Revisiting “Oven Barbecued Ribs”

This is a tweak on “Oven Barbecued Ribs” using the pressure-cooker for the initialize tenderizing of the pork.

Oven Barbecued Ribs
Servings: 6
Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 2.5 hours

Pork ingredients:

• 4 lbs. country-style pork ribs
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 lg. onion
• 15 whole peppercorns

Sauce ingredients:

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 lg. onions, 1/2″ dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups ketchup
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. hot sauce

Directions:

1. At somepoint in the next ~30 minutes, preheat the oven to 350°F (325°F convection if you have it).
2. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in the pressure cooker over medium heat until shimmering. Working in batches sear the pork ribs on both sides. Return all ribs to the cooker. Add the onion, broth, vinegar, and peppercorns. Cover and pressurize to high pressure. Cook for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes then remove the remaining pressure. The pork should be fork-tender but not falling off the ribs (yet).
3. While ribs cook melt butter in a saucepan or skillet and cook onions until tender over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 5-10 minutes. Taste the sauce for flavor, adjust as desired, and set aside.
4. When the pork is par-cooked, place about a cup of sauce in the bottom of a glass baking dish. Add the pork from the pressure cooker, leaving the onion and bits behind. Cover with the remaining sauce. Toss the ribs gently to fully coat. Cover the dish with aluminum foil. Transfer to the preheated oven for 1 hour.
5. Remove the aluminum foil and cook for another 15-20 minutes.
6. Remove roasting pan to a rack and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Transfer ribs to a platter and serve with extra sauce on the side.

Notes:
This is a great make-ahead meal. It tastes even better after cooling, sitting in the fridge overnight, and reheating.

If you don’t have an oven bag then you can line the roasting pan with aluminum foil and spray the foil with cooking spray. This will aid in clean-up. Add the ribs to the pan and toss them in a cup of sauce. Cover the pan with foil and bake as in step 5 above. Feel free to turn the ribs occasionally to get all sides covered in a flavorful sauce.

Pressure Cooker Country-style Pork Ribs with Red Wine and Tangerine

My husband isn’t big on following recipes. He uses them more as guidelines on what will work and then applies his knowledge of ingredients to make substitutions. The result is often delicious if unrepeatable. He came up with this dish one weekend and he’s been making some variation of it every few months ever since. I finally watched him make it, taking notes, to come up with a close approximation.

I’ve made this dish on a weeknight. After about 15 minutes of active time the rest is just letting the pressure cooker do it’s marvelous work unattended.

Pressure-cooker Country-style Pork Ribs with Red Wine and Tangerine
Servings: 4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. country-style pork rib (bone-in if possible)
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, diced (about 1 cup)
• 1 bottle light-bodied red wine, such as Beaujolais or Pinot Noir
• 1 tangerine
• 1 Tbsp. potato starch
• kosher salt and cracked black pepper

Directions:

1. Pat dry the pork ribs and sprinkle with salt and pepper on all sides.
2. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in the base of the pressure cooker until shimmering. Add enough pork ribs to cover the bottom of the pan without crowding and sear for 3-5 minutes on each side. Work in batches if needed, transferring the browned meat to a plate while browning the second batch.
3. Add the onions to the cooker along with a pinch of salt. Scrape up any fond that may have accumulated on the bottom of the pan. Add the red wine and return the pork to the pan.
4. Remove the peel from the tangerine using a vegetable peeler, leaving behind as much white pith as possible. Add it to the pressure cooker. Halve the tangerine and juice 1 half of the orange into the pan (you’ll use the other half later).
5. Clamp on the lid to your pressure cooker, bring to pressure and cook with a light release of steam for 20 minutes.
6. Release the pressure and check the meat. It should be tender but not quite falling off the bone. If it’s ready transfer it to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm. If not close the lid, rebuild pressure and cook for another 3-5 minutes.
7. When the meat is ready fish out the tangerine peel. Squeeze the remaining tangerine half into a small bowl and add the potato starch. Stir to combine and then add the slurry to the liquid in the pan. Stir to incorporate and bring to a boil. Cook at a boil for 1 minute to allow the sauce to thicken. Taste for salt and pepper, adjust as desired, and serve.

