A “New” Rib Recipe

I’m chronically on the hunt for the ultimate pork rib recipe. Whilst trolling the blogosphere on the trusty tinternet this weekend, I came across the famed Dr.BBQ and his recipe for Baby Back Ribs. I figured I’d test it on our friends Dayne and Tammy Cowan and well, if it all went wrong, there was always pizza that could have been delivered!

It wasn’t all bad in the end but I’d certainly adjust the directions to get a slightly different result. In our case, everyone around the dinner table was thrilled with the final product, except me. I thought the timing was too long for the first and second phases and I practically omitted the last phase as the ribs were more than done! Following Dr BBQ’s method resulted in the ultimate in “fall off the bone” ribs and that’s undeniable, but there was no pretty plating of the ribs and well, it ended up a being a delicious wad of pork and bones all thrown onto a serving plate for all of us to tuck into.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical but I kind of like ribs with a bit of bite required and it’s got to look nice too. Would I recommend this recipe? For sure! The rub and the glaze are excellent. The timing, if adjusted, should result in a fantastic rib result!

So here’s what you’ll need to prepare. First the rub:

• 1/4 cup corse sea salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons granulated garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons granulated onion
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

Combine all the spices above and then whiz it through a spice grinder or coffee bean grinder. You want to get the rub nice and fine. This also makes enough for at least 6-8 big racks. Whatever I don’t use I simply put it into a zip top bag and keep it in the fridge. Lasts for ages!

To rub your ribs, simply slather each of your racks with vegetable oil and then dust the rub over both sides of the rack and in between the bones on the sides. Don’t miss that sweet spot with the rub. Wrap your ribs in cling film and place them back in the fridge for a few about 2.5 hours. When your grill/smoker is up to temperature, take out the ribs, unwrap them and put them into your trusty rib rack.

The glaze is next, and when done it’s delicious. Highly recommend trying this glaze.

• 1 cup ketchup (which is pretty much one standard size glass bottle of Heinz ketchup)
• 1/2 cup dark molasses
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon mace
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon Liquid Smoke
• 1/2 cup honey

Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized saucepan and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Let it cool down uncovered and you’ll see how it thickens up beautifully.

Here’s the way I’d do it (again) knowing now what I know.

Preheat your smoker/grill or BGE to 275 dome temperature, set up for indirect cooking. Add a drip pan full of water and then throw in two handfulls of cherry wood chips. Put your ribs into a rib rack and place them over your drip pan. At this temperature, set your timer for 2 hours. The original recipe called for 3 hours…  Place them into an aluminium tray and coat them in honey then fill the tray with about 3 cups of apple juice. Make sure you’ve got enough juice in there so it doesn’t evaporate. Tightly close the tray with two sheets of heavy duty aluminium foil. Then plonk it on the grill at the same temperature for another 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Carefully open the foil tray, it will be steamy and hot after an hour on the grill. Take your ribs out with equal care as they’ll be really close to done at this point. Carefully remove your plater setter and go for the direct cooking method. Place the ribs on the grid directly, meat side up and baste them with the glaze you made earlier. Close the dome for no more than 5 minutes, flip and then take them off after another 2 minutes. Put your ribs on a platter and cover them in foil. Rest them for about 10 minutes, set up the table and now WOW your guests.

We served these ribs with a great new slaw recipe along with baked potatoes and an Apple Cake Tatin that was DELICIOUS! (Thanks Heather!!!)

Like I said, I would have preferred to do the method above but all was not lost. Everyone loved the ribs and I was inspired to try this again in a few months time. Highly recommend the rub and the glaze and I’m looking forward to using the leftovers on chicken and chops!

PS – Check out the “Pork Lady” wield the knife to the pork side – no saw, just a 200 year old blade and lots of muscle. I also took the full loin she gingerly removed, slicing it into 4 small roasts and popped them into the freezer. Thanks “Pork Lady!!!”

