Saturday, April 5, 2008

Pork Ribs, Pt. II - Preparation

Ribs, like any other somewhat tough meat, is best cooked low and slow. As in, use a low temperature, and cook for a really long time.

Ideally, I'd like to make barbecued ribs, but I don't really have access to a barbecue, nor do I have the ingredients or the experience. So I'm going to make "barbecue" ribs. Why the quotes? Cause I'm actually going to use a slow cooker and an oven.

But before we even start cooking, we have to do a bit of butchering. Spareribs are a huge cut of meat that can be broken down into 3 main parts, as you will see soon.

Set up a prep area. These ribs are...almost bigger than my cutting board, so I need some extra insurance on the countertop.

Open the package, and---wait a second.

This is a set of two whole racks of spareribs. No wonder it was 10 pounds...

I seriously thought there was only one rack in the package. Well, uh...I'll save that other one for later. Anyways, there's this small strip of meat on the rib bone side that you need to cut off--it's called the skirt. There's a small flap that kind of sticks out, just cut along the flap and add that strip of meat to your recipe.

Can you see the difference between the last picture and this one? It's not much, but you may be able to see where I cut the skirt off.

Now, feel around for the point where the rib bones end--it should be somewhere in the middle of this huge rectangular hunk of meat. Cut along that middle line (if you don't get what I'm talking about, you'll see in the next few pictures)

Keep cutting down that middle line. There's only one possible path you can cut through, since you have to cut right through a bunch of joints in order to separate the rib bones from the rest of the meat.

So now you have two large rectangles of meat, and a small chunk of meat at the top.

That's the skirt...

That portion is known by many names--shortribs, rib tips, the "brisket" equivalent for pork, etc. I'm pretty sure this can be used for kalbi, except kalbi is typically made with beef.

And these are the ribs that we're all familiar with--when they're cut this way, they're called St. Louis style ribs.

On the bone side of the St. Louis style ribs, there's a membrane that we need to get rid of, since that membrane will get all slimy and chewy if it's cooked. Grab on to a hanging piece of membrane at the end (use a knife if you can't separate it), and pull.

Use a paper towel to help you hold the membrane as you pull it off--the membrane is kind of slippery, and the paper towel gives you friction that your hands don't have.


Since I'm putting these in the slow cooker (and oven later), I have to cut up the ribs a bit so that they'll fit. These are cut up into about 3 ribs per section.

Now comes the cooking! Almost. Season your ribs with salt and pepper. I'm also going to cook some of the rib tips (the portion on the right), since I don't know what to do with them. And don't even ask me about the other full rack of spareribs I have sitting in the fridge.

Cut up an onion. Hopefully you've seen this before. If not, then this is how you cut an onion! Oh, and wash your board, or get a new one, or cut the onion before putting the RAW PORK on the board. Good hygiene and all that.


Wondering how I took all these pictures? I set the camera on a tripod, prefocused the lens (50mm f/1.8 can't autofocus on a D40), set the self timer, and....wrapped the camera body in plastic wrap so that I don't have to completely wash my hands every time I want to take a picture.

Seeing a DSLR wrapped in plastic wrap is a sad, but hilarious sight.

Add the ribs and onion to a slow cooker and add barbecue sauce. I'm a total noob to the world of barbecue, so I used Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce--if you're going to use bottled sauce like me, I highly suggest that brand. Especially the honey chipotle variety, which is great if you're too lazy to add your own flair. Like me.

Turn the heat to low, and...wait.

See you in 8 hours.

No comments:

Post a Comment