Ribs'n'slaw

It's been a long time,
I shouldn't have left you,
without a strong recipe to... oh well, that's not going to work.* Let's get onto the recipe.

Meat! Love it. I mean, I know that it's not the healthiest option and to save the planet we all need to go raw vegan, but it tastes so good. Especially pork ribs.

I remember them from my Mother's delicious home cooking: split into individual ribs; seasoned well; served with a delightfully volatile hot pepper sauce. After leaving home however I hardly ate them until requesting ribs at a vaguely pretentious gastropub back in the noughties. I was rather shocked at what they served: a whole rack of ribs that would normally feed a whole family. And chips. And a pint. Shock, then an insane delight passed through me as I went to work...

That said, I hardly ate them again until I was taken for a wonderful birthday meal last year at the W Hotel in Austin, Texas. Delicious ribs, slathered in an unctuous sauce: I was hooked. Since then, I've ordered ribs in a variety of restaurants, from high end to budget. Then I thought, "can't I make this at home? Mum certainly did."

I scoured the 'Net for recipes, coming across suggestions for slow cooking (for up to eight hours!) and barbecuing, but none grabbed me. However, a recipe by Jamie Oliver showed promise, even though it entailed putting the ribs on a hot barbecue for the last stage. I couldn't be bothered with that, and as you'll see, I wasn't so fussed about following the recipe to the letter: just as long as I had ribs and coleslaw on my plate, I would be happy.

I started with the coleslaw. This is from the how to make perfect coleslaw page in the Guardian newspaper: as you'll see, there are a variety of suggestions on what achieves perfection. I took:

Vegetables...

some sweetheart cabbage leaves
a portion of a savoy cabbage
one carrot
three spring onions
one teaspoon of salt
one teaspoon of caster sugar
one tablespoon of white wine vinegar
four tablespoons of mayonnaise
one tablespoon of horseradish sauce

I sliced and diced the cabbages and shredded the carrot with a peeler before placing them in a colander, which I then placed in a bowl. Adding the salt, sugar and vinegar to the sliced vegetables, I tossed them all for a few moments before leaving the lot to drain into a bowl (you can use the sink), undisturbed for an hour.

For the ribs, I took:

a rack of pork ribs
olive oil
salt and pepper
two green chillies
150ml apple juice
100ml white wine vinegar
two tablespoons of tomato sauce
one tablespoon of dijon mustard
100ml soy sauce
100g soft brown sugar

MEAT!

The oven turned onto 200 degrees centigrade, I drizzled olive oil on the ribs then sprinkled salt and pepper over that before rubbing it all into the ribs. I then put the rest of the ingredients into a pan and turned on the heat, stirring until the sugar had melted then simmered for ten minutes. I poured the resulting marinade over the ribs, before covering the cooking dish in foil and placing in the oven for an hour and a half. I basted the ribs every half hour.

I squeezed the rest of the liquid out of the vegetables after an hour then put the whole lot in a bowl, adding the chopped spring onions, mayonnaise and horseradish sauce. I then mixed them around like a maniac. I let the ribs cook uncovered for the last half hour then brought them out to meet their accompaniment.

Getting there...

As for the marinade, I wasn't too sure. It had come into contact with raw meat (boo! Throw it away) but it had been cooking for over an hour (hooray! Serve it with the ribs). The first time, I did cook the remnants on the hob for five minutes, which made an amazing sauce, but this second time I couldn't be bothered and threw the lot away. The sauce that stuck to the ribs was good enough.

Yum!

The result? A fabulous rack of ribs with coleslaw as back up. A rack could normally manage three servings, so one can work out how many to cook for a certain amount of people. It certainly lasted me a few days, happily.

(* respect to Eric B. and Rakim's I Know You Got Soul ['Cos I'll be in the kitchen if you ain't controlling' it: drop the colander, you shouldn't be holding it... oh, I give up.])