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Overall Heather Rating 9/10

Fennel Roasted Pork with Prosecco Gravy

Pork leg roasts are one of the easiest things to pull off on a grill or smoker, with little required in terms of faffing about. Last night, in the torrential monsoon rain of Singapore, I ventured out on the deck and cooked us up some tasty fennel crusted pork leg with “wintery veg”, apples and a tasty gravy to help get the damp chill out of the air. Now for context, it was still 80 degrees outside but when it rains for days on end, it seems somewhat cooler than the normally sunny and humid days we get living on the equator! We needed some comfort food last night.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 x 1.5 kg boneless pork leg roast
• a few good glugs of olive oil (for coating the roast and the vegetables)
• Kosher salt
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• 2 Teaspoons fennel seeds
• 4 carrots, peeled and cut diagonally
• 6 medium potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
• 1 head of garlic, paper removed
• 2 small onions, peeled and quartered
• A pinch of dried oregano, thyme and parsley for the veg
• 3 green apples, cored and sliced thick

For the gravy, you’ll need:

• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 3/4 cup of any half decent prosecco
• 2.5 Tablespoons of plain white flour

Here’s how to pull it all off:

Set up your grill for indirect heat, and settle the temperature down at about 425 F. Just before you’re ready to put your roast on, throw on a small handful of cherry wood chips for a bit of smoky flavour and colour. Drizzle your roast with olive oil then season with Kosher salt, fennel seeds and cracked fresh peppercorn. Place your roast into a v-rack and a drip pan and place it on the grid. Make sure you’ve got your thermometer inserted and set for your internal temperature of 165 F. Now set your timer for 40 minutes at which point the roast looks golden brown and starts to crackle.

At the end of the first 40 minutes, remove the v-rack carefully (cuz it’s hot) and add your vegetables (but not the apples). Before you add them, make sure you’ve coated the veggies in olive oil and seasoned them with a bit of Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Sprinkle on the other herbs which can included oregano, thyme and parsley. Add the v-rack back onto the drip pan and close the lid of the grill. Reduce the temperature just a bit to a steady 400 degrees for another 40 minutes.

Once the second 40 minutes are done, add the apples and mix up the vegetables so they don’t stick to the bottom of your drip pan. Now simply wait for your roast to come up to 165 degrees F. Then simply remove the pan with the rack and carefully set it down on a surface that won’t burn. Loosely cover your pork leg with aluminium foil as well as the vegetables. Let the pork rest for ten minutes and while that’s happening you can prep the final touch…

Now for the gravy! Remove the veg from the drip pan and then very carefully drain the drippings from the pan into a skillet that you’ve got on the burner over medium/high heat. Now add your flour and and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Little by little add your stock and prosecco (which you can pre-mix) and stir gently until the mixture thickens. I had a bit of stock and prosecco left over so don’t feel like you need to use it all, just keep adding and stirring the gravy until it gets nicely voluminous and thickens well.

Once done, your pork has rested, your vegetables have settled down to a temperature that you can actually eat without burning the roof of your mouth and your gravy is thick and piping hot. Now simply carve up your pork into thin slices and make sure there’s a wonderful piece of crackling for each piece. Admittedly, that’s my favorite part of the dish…the crackling! And, if I could only rate that, it’s got to be an 11, despite the colesterol warnings I get from my GP!

The fennel added a really wonderful flavour to the crackling and the veg along with the apples were delicious! The gravy was also a killer addition to the whole meal. I lost overall Heather rating points simply because of the quality of the raw roast. And here’s a good lesson…you can cook an amazing meal but if your meat quality is sub-standard, you’ll get an ok meal instead of a legendary one. This roast was an impulse buy at the local grocery store and it was very high in fat content. I didn’t mind it too much but Heather’s not a huge fan, texturally. Great meal, but a bit on the fatty side.

We’ll definitely do this recipe again but I’ll go to the local wet market butcher and get a fresh pork leg to work with next time! Special thanks to my little helper Kalyna…you’ll make a great chef one day darling!

