Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Sometimes you Just Need Some Ribs. Chapter 40 or so.

Good morning everybody!

So glad you could stop by.

Hope everyone is indeed having a “bitchin’ summer” so far.

Mine’s been mostly good.

Went through a wholly unpleasant experience recently that I’ll try not to get into too much detail over. I had my first illness? Affliction? Health Issue? Since prior to March 2020.

I had a little stomach bug that absolutely, fully and whole-heartedly fucking sucked balls!

Pretty sure it was more memorable because I hadn’t been sick in so long. I’ve been so goddamn diligent and thorough STILL with my pandemic protocols that no illness stood a fucking chance of sneaking through. I’m still practicing all of the protocol protections and this is even after California “opened up” on June 15th.

Still not sure how this little bastard did get through but I don’t think it was a food borne thing.

Fuck me it was goddamn horrifying though. Without getting too graphic it manifested more by way of involving the Shipping Department rather than the Receiving Department and fucking hell I could go a lifetime without going through that again.

Still keeping the mask, hand washing and hand sanitizers completely on hand for now.

Maybe permanently.

Anyway.

After last week’s easy breazy meal of Tuna Casserole – and it was delicious too wasn’t it – I’m getting back to the good stuff.

I hadn’t featured that many Asian cuisine inspired meals this season and this menu came about because my brain said “Goddamn I need me some ribs. And fried rice too! Hell yes.”

We’ve definitely showed off our Chinese takeout chops in the past. So some of the prep work may look familiar to many of you.

We’ve also done ribs more times than I can count because ribs are, you know, GODDAMN DELICIOUS THAT’S WHY!

I wanted to do something based on the Chinese take-out style spare ribs that most of you should be familiar with.

You know what I’m talking about here right?

Labeled “BBQ Spare Ribs” or simply “BBQ Ribs” these Chinese/American beauties are featured usually in the appetizer section of basically every Chinese take-out place every fucking where.

Sweet, succulent, savory and familiar with the Asian seasonings – not to mention usually really bright fucking red in color – I lost track of the number of times I’ve ordered these when ordering take-out or delivery.

Almost every time. Those damn ribs grab your attention right out of the damn gate because they’re right fucking there under “Appetizers.” If you’re like me you’ve already got a good idea or two what your main entrees are going to be. Then you see these ribs right there up top and you think “Shit man! It’s an appetizer. Can’t be too filling. No fucking way it will ruin my appetite. Hell yes. Let’s get some.”

Next thing you know you’ve got a stack of individual rib bones recently denuded of their protein stacked right there in front of you and you haven’t even opened up your entree cartons yet.

I know!

Me too!

So here I was wanting some delicious ribs and some fried rice and well fuck, I knew what I had to do.

Let’s make some Chinese Take-out Style BBQ Ribs?

Sound good?

You know how I can tell when you are preparing Asian food?

That. Right there!

Seriously. Start right here and you are 80% of the way to delicious Chinese/American food.

Hoisin, soy sauce and sesame oil for the liquids. Green onion, garlic and ginger for the herbage. Then some good old fashioned Chinese Five Spice along with that.

Looks like you want to party!

Chinese Style BBQ Ribs!

1 good size rack of pork ribs.

Exactly! Now you got it!

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon five-spice powder

1/4 cup of minced green onion

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon of fresh minced garlic

1 teaspoon of ground Szechuan pepper

It would also be to your great service if you had a 1 gallon zip top bag and a disposable aluminum baking pan big enough to cook these ribs in.

We’re going for an overnight marinade here.

You’ll need just a bit of prep first.

Garlic, ginger. Absolutely. Give both of these a pretty fine mince. When mincing these two the smell is just incredible. You just know something delicious this way comes.

Some green onions ready to mince? Nice. Always, always, always give your green onions a good rinsing prior to chopping up. Your digestive tract will thank me later.

Add those minced herbs to your wet ingredients?

Baby, you got a marinade goin’!

Once again when you’ve got everything combined like this the aroma is just goddamn intoxicating. I want to bathe in there.

Well, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get bloody!

Being a carnivore ain’t for the squeamish. 

