Awesome Spare Ribs

Grilling ribs has always been a chancy business for me. Getting them cooked through without drying them out is not all that easy, and a flareup can be disaster so you have to watch them pretty closely. I love ribs, but…

Then I read a recipe a few months ago that prescribed braising the ribs and finishing up on the grill. That struck me as a really good idea, but of course I couldn’t find the recipe when I finally bought a rack of ribs. I made this one up on the fly so, while the basic idea is not original, the recipe itself is.

Awesome Spare Ribs

1 rack Pork Spare Ribs
1 can Beer (24oz) (for nitpickers: 2 ea, 12oz cans will work fine)
4 ea Whole Cloves
4 tbsp Brown Sugar

Preheat oven to 320 degrees. Mix beer and brown sugar and put it into a roasting pan with the cloves. Cut the ribs into manageable sections, maybe five or so ribs per section.

Brown the ribs in a bit of oil in a hot skillet on both sides. You’re not cooking them at all, and you don’t need to char them. Just brown them lightly and put them in the roaster with the liquid.

Leave them in the oven at 320, covered, for 1-1/2 to (preferably) 2 hours.

Preheat your bbg grill. Remove the ribs from the roaster and put them on a very hot grill, meaty side down, turning them after about a minute. Once the heat has evaporated the braising moisture, apply the bbq sauce of your choice and brown them nicely on both sides. They are fully cooked at this point, so all you need to concern yourself with is the nice crunchy coating.

Another option would be to use a mix of herbs and spices rather than bbq sauce; the traditional “bbq rub.” In that case you would want to remove the ribs from the braising, pat them dry and apply the “rub” while they are still damp, before putting them on the grill. You might want a slightly less hot grill for this option, too.

If I keep having this degree of success with my “made up” recipes, I may keep making them up.

Food Blogging

Updated below: Thursday, 10:00PM

Most people in Alabama, Indiana and points north and east probably think that Taco Bell serves Mexican food. I shudder at the thought. While some of Taco Bell’s food is tasty and it shares many ingredients with Mexican food, I can assure you it most certainly is not Mexican food. It’s sort of like claiming that spaghetti with tomato sauce is Italian food, or Chop Suey is Chinese food. The natives of those lands would look at any of that and utter the Spanish/Italian/Chinese version of “Oh, yeccch.”

In any case, the term “Mexican food” is too all-encompassing. Mexico is not as large as this country, but it is by no means a small nation and their cuisine is every bit as regionally varied as ours is.

The chimichanga was developed in Sonora, for instance, to serve the desires of cowboys who wanted a hot lunch. The rest of the country wraps various things in a flour tortilla, omits putting it in a pot of boiling lard and serves up a burro. Arizona restaurants mostly serve up really good chimichangas because the cooks come up from Sonora. So many Arizona tourists have been coming to San Diego that the restaurants here are now serving chimichangas too, but the cooks mostly come from Baja California and don’t really know how to make them. You are probably better off ordering fish tacos in San Diego.

There are exceptions, of course. Ponce’s in San Diego makes a pretty good chimichanga. Nobody fries them in lard any more, of course, because people in this country view lard with something approaching a state of quivering horror.

Chili Relleno, the subject of today’s recipe, is basically a mild green chili stuffed with cheese, battered and fried. It has wide variation, though. In New Mexico the batter would be corn meal-based and it would not be uncommon for the stuffing to include meat. In Arizona the batter will be flour based and the cheese usually a mild Jack cheese. In San Diego there's wide variation, and what you get sometimes doesn’t seem to have either chili or batter in it’s makeup. You’re probably better off ordering fish tacos in San Diego.

When I was growing up, canned Ortega Chilis were not available where we lived and so when we went on our annual camping trip to the Rockies we always came back with a couple of cases of these treasures. They are a reliably mild chili, available in two sized cans and in either whole or diced. Today’s recipe calls for the larger sized can of whole chilis.