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Overall Heather Rating: 7.5/10

Cedar Smoked Pork Ribs

Hiya everyone, I was meaning to do this recipe for a while now and a quiet Sunday afternoon seemed the perfect time to break out the cedar planks and try something other than salmon! The recipe this weekend was Cedar Smoked Pork Ribs accompanied with breaded zucchini, smoky beans and a homemade lemon merengue pie. (The pie will NOT feature in this post….sorry Heather!)

So as with all things “low and slow” you’ll need to prepare the night before. That means getting your rub ready and your ribs coated and in the fridge overnight. The rib rub goes a little like this:

• 4 tbs (60 ml) dark brown sugar
• 4 tbs (60 ml) sweet paprika
• 2 tbs (30 ml) fresh ground pepper
• 1 tsp (4 ml) cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp (10 ml) onion powder
• 3 tbs (45 ml) kosher coarse salt
• 2 tsp (10 ml) garlic powder
• 2 tsp (10 ml) celery salt

I like to pulverize my rubs in the spice grinder to break down any clumpy stuff, so once you’ve got it all together give it a good whirl in the grinder for about 30 seconds. Now the way I prepped the ribs this time was to slather them in regular yellow mustard after which I liberally coated each slab with the rib rub and then cling filmed them to a tight fit. Three racks, 15 minutes and into the fridge for 24 hours. If you’re using cedar planks, pop them in the sink and cover them in water for a few hours before you light the grill.

Fast forward 30 hours and you’re ready to start the next few phases. First, get your grill set up for direct grilling (but remember its not really direct as you’ll be smoking the ribs on two of the cedar planks.) Set your temperature at or about 220-250 degrees F. To get an accurate read of the ambient temperature on top of my cedar planks, I used my trusty IGrill thermometer with its new ambient probe. It works a charm for any temperature less than 400 degrees F.

The cedar planks also needed a bit of adjustment. I sawed off the top and bottom corners of both the left and right planks. It ended up looking like a crooked octagon but it was the only way to get two planks to fit side by side on a large Big Green Egg. Use the off cuts to add to your charcoal for additional and quick smoke.

During your grill prep time make sure your ribs are out of the fridge and coming up to room temperature or as close to it as possible. Don’t put freezing cold meat on a grill, ever! When you’re all ready to go, place your slabs on the planks, shut the dome and get your grill stable between 225-250 degrees F. Have a spray bottle ready with a 50/50 mix of apple juice and water. Spray the ribs and planks every 20 minutes for the first hour or of your planks set fire.

I set my timer for two hours and during that time I sat back and watched the plumes of smoke chug out of the egg. Once the timer pinged, I placed each slab into an aluminium foil packet and filled each one with about a cup of apple juice. Carefully remove your cedar planks as well and put them in a safe place to cool down, away from the kids! Plonk the packets back on the grid and crimp the top to make a steeping tent. Close the lid for another 45 minutes. The temperature will creep up a bit now but try to keep it at a maximum of 350 degrees F.

Now for the glaze. I made up the glaze in the morning to allow for all the flavours to meld over time. Here’s how it goes:

6 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp Heinz ketchup

1.5 tbs molasses

4 cloves fresh minced garlic

1 half Jalapeño pepper, seeds included and finely chopped

1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

When your 45 minutes are up, very carefully remove the packets as they’ll contain some pretty darn hot juices. Carefully place your ribs back on the grid, meat side up. Now coat your slabs with your glaze and shut the lid for 5 minutes then flip and repeat for another 5 minutes. When done, remove the slabs carefully as they’ll want to fall apart. If you’re the type that likes a bit of bite to your ribs, forget the 45 minute steeping phase! Heather likes her ribs to fall off the bone so we opted to go with the above method.

Now let the ribs rest for about 10 minutes under a tent of aluminium foil. When ready, serve up your sides and tuck in!

The recipe above was so absolutely different than the ribs I normally make. Now that’s a good thing because you want to try a bit of variety once in a while. These ribs also had a pretty hefty spice kick to them coupled with an amazing cedar smokiness at was utterly insane! If you’re like my buddy Brett and you like ‘em spicy, this is the rib recipe for you! Let me know what you think!

