Smart Cheater’s Barbecue Ribs

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July 09, 2013Smart Cheater’s Barbecue Ribs

These are the ribs of last week’s July 4 celebration. Itwas just my husband and me. I had been hunkered down all week long finalizingthe manuscript for The Banh Mi Handbook.(I hit “Send” yesterday so it’s in the hopper, due to be published a year fromnow in July 2014!) It was a national holiday but I had to work most of thetime. My strategy for putting together a special meal was to get my husbandinvolved.

He’d been hankering for the kind of barbecue we enjoyedin Texas a few years ago and I was thinking of gnawing on some meaty ribs. Wediscussed options and settled on pork spareribs. While I don’t mind tending toa pot of pho, I’m not into tending a grill for hours. We leave that the pros toget right. I remembered a recipe from BonAppetit magazine for “the best” barbecue ribs.

Leary of superlative recipenames, I still gave it a try. The reason is that the barbecue recipe involvedoven-baking with a spice rub, then a quick grilling. My friend Hunter Lewis, aSoutherner, was BA’s food editor when that recipe was published in 2012 so Ihad a hunch that it would be good. Hunter makes  delicious food andcomes up with good techniques for home cooks. I trust him.

I was right. Hunter came up with a great method formimicking the slow barbecue quality on a good rack of pork spareribs. This is not going to be smoke-to-the-bone kind of ribs. However, you will get ribs that beats out most of the barbecue dreck out there. The porky flavor of the meat and its richness shine.

The other fabulous thing about this  cheater's barbecue method is that you can roast the ribs up tothree days in advance and cook them up within 15 minutes of serving. We spreadone full rack of ribs over the course of two meals set days apart. I loveshortcuts when they’re smart. Don’t you?

Feel free to tinkerwith the spice rub but do keep the dry mustard, which lent a wonderfullycomplex layer of flavor. We used Colman’s dry mustard but you could certainlyuse Chinese or Japanese dry mustard powder. Try different kinds of ground chileinstead of the cayenne and paprika. Hello, Korean gochugaru ground chile?! Or, add other spices. Keep the kosher salt and pepper. If you don't have kosher salt,  use half the quantity of regular salt or sea salt: 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. 

As for the barbecuesauce, cook up your own. My husband doctored up ketchup with sauteed shallot, chile, Chinkiang vinegar, and soy sauce. You could even use the umamiketchup and add ginger, rice vinegar, and kechap manis or soy sauce. Use dark soy sauce and sugar to get a nice color. Or, just bya bottle of barbecue sauce and focus on side dishes, beverages, and dessert.

RECIPE

Cheater’s BarbecueRibs

Yield: Serves4

Ingredients

1/4 teaspoon cayenne1/4 teaspoon black pepper1 1/2 teaspoons paprika1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard Generous 1 tablespoon kosher salt1 full rack (a good 4 lbs / 2 kg) meaty pork spareribs3/4 to 1 cup (180 to 240 ml) store-boughtor homemade barbecue sauce

Instructions

Positiona rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F (180 or 175°C / gas mark4). Combine all the ingredients for the spice rub and set aside. If athick, knobby cartilage-laden part remains on your rack of ribs, cut them offand save them for making soup or simmering in caramel sauce. (If you bought a rectangular cut called “St. Louis-style” spareribs, that section will have been trimmed already.) Cutthe rack in half between two ribs. Put each piece on a piece of heavy-duty foiland rub the spices all over them. Wrap each piece up and bake for 2 to 2 1/2hours, until very tender but not falling apart. (We baked for 3 hours and itwas falling off the bone and a little over done.)Removefrom the oven, cool for about 15 minutes, then open up the foil to vent andcontinue cooling. Pour any juices from the foil into a heatproof cup; reserve thosejuices to later add to the sauce. Let the ribs cool completely, wrap them backup in foil, and refrigerate up to 3 days. Returnthe ribs to room temperature before finishing. Build a medium-hot charcoal fireor heat a gas grill to high. Meanwhile, if you have reserved cooking juices,add it to the sauce to make 1 1/4 cups; add water if you don’t have any cookingliquid. Thinning the sauce out prevents it from burning up the ribs duringgrilling and helps to create a lacquered effect. If your sauce isn’t too sweetor thick, you don’t have to thin it out!  Grill theribs, basting with the sauce and turning frequently, until glazed looking and charredin a few spots, roughly 8 to 10 minutes. Cool for a few minutes then cut betweenthe ribs and serve with more barbecue sauce.See the original Bon Appetit recipe here.Posted in Recipes: All, Recipes: Gluten-Free , Recipes: Grilled, Recipes: Main Course, Recipes: Meat | Permalink

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These are the ribs of last week’s July 4 celebration. Itwas just my husband and me. I had been hunkered down all week long finalizingthe manuscript for The Banh Mi Handbook.(I hit “Send” yesterday so it’s in the hopper, due to be published a year fromnow in July 2014!) It was a national holiday but I had to work most of thetime. My strategy for putting together a special meal was to get my husbandinvolved.