The recipe is called Chili Relleno, but it actually isn’t that at all. (So it probably could be served in a San Diego restaurant.) It has no batter and it’s baked rather than fried, which makes it a bit more healthy I guess. The point of it, I think, is that it’s much easier to cook. My Mom was always big on the “easy” part of cooking; I learned all the complicated dishes from my Grandmother.

In fairness, I should point out that you do not want to order fish tacos in Arizona or New Mexico. You do want to order them in San Diego.

Chili Rellenos

1 can Ortega Chilis
Cheese (I use medium Cheddar, Jack would be better)
2 eggs
1 tbsp oil

Wrap the chilis around pieces of cheese. Place in a glass baking dish. Whip oil and eggs together. Pour over chilis and arrange as needed to be sure chilis are covered. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

Not one of my more complicated or difficult recipes. Enjoy.

Update: Thursday, 10:00PM
Lest it appear that I am denigrating Mexican restaraunts in San Diego, one of the best culinary experiences I have ever had has been eating carnitas at the Old Town Mexican Cafe in San Diego. It is located, appropriately enough, in Old Town, and the tortillas made on the premises are worth the trip all by themselves. Sadly, they don't sell them to take home.

Food Blogging

When my wife called home to ask what we were having for dinner and I told her “old clothes” she was singularly unimpressed. She has changed her mind, and now wants to know when I’m going to make it again.

The name of this dish is Spanish for “old clothes” and comes from the appearance of the meat after it has been shredded. I got the recipe from the San Diego Union-Tribune, and have modified it only slightly. I hope you have a crock pot.

For my Progressive friend in Chicago, this one has no ginger.

Ropa Vieja

1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
½ cup water
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp minced garlic
½ tsp ground Cumin
½ tsp leaf Oregano
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 medium onion
2 lbs skirt steak or flank steak
1 large red Bell pepper
1 large green Bell pepper
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

Put the first nine ingredients in the crock pot and stir to combine. Peel the onion, quarter it, and then slice it thin and add it to the pot. Add the beef to the pot: no need to brown it or anything, just plunk it in there.

Rinse the peppers, core them, quarter them lengthwise, slice them into pieces about the size of a nickel and dump them on top of the beef.

Put the canned tomatoes in a bowl, add another teaspoon of garlic (I know, that makes three teaspoons of garlic, but trust me), and about a teaspoon of olive oil. Stir to blend and dump that on top of the peppers in the pot.

Put the cover on the pot and set it on low and go to work. Let that puppy simmer on low for 8-10 hours.

To serve, first go fishing for the meat and put it in large serving bowl (by itself) and use a couple of forks to pull it into shreds. Spoon the rest of the contents of the pot into the bowl and mix it up nicely.

Beautiful. Serve with rice.

Food Blogging

Some people do recipes on Mondays, cat pictures on Fridays, etc. I'm not that regimented. I do cat pictures whenever Molly does something cute, and food whenever I feel like it. I promised you a recipe, so... Despite all the voting going on in New Hampshire, let's eat.

Orange and Ginger Chicken

2 boneless, skinned chicken breasts
2 tbsp peeled fresh ginger, minced fine
4 tbsp brown sugar
2 cups orange juice
1 tbsp grated orange peel
1 tbsp cornstarch

Slice breasts in half so you have four thin pieces. Flour lightly, salt and pepper to taste and then brown on both sides in a good olive oil in a skillet. No need to be sure they are cooked thru at this point, just brown lightly on both sides and transfer to a plate.

Add a touch more olive oil if needed and add ginger to skillet, cook for one minute. Add brown suger and stir for one more minute. Add orange juice and orange peel and bring to a fast simmer, stirring as needed.

Mix cornstarch with a bit of cold water and add to skillet and stir until sauce is thickened, reduce heat to a slow simmer. Return chicken to sauce, cover and simmer slowly until chicken is cooked through, about ten minutes or so. Serve over noodles or rice.

Part of the secret is not to overcook the chicken initially, before transferring it to the plate. Letting it finish cooking at the slow simmer in the sauce cooks the flavor in and leaves it really tender.