Notes:
We like this with egg noodles as the sauce coats the noodles well. Rice or mashed potatoes would work too.

You can use corn starch if you don’t have potato starch. I’d avoid flour unless you want to make a Beurre manié.

Slow-Cooker Pork, White Bean and Fennel Soup

I love a lazy Sunday however most of them are packed with to-dos and running around. It’s nice to be able to spend 10 or 15 minutes prepping something with the sure knowledge that you’ll have a taste meal at the end of the day.

Slow Cooker Pork, White Bean and Fennel Soup
Servings: 6-8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 7 hours

Ingredients:

• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 small fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced into 1″ pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb. country-style pork ribs, excess fat removed
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can canned small white beans, undrained
• 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Directions:

1. Combine broth, fennel, onion, garlic, pork and bay leaves in the slow cooker. Cover and cook, on low, for 6 hours.
2. Bump the slow cooker up to high. Add the spinach, tomatoes and beans to the cooker. Recover and cook for an hour.
3. Remove the pork (and bones) from the pot. Chop or shred into smaller pieces and return to the cooker. Add the vinegar, stir to incorporate. Taste and adjust salt/pepper as desired.

Notes:
This soup is based on one from Campbell’s. I added a few things to bump up the flavor and reworked the instructions a bit as well.

My frozen spinach didn’t thaw much after 6 hours in the fridge. I took a chance and added the mostly solid spinach brick to the slow cooker. It heated up fine and the soup seemed no worse for wear.

Oven Barbecued Ribs

This recipe comes from my parents. It’s unclear to me who created it. I thought it was my dad however my mom still makes it and it tastes as good as ever. I think the only difference is that she finishes them in the oven while he used the grill. I find her way infinitely more practical as the grill can be a finicky thing.

Oven Barbecued Ribs
Servings: 6
Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 2.5 hours

Ingredients:

• 4 lbs. country-style pork ribs
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 2 lg. onions, 1/2″ dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups ketchup
• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. hot sauce

Directions:

1. Cover ribs with water in a large pot. Bring to a boil (this might take 30 minutes), reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 hour (start the timer after they come to a simmer). The pork should be fork tender but not falling off the ribs (yet).
2. While ribs cook melt butter in a saucepan or skillet and cook onions until tender over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 5-10 minutes. Taste the sauce for flavor, adjust as desired and set aside.
3. When the pork is ready line a cutting board with paper towels and transfer the pork to the board.
4. Preheat oven to 400°F. Place a large oven bag in a roasting pan and add in a 1/2 a cup of sauce. Nestle about half of the ribs into the bag. Drizzle a 1/4 cup of sauce over the first layer of pork. Add the remaining ribs and drizzle that with another 1/4 cube of sauce.
5. Tie the bag shut and bake for 45 minutes.
6. Remove roasting pan to a rack and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Reheat the leftover sauce you made earlier. Transfer ribs to platter and serve with extra sauce on the side.

Notes:
This is a great make ahead meal. It tastes even better after cooling, sitting in the fridge overnight and reheating.

If you don’t have an oven bag then you can line the roasting pan with aluminum foil and spray the foil with cooking spray. This will aid in clean-up. Add the ribs to the pan and toss them in a cup of the sauce. Cover the pan with foil and bake as in step 5 above. Feel free to turn the ribs occasionally to get all sides covered in flavorful sauce.

Green Curry Country-Style Pork

I intended to make this earlier in the week however other obligations, and then heat, got in the way. Today it is rainy and in the low 70s, perfect weather for a quick pressure cooker braise.

