I have been dying for pork ribs. Country style, slobbered in barbecue sauce,
slow-roasted in the oven, and served up with a huge baked potato and some corn
on the cob.
The problem is that it's too bloody hot to cook anything in
the oven. It's too hot to use the
toaster, the iron, the blow dryer, and I'm reasonably certain judging from the
state of my house that it's much, much too hot to use the vacuum. It's too bloody hot to be outside at all, but
I WANT RIBS.
So I stole a friend's recipe.
Oh sure, she offered it up months ago, and I paid little
attention to it when she "shared" it.
But I just left it sitting there on a chat thread. Waiting.
Wondering if it would ever be viewed again.
There are some secrets to this recipe. The first is not so big a secret: The ribs
need to go in a crock pot. I'm one of
those people who rarely cooks pork because I've been brainwashed into thinking
I'll die of Trichinosis or some other food-borne malady if I cook it wrong, so
I end up with pork leather instead of pork dinner. Knowing this, I opt for center-cut ribs to
make sure they fit into the crock pot.
This pains me because I really prefer the country style, but I buy the
other ones for efficiency.
There are also two ingredients I've never kept in my house
before, so I have to go hunting for them:
apple cider vinegar (pretty easy, it's in with the vinegar -- Duh) and hoisin
sauce (that I predictably find in the "ethnic" aisle, which is an
insult to those of us whose heritage isn't represented in the
"ethnic" aisle, therefore rendering us ethnic-less). I make the sauce, slap the Vidalia onion in
the pot, load in the ribs, and smother the whole thing with the double batch of
hoisin-based liquid. I turn on the crock
pot and …. Wait.
Crock pots are wonderful if you're going away for the day,
but they're annoying as all heck when you’re home with them. The smell from the cooker emanates all over
the house, especially with the windows shut and the air conditioners cranking. This is like being tortured slowly knowing
you cannot touch the food until the allotted time has elapsed lest you give
yourself food poisoning, intestinal gas, or Trichinosis.
While I am being tortured slowly by my crock pot rib dinner,
I start to wonder just what the heck is the difference between the different
pork ribs, and why do I gravitate toward one over the other. I wonder about other things, too, like will
it rain later, what's on television tonight, and does the zoo's gorilla truly
hate you if he leans against the glass, lifts his leg, and cuts a giant fart in
your direction. You know, important
things, life-changing things.
Pigs have fourteen ribs, and they're divided into four
kinds: rib tips, spareribs, St. Louis/Canadian ribs (I think this is just a bullshit one), and baby back ribs (makes me
want to sing that jingle). Reading up on
this, I discover that country style ribs are not technically ribs at all but
are cut from the front end of baby back ribs…
And now I feel like my love for country style spare ribs has been
deflated.
This is what we call payback: I stole the recipe, and now the butcher
steals my belief that country style spareribs are indeed ribs.
Life's a pisser like that sometimes.
I will say that the ribs were decent, the sauce was good but
thin (maybe a little cornstarch next time), and there are some leftovers. I'd invite you over to help me eat them, but
it's too bloody hot to be outside, which is what started this whole fiasco in
the first place.