Football Food Blogging

What we will be munching during the season opener. This recipe is derived from a Jalapeno version in Cook’s Country magazine, but toned down a bit. LT and Philip Rivers will be shredding the Bears' defense.

In a side note, I’m okay with my friends at the left coaster making cheerful remarks about the Raiders, and out of respect for them I will make no disparaging comments until that team meets the Chargers. Wait, no, they’re nice folks. But… No. When it’s Raiders vs. Chargers the gloves come off, okay? (But, the Raiders. Really?)

Green Chile Chicken Salad

2/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp lime juice
3 cups cooked chicken, finely shredded
3 stalks celery, chopped very fine
1 small red onion, chopped very fine
7 oz can diced green chiles, rinsed and drained

Mix mayonnaise, lime juice and chiles in a small bowl until combined.

Toss the chicken, celery and onion in a large bowl until well mixed. Add mayonnaise mixture and mix until evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. It can be served at once, but it better if you make it ahead and refrigerate it overnight. Serve with your favorite crackers or chips.

A note on the chicken: be sure it is shredded, not chopped. I don’t know why it makes any difference, but it definitely does.

Food Blogging: Jambalaya

I haven't posted a recipe in a while, nor have I made Jambalaya. I did the latter a couple of days ago, so I'll do the former today.

Jambalaya is sort of a "quick meal" of Southern cooking, as it doesn't require any roux or long time at the stove. It uses rice in an unusual role, as usually the meal is served over a "bed" of rice cooked separately, while in Jambalaya the rice is cooked in and absorbs flavors as it cooks. You can vary this recipe quite a bit, and it would still be Jambalaya.

This is a Creole edition of the dish, and is my own recipe. I'm sure that it's based on something I read or that was passed down to me, but the source has been lost in antiquity. There's a Cajun version that's a bit different. If you beg me enough I might post that version at some date, but I seldom cook it, as I like this version better.

Jambalaya

1 ea red bell pepper, diced
1 ea medium yellow onion, diced
3-4 ea stalks celery, diced
2 ea chicken bouillon cubes, dissolved in 2 cups water
1 can petite cut diced tomatoes
2 lg boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
½ lb sausage (see below), cut into bite-sized pieces
½ lb small shrimp
½ cup frozen peas
1-5/8 cup long grain white rice, uncooked
2 tsp Oregano
2-3 cloves Garlic peeled and crushed
5 tsp Creole seasoning see note below

Put tomatoes with juice in a mearuring cup and add water to make two cups. Put that into a large pot and add the two cups of prepared bouillon. Start the heat and bring that to a nice simmer while you are dicing the vegetables.

Cook the peppers, celery and onion in a skillet with some olive oil until they are just starting to wilt. Add them to the pot along with the garlic, oregano and Creole seasoning. If you want a little more “bang” for the taste buds, add a dash of Tobasco, and/or maybe just a little more Creole seasoning.

Brown the chicken lightly in the skillet and add it to the pot. Add the rice, stir it all up and put the cover on. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and let it cook, covered and without stirring, for about thirty minutes.

The rice should by now have absorbed all of the liquid. So we’re ready to add the sausage. If you put it in too early it will overwhelm the chicken. We’ll add the shrimp and peas now too, so that they don’t overcook.

Real jambalaya would call for andouille sausage, but people not raised on it may find something like that a bit highly seasoned for their taste. Any sausage will work fine, as the basic recipe is pretty highly seasoned. My wife likes it best with smoked beef sausage.

Brown the sausage in the skillet, cook it through and through if it's not precooked, and add it along with the shrimp and peas. Stir it all together and put the cover back on. Let it cook long enough, still on simmer, for the shrimp to be done, about ten minutes.

For the Creole seasoning, Zatarain’s brand is the “gold standard,” but I actually like McCormick’s a little better. If you want to make your own, combine 2 parts each onion powder, garlic powder, oregano & basil, 1 part each thyme, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, & celery seed and 5 parts paprika.