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Overall Heather Rating: 8.5/10

Ginger & Molasses Pork Kebabs with Roasted Vegetables

Friday night is always a great time to relax with a new recipe and this past week I came across a new one that yielded a double thumbs up from Heather and I. This take on pork kebabs was so simple and tasty that we’ll need to do this one again for absolutely sure!

Here’s what you’ll do:

Take two pork chops and slice them down into two inch pieces. As these chops were really thin, it was a bit of a faff truth be told but I wanted to use chops instead of loin because of the fat content. Roasted pork fat has a lovely caramel flavour when combined with this sauce…and the sauce was the magic for this recipe and this is how it goes:

• 6 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp Heinz ketchup
• 1.5 tbs molasses
• 4 cloves fresh minced garlic
• 1 half Jalapeño pepper, seeds included and finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt

Combine all of the above ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring it to a simmer, reducing it down to about 1/2 cup (takes about 3 minutes.) Now set the sauce pan aside and let the sauce cool down and thicken up. Meanwhile set up your grill for direct grilling and stabilize your temperature at 400 degrees F.

When ready, start to skewer your pork onto two bamboo sticks that have been immersed in water for 30 minutes. I used two sticks for two reasons. One, it provides for easier flipping and two, it looks cool. Once done skewering, season both sides of the pork with a sprinkle of Kosher salt and finally paint both sides of the kebabs with the sauce. Grill the kebabs for 2.5 minutes per side, any longer and you’ll start to burn the exterior and because the pork was so thinly sliced, it all cooked in a flash. At the end of your second 2.5 minutes, set the skewers aside and wrap the plate in aluminium foil. This way, you’ll keep them warm, redistribute the juices and finish off the cooking process.

Now for the vegetables, you would have done this before grilling the pork. Simply add anything you have in the fridge into a roasting tray along with some quality olive oil and salt and pepper. We roasted our veg in the oven for about 40 minutes until they were just turning colour and crisping up around the edges.

The photos below don’t do the taste any justice. Try this sauce on any cut of pork (I want to try this on a slab or ribs truthfully…) and have fun with it.

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Overall Heather Rating: 9/10

PS – good luck to all the drivers! Tonight Singapore hosts the F1 night race….go Alonso!

Rosemary & Garlic Pork Loin

Possibly the easiest recipe on this blog and quite possibly one of the tastiest! Last night was “Sunday Night Roast Night” in the Matla home and as such I pulled out one half of a pork loin that was butchered for me a few weeks back by none other than “The Pig Lady!” Oink Oink Ms Piggy…you delivered again!

The secret to any good meal is sometimes simplicity. Try this one out the next time you grill or even want to roast something up in the oven.

• One pork loin – about 1 to 1.5 kg
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and finely minced
• 3 more cloves of garlic, sliced thinly but not crushed (you’ll insert these into your pork loin)
• 2 long sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
• 1.5 teaspoons of Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
• Pre-heat your Big Green Egg to 400 degrees F and set it up for Indirect heat, that is, no direct flame
• A handful of apple wood chips
• A platesetter

Bring your pork loin up to room temperature or at least take it out of the fridge for about 30 minutes. At this point, take the crushed garlic, rosemary, oil, salt and pepper and make up a bit of a paste. Don’t make it too thick and if it looks that way, just add a tiny bit more olive oil. Set that aside.

Simply, take a roasting tray and cover it with aluminium foil then chop up some classic veg to add. In our case I added new potatoes, eggplant, asparagus (much to my stupidity as my wife was kind to point out that after an hour roasting, asparagus will turn out nothing short of tiny little wooden twigs….for once, she was right!) I also added some red Spanish onions, extra garlic and some more rosemary for a bit more flavour. Coat the vegetables in olive oil and give them a good solid seasoning.