I used garlic scapes in this recipe because I had some from our local food co-op. Scapes are the shoots that grow out of the ground from hard-neck varieties of garlic. When they’re young and tender, they look like curly green stalks with tightly closed buds on top. Farmers and gardeners harvest them at this time of year so that they won’t drain nutrients from the garlic bulbs that will be dug up in a couple of months, plump and glorious and ready for drying.

Green Curry Country-Style Pork
Servings: 3-4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Special equipment: pressure cooker

Ingredients:

• 2.5 lbs. bone-in country-style pork ribs
• kosher salt and ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp. peanut oil
• 1 onion, halved, peeled, and cut into strips
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 4 garlic scapes, trimmed and cut into 1/2″ pieces
• 1 12 oz. jar Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce (I used one from Trader Joe’s)

Directions:

1. Thorough pat dry the pork ribs. Sprinkle one side with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
2. Add the oil to the pressure cooker and heat over high heat for about 1 minute. Add pork ribs to the pot, salted side down, in a single layer. Sprinkle salt & pepper on the second side. Brown on the first side until it easily releases from the bottom of the pan, 2-3 minutes. Flip the pork over and repeat on the second side. When both sides are browned transfer the meat to a bowl and set aside.
3. Drain the oil from the pot and return about 1 tablespoon. Add the onions, garlic and scapes. Stir to coat the vegetables in oil.
4. Layer the pork ribs on top of the vegetables. Add the green curry sauce to the pot.
5. Fit the cover on the pressure cooker and turn the heat back up to high. Heat until you reach a strong level of pressure release and then lower the temp so that you get a slow steady release. For my cook top this means lowering the temp to low.
6. Cook for 25 minutes at a slow steady release. Turn off the heat, removing the pan from the burner if it remains hot after being turned off. If you are hungry then go for the quick release method. If time is on your side then let the pressure drop naturally, which should take 15 or 20 minutes.
7. Give the meat a squeeze with some tongs. It should be fall-apart tender. If not slap the lid back on, put it back on the heat, bring it back up to pressure and cook it for another couple of minutes.
8. Serve over white rice or steamed baby red potatoes.

Notes:
If you can’t find the garlic scapes then I’d add a extra clove of garlic (or two) and add some chopped fresh chive at the end.

I copied the description of what garlic scapes are from The Crisper Whisperer: 7 Things To Do with Garlic Scapes on Serious Eats. They said it more succinctly than I could have.

You may need to brown the meat in batches. Better to brown half of the meat at a time than croud the pot.

Braised Country-Style Pork with “West Indies” Dry Rub

“West Indies” Spice Rub – original source: Joy of Cooking

In a dry skillet combine

1/8 cup cumin seeds
1/8 cup coriander seeds

Toast over medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Pour out of the skillet onto a piece of paper towel and allow to cool while you gather & measure the other ingredients. In a bowl combine

1/8 cup sweet curry powder
1/8 cup ground black pepper *
1/8 cup ground ginger
1/8 cup kosher salt
1 Tablespoon ground allspice
1 Tablespoon chili powder *

* The original recipe called for white pepper, not black pepper, and ground red pepper where I used chili powder. We don’t keep in the white pepper in the pantry and ground red pepper is so vague in our house it is meaningless. The chili pepper was at eye level so I grabbed it.

When the toasted seeds are cool to the touch place them in a grinder and pulse until fine. Add them to the bowl of spices and mix well to combine.

Braised country style pork – source: the mind of Bob
I coated the pork with about 1/2 the mixture pressing it in as I went, flipping it over to make sure all 4 sides were covered. I then covered the pan with aluminum foil and refrigerated it for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Carefully remove the foil and pour 2-3 cups of flavorful liquid, such as chicken broth, around the edges of the pan. You want it to come somewhere around 1/2 way up the meat. Pouring around the edges prevents the spice rub from being washed off the meat.

Put the foil back on the pan and slip it into the oven. Cook it for ~3 hours, flipping the meat every hour of so.