Homemade Pork Ribs in NY

I hate when I make something delicious and forget to photograph it because I'm so caught up stuffing my face. It's my last night in New York visiting family and friends. These two weeks have been kinda crazy. Yesterday my mom pointed at a huge package of frozen pork ribs in the freezer and told me I had free reign. Sure! Three giant racks of ribs? I didn't really put too much thought into a recipe (like I ever?), but I put something together with what was in the house.

1:30pm - Rinse and pat dry the ribs. Salt generously then rub with white pepper and Chinese five spice powder.

1:45pm - Place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Put in the oven at 450deg F.

2:15pm - Cover tightly with foil and then lower oven temp to 275deg F.

4:45pm - Check on ribs. OMFG it's really tender and tastes great even though it wasn't pre-rubbed or marinated.

5:00pm - Prepare sauce. Mom had frozen some super ripe pineapple a few months ago. Took 2 cups of that, pureed it in the Magic Bullet, then mixed in 1/2 cup Chinese BBQ Sauce, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and a 1/2 cup honey. Brushed the sauce on the ribs. Re-cover.

6:00pm - Remove foil cover, baste, and set oven to broil. Move oven racks up. Baste every 3 minutes until toasty and toasted looking.

6:15pm - Remove from oven. Let sit for a few minutes under tented foil. EAT.

You simple cannot avoid the amount of time it takes to cook ribs, but this was seriously very little effort for a whole lot of amazing product. Tender, fall-off-the-bone meat that was really porky with a nice crispy  and savory crust. You can't ask for much more. Except maybe for it to be smoked, but there's where more labor comes in. I'll settle for this.

Christmakkuh Dinner

Today I'm heading over to my sister's place in Brooklyn for our annual Christmakkuh hot pot dinner, a combination of our joined families' cultures: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Chinese cuisine. In preparation, I put together this graphic of a Christmas tree using a Chinese food menu and chopsticks as a Star of David at the top. I'm soooooo clever.

Jewish-Chinese Christmas Tree

(click to enlarge)

Nutter Butters at Home

These cookies are absurd. Imagine a Nutter Butter, but made fresh and probably 10 times worse for your health.

peanut butter cookie sandwiches

Food52 has given me no end of ideas for cooking and when the picture of these cookies arrived in my inbox, I HAD TO HAVE THEM. And now I really want to give them away because they're so dang rich. Delicious, but one is enough. Each sandwich is two peanut butter cookies stuffed with a peanut butter and chocolate chip buttercream frosting. All made from scratch so I had the tearful opportunity of mixing all these heart-healthy ingredients. Seriously, any takers?

TIP: If you decide to make these cookies, stick to the size suggestion. They really are that rich and the miniature size is appropriate.

Crispy Pork Belly + Sweet Adobo

Here's a dish that came together way too easily because everything was incidentally pre-prepared. The pork belly was roasted last week and these were two strips I hadn't used. The adobo sauce was saved from some chicken adobo I also made last week and reduced to concentrate the flavors. And this past weekend, I had made a drunken meal at about 3am and two of the carrots that I cleaned and peeled didn't make it into the food.

crispy pork belly with a reduced Filipino adobo sauce

Put this all together with some finely chopped onions and we have an accidentally luxurious and decadent meal in less than half an hour. Which I find kinda silly, because pork belly is not often a luxurious food in Chinese cuisine.

All I did was sweat some onions with the carrots and some garlic in a small saucepan. Add the reduced adobo sauce with a spoonful of sugar and a splash of dry sherry. Low simmer to soften the carrots and further reduce the sauce. Cut the pork belly into cubes and brown-crisp on all sides. Serve together on steamed rice.

The most interesting part of this was that the altered, re-reduced adobo sauce had a hint of hoison flavor.

I Shitake You Not

These are mine, betches! I love the gentle earthiness of fresh shitake mushrooms.

garlic sauteed sugar snap peas, fresh shitake mushrooms and shallots