Take a sharp paring knife and make enough holes into the loin so that you can add in the rest of your garlic slices. Make sure you space them out evenly to get all that lovely flavour throughout the loin. Now, coat your  loin in the rosemary/garlic paste and give it a good seasoning with Kosher Salt and freshly ground black pepper then add the loin onto a V-rack and place that into the roasting tray. Place the loin fat side down on the rack.  In any case, there’s usually very little fat on the loins I get but if you do have a bit, roast it with this side down. Once ready, chuck some apple wood chips onto the fire, set the roasting tray and v-rack down onto the grate and shut the dome.

Set your clock for 30 minutes and once it pings, flip the roast around so the bottom side gets an even roasting from the top.

At 55 minutes (total time) you’re pretty much done. Take the loin off the v-rack and wrap it in some aluminium foil and then transfer your veg to a serving plate. Let the pork rest for 10 minutes and then slice it nice and thin and place it back onto your veg then serve.

Really simple but oh so tasty!

Heather was in heaven with this one and I was too…but that was largely due to the homemade fudge brownies and honey/vanilla ice cream that followed.

Overall Heather Rating: A hands-down 10/10 

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PS – David McKinley, you are a Dufus for missing this meal!  Just wanted to point that out!

Knuckle Sandwich?

A very happy weekend from sunny Singapore! Yesterday was one of those days where the rule book was thrown away and I tried something slightly different…a knuckle sandwich! It was intended to be a type of pulled pork/sauerkraut sandwich but it didn’t turn out that way mainly because we couldn’t get our hands on a tin of sauerkraut…anywhere!

We have a freezer that holds all sorts of wonders and on Friday night I pulled out a softball sized boneless pork knuckle. Now, you have to love this because the retail price of this knuckle was $4.75 SGD or $3.84 USD. When you can feed 5 people on less that four bucks, you know you’ve got a winning combination for a cheap but tasty dinner.

So it all starts with the marinade. I tweaked one from a pork loin recipe that we use and it went something like this:

• 1 boneless pork knuckle
• 1/2 cup of Shiraz
• 3 Tablespoons roasted sesame seeds
• 3 Tablespoons honey
• 1/4 Teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 Teaspoon Mustard powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 Teaspoon dried rosemary
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

Combine all the ingredients above (minus the knuckle) in a non-reactive bowl. Once blended well, put your pork knuckle into a zip top bag and pour the marinade over the knuckle. Pop the back into a bowl (in case you’ve not closed it well or if there happens to be a small tear) and place it into the fridge for a few hours. I had our knuckle in for 8 hours before I put it on the grill. Make sure you flip the bag every so often and give it a gentle squeeze. You want to make sure your knuckle is covered well and soaks up as much of the marinade as possible.

Pull out the knuckle about 45 minutes before you’re ready and bring it up to room temperature or as close to it as possible. Set up your grill for direct cooking and stabilize your temperature at 225F. Throw in a few chunks of hickory, adding a wonderful smoky flavor. I placed the knuckle on a v-rack and roasting pan lined with aluminium foil. I also put in 2 cups of chicken stock in the pan to help with keeping the knuckle nice and moist.

I roasted the knuckle as is for just over 2 hours at 225 – we were on a timeline and so I removed the knuckle just after the 2 hour mark, covered it in foil to rest for 5 minutes before carving. Now I know, I know, I know….this knuckle could have easily stayed on the grill for another 2-3 hours, adopting a low and slow approach. The next time I do the knuckle, for sure. By pulling it off at 2 hours it was cooked through nicely and the flavour was excellent but it was still a bit tough and the fat hadn’t rendered as well as it could have. So, lesson learned, always take your time.

Once properly rested, I sliced the pork knuckle into thin slices for our knuckle sammiches! The sandwiches were also a bit unorthodox but my oh my, they tasted fantastic. We loaded up fresh kaiser rolls with a bit of homemade KC barbecue sauce, dijon mustard, pickled artichoke hearts and shredded old cheddar. The result was an excellent flavour combination that we’ll just have to work on improving.