The Devil's Fish

I don't like anchovies. I don't like how they taste or look. I don't like their inclusion on an otherwise delicious pizza. I don't like the way that their salty sharpness dominates a recipe. They are, as far as I'm concerned, The Devil's Fish. And yet... I have cooked a recipe that uses them quite subtly; one that I don't think I'll be leaving anchovies out of in future. I have found these anchovies to be... useful.

The recipe is for classic pork pies, yet another dish that I thought came straight out of a deli or fridge section of whichever chain food store you wish to mention. Amazingly, you can make them at home: this recipe is one lovingly collected from Stylist magazine's "gourmet on the go" section. I imagine that the editor must think that the cook "on the go" is a three-toed sloth, because making these pork pies took me hours. (Incidentally, I think Stylist has gone downhill a bit in recent months; I used to rely on it for my free weekly girly-fix, but I just don't find it that essential anymore. But I digress.)

In addition to a substantial amount of time, you need:

for the pastry
450g of plain flour
one egg
175g lard
one teaspoon of salt
one teaspoon of sugar;

for the filling
300g pork belly (skin removed)
300g pork shoulder
two anchovies in oil (drained)
200g smoked bacon
half a nutmeg seed (grated)
salt and pepper to season;

for the jelly
three gelatine leaves
200ml good chicken stock
100ml sweet sherry
one plastic syringe;

with
butter for greasing
flour for dusting and rolling
one egg, beaten with a pinch of salt for glazing.

I started on the pastry first, mixing the flour with the egg and stirring while I melted the lard in a pan of 175ml of water, adding the salt and sugar as I went. Bringing the mixture to the boil then taking if off the heat after 30 seconds, I added this to the flour / egg mixture, stirring all the time.





Once the dough was sticky, I covered it with a tea towel, letting it rest for one hour, before turning it out onto a floured work surface to flatten. I then folded the flattened dough into thirds by taking one side into the middle and pressing down, then repeating with the other side.




I flattened this into an oblong shape and placed it on a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper and put it into the fridge for 30 minutes.

Next came the meat. After dicing the pork belly and shoulder, I mixed them with the anchovies (holding them at arm's length) before whizzing the lot of them in a food processor until they were mincemeat. I then diced the bacon and stirred this in before adding the nutmeg and seasoning.





After turning the oven on to 180ºC / gas mark 4, I took out the pastry and rolled it out on a floured surface. I folded it into three then rolled it out again until it was about three millimetres thick. From this, I cut out eight 12 cm-wide circles and eight 8cm-wide circles.

I greased eight metal pie moulds, dusted them with flour and lined with the 12cm pastry circle, leaving a little over-lapping. To each, I added one eighth of my pork filling, before placing the 8cm pastry circle on top, crimping the edges as I went.


After brushing them with egg wash and skewering a hole in the top, I placed them in the hot oven and baked for 40 minutes. Once out, I placed them on a rack to cool for two hours.

Now for the jelly. I soaked the gelatine in water for two minutes then squeezed out the excess water. This gelatine was added to the heated chicken stock and sherry and I stirred until it was dissolved, before cooling until it was thick enough to pour... fun and games were approaching.

I've never added jelly to a recipe like this before. The instructions stated using a syringe and, considering that I didn't know where the nearest needle exchange was situated, found myself in Sainsbury's buying a syringe for adding icing. (This, for reasons about to be made plain, may not be the best instrument for such a task. If you can think of a better one for next time, please let me know.)

I filled the syringe's body with the jelly and squeezed it into the hole I'd made in the top of the pastry. While a fair amount made it into the pie, a good deal of the jelly made it all over the work surface. Most annoying. I placed the whole lot in the fridge overnight, although eight hours would have been enough: I think I'd had enough of the process by this time.

However, when I took the pies out of the fridge the following morning, I was most pleased with the results: a lovely, crumbly pastry with a firm, meaty filling and a pleasant jellied surround awaited me as I sliced into the first pork pie. I added some mustard to the second slice; a little brown sauce to the third. They were lovely, providing me with a pleasant lunch for the next few days, when consumed with a large salad.


As to the Devil's Fish, I thought it blended in quite nicely. Will I try it again?