I almost never eat pork. I don’t even remember the last time I ate ribs. But I got a rib craving – something to do with the sunshine and the thought of barbecues, parks and checkered picnic tablecloths (do those even exist??) – and then I saw Nagano pork ribs for a good price at my local butcher in the Atwater Market.
It’s about quality for me. And it’s about digestibility. Pigs are pretty disgusting animals, but ribs are pretty delicious. So if I’m going to eat ribs, I’m going to try to get them from pigs that were raised in better-than-average pig conditions. I’ve no qualms about eating animals, but industrial farming mixed with animals living in unsanitary conditions cuts my appetite.
So I choose instead to think about marbled meat on mean hogs with curlicue tails in the middle of a quaint Quebec valley somewhere. And I sure wasn’t thinking about pig-to-human parasites when I marinated these heifers in a ton of soy sauce, roasted it to perfection following the low-and-slow barbecue rule and dunked the tender, barked (crusted) meat in a sweet and spicy barbecue sauce.
I’ll tell you a secret, though. My craving was for the bark. Those tougher, chewier, saltier, sweeter, rougher and generally more delicious outer crust created by the Maillard reaction. That browning. That crispiness. That fat. It’s so, so good.
That’s not the secret. The secret is that I ate all the bark off the ribs, then took the meat off the bones and froze it for later. I mean, it was good. But I was there for the bark.
Priorities.
…and cravings, too, I suppose.
I also froze the bones to make stock.
You could serve this with vegetables or a salad or something…but if you’re craving ribs like I was, you might as well go whole hog…
For this recipe, I used the cinnamon-, nutmeg- and clove-flavoured maple syrup I received from Pure Infused. Since a lot of barbecue sauces have ketchup in them, which is made with a couple of those spices, the maple syrup substitution lets you skip using the refined sugar-loaded condiment without losing the richness of the spices.
Champagne & Maple Barbecue Ribs
Marinade:
1/2 cup gluten-free soy sauce
1/3 cup Champagne vinegar (or Prosecco or white wine vinegar. You can also use Champagne, but that’s just ridiculous)
1 shallot, roughly chopped
2 racks ribs (about 4 lbs)
Maple Barbecue Sauce:
1 cup drained diced canned tomatoes
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup Pure Infused cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves maple syrup
2 tbsp mustard powder
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 – 1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp pork marinade
Combine the marinade ingredients except the ribs in a blend. Blend until smooth. Place in a shallow casserole dish (cut the ribs into smaller pieces to fit, if needed) and coat in the marinade. Place in fridge and marinate at least 3 hours.
To make the maple barbecue sauce, bring the drained tomatoes to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer, crushing the tomato pieces against the side of the pan until the liquid has almost evaporated (about 15 minutes). Add the remaining sauce ingredients (start with 1/4 tsp cayenne for now) and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally (stir more frequently near the end so it doesn’t burn). Taste and add more cayenne or salt as desired and cook for up 10 more minutes, or until the sauce reaches the desired thickness. It might not need much time, depending on how far you reduced the tomatoes earlier. Transfer to a blender or blend with an immersion blender, or leave the sauce a little chunky if desired.
Heat the oven to 400˚F. Place the ribs on a baking sheet with the meatier side facing up. Bake for an hour, then flip the rib over and bake 25-30 minutes longer. There should be a nice, dark crust along the edges that you’ll want to dive into. Don’t forget that the rib tips have some good char on them for gnawing, too…
Divide ribs into four servings and serve the maple barbecue sauce on the side. The sauce is really overkill – delicious, mouth-watering overkill.
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