The point of the entry is that you don’t need to spend a fortune to eat well and this little knuckle sandwich proved the point.

Bon apetite!

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Overall Heather Rating (4/10) SHOCKING but true…if the knuckle had turned out as a melt in your mouth piece of pork…this would have been a 9! Now, to be fair, our son Alex is complaining that the score is waaaaay too low. The sandwiches were “awesome” according to the first born son! Thanks buddy!

The Best Things in Life are Worth Waiting For…22 Hour Pulled Pork!

To celebrate Easter 2012, Heather, the kids and I invited 7 of our close friends to try our first attempt at pulled pork, a.k.a. Boston Butt, a.k.a. Singapore Swine. The result? Without exaggeration, this was the single BEST result we’ve had on the Big Green Asian Egg to date. Heather screamed out….”this is a 15 out of 10!!!!” in front of a packed house.

The secret to the success of the “Singapore Swine” was the super low and super slow approach that was employed. From start to finish, the butt was consumed ten minutes short of 22 full hours on the BGAE! I was so excited to try this out and my hat and my BBQ mits come off to Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn, the Barbecue Whisperer for his step by step guide to PERFECT pulled pork! Click here for the link! Another shout out goes to my peeps at The Butcher for carving up 4.818 kg of pork lovin’!  Jack, you’re a star!!!! For those who aren’t metrically inclined, that’s about 10.6 pounds of pork shoulder!

Right, so two days before I prepped three homemade sauces that are very worthy of being shared. Make these and if you actually combine the Lexington Dip with the Columbian Gold…you’ve got Lexington Gold which goes beautifully on a pulled pork sammich!

Sauces:

Kansas City BBQ Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 cups Heinz ketchup
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup molasses
• ½ cup honey
• ½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup yellow mustard
• 2 tablespoons of your favorite BBQ rub
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir until blended. Remember to use a wooden spoon. Simmer on low heat, stirring once in a while, for about 10 minutes. Makes 3 ½ cups.

Lexington Dip – North Carolina Barbecue Sauce

Yield: Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Ingredients

• 1 cup distilled vinegar (do not use cider vinegar)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup apple juice
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon hot chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper

Heat this up for about 10 minutes until it starts to simmer….this step unlocks all sorts of crazy flavours!

Columbia Gold Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups prepared yellow mustard
2/3 cup cider vinegar
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon chipotle Tabasco sauce or you favorite hot sauce
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules or 1 cube
2 teaspoons dried rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon celery seed
3 teaspoons mustard powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Mix the wet ingredients together in a bowl - If you are using a bouillon cube, crush it with a spoon in a bowl or mortar & pestle and add it to the bowl. Crush the rosemary leaves and celery seed in a mortar & pestle or in a blender or coffee grinder and add it to the bowl. Add the rest of the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix thoroughly. Let it sit for an hour in the refrigerator for the flavors to meld. No cooking necessary. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for a month or more.

OK, the rest of it kind of goes like this…read “Meathead’s” method and remember to use the 2 hours per pound at 225 F. It works beautifully. Make sure you also stock good batteries for your digital thermometer. I have an IGrill and went through 16 AA batteries before I chucked in 4 Energizer Lithium batteries. $15 bucks well spent.  I kept one probe for ambient temperature (kept at 225 F or thereabouts) and one in the butt waiting for a magic 190 F. If you read the article and follow it precisely, you won’t be disappointed.

Thanks Heather, Alex, Kalyna, Gio, Michelle, John, Angi, David, Mayeth, Richard and Billi for a great Easter meal and sorry to the gang at work…NO LEFTOVERS!

Enjoy!

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Overall Heather Rating: 15/10

 

 

Romano’s Toscano costine di maiale

Hey there faithful fans of the BGAE blog… It’s been a while no doubt but fear not…I’ve got a new recipe for you that will surely please the pallet! Last Saturday’s experiment tested the way we normally do ribs on the Egg and I must say, I was really pleased with the result. What did we try? Tuscan style back ribs from our favourite pork supplier….The Pig Lady!

