promise.

See you next week!

PEACE and UNITY!