If there is a silverskin on the back of the ribs try and remove as much as possible. I find that using a paper towel works best. Just grab an edge of the silverskin with the paper towel and rip that fucker right the hell off.

Most recipes say to cut the ribs into individual ribs but my preparation method idea was to simply slow braise these ribs low and slow for about 2 1/2 hours and I didn’t want them to get too dry during that process.

What you see up there is what I did. Cut the pig into quarters. 

Grab our old familiar friend, the 1 gallon zip top bag and get the ribs and the marinade in there.

And sock it away in the fridge overnight.

What’s cool is we can prep our rice the day before too. Just, you know, cook some fucking rice.

That’s 3/4 cup of rice and 1 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil reduce heat, cover with a lid and simmer on low for 20 minutes. You don’t have to do too much in the way of flavor enhancement to the rice. I promise we will be enhancing the bejesus out if it tomorrow.

Let the rice cool, then place it into a covered container and refrigerate overnight. This is key to making the fried rice.

Day old cold rice will open up during the frying process and will absorb the flavors of the other ingredients much better than freshly cooked, hot rice.

Next day.

Grab our disposable cooking pan.

I’ll be damned if I’m scrubbing a pan out after cooking these for 2 1/2 hours.

Get them ribs out of the refrigerator.

And slap ’em in that pan.

Damn. That looks good as Hell and we ain’t even cooked it yet.

Cover first with some plastic wrap.

Then some foil. To retain all of the moisture.

I’m not sure this is entirely necessary with the plastic wrap and the foil but I’ve seen it done on cooking shows and dammit I wanted to do it too.

Into the oven they go. You don’t really need to do shit to them during the cooking process. Just having to smell them while they cook will be more than enough work for you. I promise.

Let’s see how they turned out.

These can rest exactly as-is while we get busy on our fried rice.

Know what kind of fried rice we’re making?

Bacon fried rice.

Damn right.

Quick, simple steps but you need to have everything diced up and ready to do this right. I’ll walk you through it pictorial style.

Cook your bacon first. I chopped three bacon strips into thirds to start. Don’t over cook the bacon because it will get a bit more cooking time in the rice.

Leave about 1 tablespoon of bacon fat in the pan and then add minced onions, green onions and the peas, about 1/3 cup of each. This will go for about 4-5 minutes. Stir pretty constantly here.

Get your eggs out and get them ready.

Push the peas and onions to one side of the skillet and add in the beaten eggs.

Give the eggs a stir as they start to scramble. You have scrambled eggs before yes? Not too firm today.

Next add in our cooked rice. Go ahead and dump it in there.

Stir, stir stir! Now I add in some salt and some Szechuan black pepper. I also add in about 3 cloves of fresh garlic minced fine.

Next we add the BACON!

Finish with a tablespoon of hoisin, 2 to 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, about 1/2 tablespoon of the sesame oil and stir well to combine.

Beautiful.

Let’s plate up OK?

Get a closer look at the ribs.

Baby!

Now a look at that glorious rice.

I know a dish turned out well when it makes me hungry just uploading the photos.

After consuming this dish with great relish and gnashing of many teeth it dawned on me that these ribs could be even further enhanced If you saved a bit of the marinade, before adding the ribs obviously, from the day before. Then throw these pre-cooked ribs on a charcoal grill just long enough to get a sear on them. Baste the ribs with the marinade sauce you saved from before?

Fuck yeah. That’s a great idea.

Obviously they were fine exactly as I made them. Even better the next day.

The ribs have that sweet, garlicky, sticky thing going. They’ve got the salt tang from the soy. So very fucking good. The rice was amazing. I’ve made many a batch of fried rice and this could possibly be the very best I’ve ever done. Think the bacon had something to do with that?

Most definitely.

The only thing I longed for was a crispy egg roll or two but you can’t always have everything.

This menu is an absolute keeper.

Give it a try instead of ordering those ribs from a Chinese take out place. Think you’ll be happy with the results.

Thanks for reading everyone.

Always a pleasure to have you stop by.

Enjoy your long weekend next weekend.

I’ll see you right here next week.

Be Well.

Be Safe.

PEACE!