A couple of differences this time included further trimming down the monster sized ribs PL gives us. Take the time to trim down your ribs to ensure an even cook and uniform ribs once cut. We made stir fry the night before with all the trimmings so nothing went to waste.

The second change was to try our regular rib rub on a mustard slathered rack. So in the end we actually went for two distinctly different racks of ribs: Romans Classic Ribs and Tuscan style.

For the Tuscan style ribs this is what you’ll need:

• 1 slab of your favorite ribs
• 1 head of garlic (already roasted with quality olive oil and Kosher salt.
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp minced lemon zest
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/3 cup pitted kamalata olives, minced
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tbsp anchovy paste
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Combine all of the above and place your slab of ribs into a large zip top bag. Pour in your marinade and plonk it into the fridge for up to 8 hours. Make sure you squish the bag once in a while to ensure an even coating.

In the meantime, get the grill ready by setting it up for indirect heat, no wood chips, and stabilised at 225 degrees F.That’s really low in case you were wondering. The result will not disappoint…have faith in your grill and be prepared to invest at least 3 hours of your day to produce the best end result!

So, grill is now stable, no smoke, ribs at room temperature, it’s time! I put in a roasting tin with some beef broth under my rib rack. Not sure how much this step adds in terms of flavour or moisture but it didn’t hurt at all. I then set my timer to ping every 30 minutes and at every half hour mark thereafter I basted the Tuscan ribs with the remaining marinade. I did this 5 times and stopped with the last 30 minutes without a final basting. This ensures that you’re not cross contaminating your pork with nasty little germs.

At three hours in, I did the “bend test” on both racks. Basically you pick up one side of a given rack and let gravity pull on the opposite side. When you start to see a crack or if the slab breaks at the bend point…you’re all sorted. Wrap them up in some foil and let them rest for a good 15 minutes.

Once rested, cut each rib down the mid point and arrange them on a serving plate. For the classic ribs, serve up some homemade BBQ sauce on the side…for the Tuscan ribs, naked is the only way to fully appreciate the complexity of flavours.

In all a total success! Thanks to the Clements clan for agreeing to be our test case (and for peeing on the couch) and a special thanks to Heather for inspiring me to try something completely new!

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Overall Heather Rating: 9/10

Tuscan vs Tusken…you decide!

Honey-Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Its not every night that Heather dishes out a 10/10 for dinner and as tonight was one of those rare nights, it was only fitting to sit down and type out an entry. So if you’re interested in tasting a superb pork tenderloin, read on.

Here’s what you’ll need as a start:

• 1 large pork tenderloin, trimmed of all fat and silver skin
• 1/2 cup of beer (Tiger in our case)
• 3 Tablespoons roasted sesame seeds
• 3 Tablespoons honey
• 1/4 Teaspoon Yellow Mustard (Dijon works as well)
• 1/4 Teaspoon Mustard powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 Teaspoon dried rosemary
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

Combine all of the ingredients above and once you’ve trimmed your tenderloin, add everything into a zip-top bag, ensuring you get as much of the air out of the bag. Squish it all about and place your tenderloin (in bag) in a dish and straight into the fridge. I let this sit in the fridge (occasionally turning the pork) for about 6 hours.

Now, go set up your grill for indirect heat and stabilize your temperature at 400 degrees F. While your grill is coming up to temperature, make sure the pork does too. Take it out of the fridge and let it warm up a bit before you plonk it on the grid! When you open your zip-top bag, save the marinade and pour it into a small saucepan, heat it over medium/low heat until it boils. Then, under a watchful eye, let it boil for 5 minutes then set it aside for a quick warm up later. You’ll use the marinade as a sauce for the tenderloin when serving. Nothing goes to waste in this house!

Once you’re all ready, set your tenderloin down onto the grid and let it sizzle and get those fantastic grid marks. Pretend the loin has 4 sides and turn it every three minutes to achieve Nirvana. Once you’ve done all four sides, insert your trusty thermometer (my brand new IGrill worked a treat!!!) and keep grilling until you’ve reached an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. Honestly, that was only a minute or two longer after the fourth flip. Once your thermometer pings, pull the loin off and wrap it in some heavy duty aluminium foil and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Get your knife nice and sharp and carve the tenderloin into thin pieces. Plate and drizzle with the remaining marinade, which is now your sauce. Our pork tenderloin was served with a mixed salad with feta and walnuts. A perfect combination to a perfect meal.

Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

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Waking the Nine Dragons!

So a few nights ago I embarked on a proof of concept with a small rack of pork prime riblets. I’ve been sworn to secrecy by my butcher Pete NOT to disclose where I purchased said pork but what I can tell you is that they’re small, meaty and really, really tasty especially when you use Meatheads’ “Hoisinful Nine Dragons Ribs” recipe. Honestly, we shared two ribs as an appetizer with each of our 3 friends the other night and the vote was unanimous, these were INCREDIBLE ribs!

Here’s the original recipe that Meathead uses as well as a great story to go behind the recipe – click here. Given that our riblets were very small I simply adjusted the timing and got exactly what I was hoping for….lip smackin’ pork goodness with a fantastic Chinese influence. We of course used the indirect outdoor grilling method but you can also achieve riblet bliss by roasting these ribs in the oven.

Now given that we live in Singapore, we’re lucky to have unrestricted access to traditional Chinese ingredients pretty much anywhere we go. If you can’t get what you need for this recipe in your local shop, you can always order online or wander down to Chinatown if you have one and go nuts!

The magic ingredient in this marinade/basting sauce is Hoisin. If you’ve ever dined on the likes of mu-shu pork, Chinese spring rolls, or Peking duck (peek-a-boo) then you’ve no doubt had this staple sauce.  It’s as widely used across Asia as ketchup would be in North America or brown sauce in the UK. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on Hoisin.

So the preparation for the marinade is simple, messy if wish, and takes only about 10 minutes.  Now, I made plenty of sauce and actually just made 3 times the requisite amount for this weekend. It’s our daughter Kalyna’s 1st birthday and dad’s grillin’ 10 racks in style! (more entries on that later.)

The marinade
1 cup of hoisin sauce
1/4 cup diced onions
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine or white wine
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup fresh ginger, grated
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon mustard powder
2 tablespoons chipotle chili sauce (gives a good smokey flavour to the ribs)
3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
1 teaspoon five spice powder

Combine it all and then pulse it in a blender until you’ve pretty much pureed the chunks of onion, garlic and ginger.  This step also lets the spices fuse together and provided for a velvety coating for the ribs. Now, pop your slab of riblets in a jumbo sized zip top bag and cover them with your marinade, leaving about a third for steeping later on in the process.

  

Set your grill up for indirect cooking (no direct flame) and stabilize the temperature at a very low 225 F. On a Big Green Egg, that’s pretty easy to achieve however if you’ve got another grill, simply put a pan of water below your grilling spot and watch your temperature gauge.

Your first round will simply have you placing the riblet slabs on the indirect grill and let them roast meat side up for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (Remember, I’ve adjusted the timing from Meathead’s original recipe.) You’ll see the meat contract after this step about 1/2 ” from the edge of the bone.

Round two has you wrapping the riblet slabs meat side up in aluminium foil packets.  Pour some of the reserved marinade over the slab and seal up the packet and bake for another 30 minutes.

Round three, carefully remove the packets from the grid, open them up gingerly as the steam can burn.  At this point, remove your indirect heat shield and liberally coat the meat side of the riblet slabs with your favorite honey.  Pop the slabs, meat side down, onto direct heat for 5 minutes or until it brows up and starts to bubble. Keep the dome open and watch so that nothing burns.

Let the ribs rest for a few minutes more under some aluminium foil and then slice them up.  Plonk them in a metal bowl, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and some freshly diced scallions and you’re ready to serve possible the best Chinese-style ribs I’ve ever tasted!  Hope you enjoy this as mush as we did!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10