He’d been hankering for the kind of barbecue we enjoyedin Texas a few years ago and I was thinking of gnawing on some meaty ribs. Wediscussed options and settled on pork spareribs. While I don’t mind tending toa pot of pho, I’m not into tending a grill for hours. We leave that the pros toget right. I remembered a recipe from BonAppetit magazine for “the best” barbecue ribs.

Leary of superlative recipenames, I still gave it a try. The reason is that the barbecue recipe involvedoven-baking with a spice rub, then a quick grilling. My friend Hunter Lewis, aSoutherner, was BA’s food editor when that recipe was published in 2012 so Ihad a hunch that it would be good. Hunter makes  delicious food andcomes up with good techniques for home cooks. I trust him.

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Smart Ways to Stir-Fry Tofu

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May 31, 2012Smart Ways to Stir-Fry Tofu

As I’ve been going around talking to people about cooking tofu, one of the common concerns is: How do I stir-fry tofu without it falling apart? My instant response is, “Don’t worry so much about it.”

But people do because they’re primarily treating tofu like a meat substitute. They expect it to behave like meat during the cooking process. And when it doesn’t, there’s an onslaught of performance anxiety.

As a workaround, many people buy the firmest tofu possible for stir-frying. They often reach for super-firm tofu, usually sold in vacuum sealed packaging. That stuff is so dense that a few minutes in the wok is not going to do much to it. The result is tofu that tastes like pieces of rubber eraser with sauce on it. Yuck. That’s not delicious tofu. It’s torturous tofu.

You can stir-fry tofu in smart ways to yield big flavor and terrific textures. Here are options and things to consider:

Use tender tofu and be gentle. For example, the dish at the top of this post is the ubiquitous mapo tofu, a spicy tofu with beef and Sichuan peppercorn preparation that’s ubiquitous on Chinese menus; see Asian Tofu, page 101, for the recipe.

In that classic, medium or medium-firm tofu (stuff that feels like the flesh between your thumb and index fingers; I often buy Trader Joe's regular organic tofu in the 20-ounce tubs but a firm tofu, such as Whole Foods' is fine) is cut into cubes, then soaked or blanched in hot water and drained. Exposure to hot water facilitates draining and helps the tofu to better hold its shape during the stir-frying.

You add the tofu to the pan and gently shake or stir it. You don’t vigorously move it around the wok with a spatula, lest it fall apart. There’s a fair amount of liquid and seasoning too so the tofu takes on the other ingredients. This is delicate stir-frying with some simmering involved. The results are creamy cubes of tofu with incredible flavor.

For non-spicy alternative, try the tofu with shrimp and peas (page 100). This is a dish that many Asian Tofu recipe testers made without being assigned to it:

In preparations such as Japanese tofu with pork and bitter melon (page 106), the tofu is purposefully broken up during the stir-frying process to yield a scramble-like finish. Sometimes it’s good for the tofu to break apart!

Go for sturdier seasoned, pressed tofu. If you’re set on stir-frying super-firm tofu, try using seasoned pressed tofu that’s been simmered with seasonings (often times five spice and soy sauce), marinated, then baked. It’s called dou gan in Mandarin.

Based on a dish prepared for me by a Chinese family in Chengdu (Sichuan, China) this is a  deliciously simple stir-fry of tea-smoked tofu with pepper (page 104):

I make the smoked tofu from storebought super-firm tofu (page 38) because I like to dial in the seasonings and use organic tofu. Plus it costs less to make it myself. However, you can prepare the stir-fry with five-spice baked tofu sold at Asian markets and health food markets. Look for the brown squares or rectangles in vacuum-sealed packages in the refrigerated sections.

Regardless of  how you obtain the seasoned pressed tofu, you don’t have to drain it before cooking. The stuff is extremely compact. Cut it, then cook it. It’s sturdy tofu that you can confidently move around the wok. It’s been seasoned already so there’s some flavor built in. You won't end up with torturous tofu.

Fry the tofu first. Yep, it’s like double cooking. You can panfry, shallow-fry or deep-fry pieces of tofu beforehand – like up to 5 days in advance. Seriously.  

Frying tofu adds a rich fattiness and creates a lovely golden color. It also makes tofu that holds its shape during cooking. You can push, toss and move it around with ease.

For the bean sprouts with tofu on page 143, the tofu is cut into small pieces and then panfried to a delicate crisp. The tofu has character and stands out in the stir-fry, a popular side dish at Singaporean street hawker stalls.

With bigger pieces of tofu, deep-fry them. The dish above is Vietnamese in origin. It’s the lemongrass tofu with chiles from page 108. I first had it on Phu Quoc island (a place famous for fish sauce) and fell in love with it, not just because I was sitting on the beach with a cold beer in my hand. Dau phu xao xa ot is an amazing Viet tofu dish.

In Vietnam as with other Asian countries, you can buy deep-fried tofu from vendors. Here at home, the fried tofu is sold in plastic bags at Asian markets. It’s a convenience tofu. I like to fry my own because I know the quality of the tofu and oil. Plus I season the tofu a bit with a soak in salted water before the deep-frying.

Is deep-frying tofu a nasty thing to do? No. It’s actually pretty undramatic and fast. I owe Phuong a post on how to fry tofu well so stay tuned. Or check the recipes in Asian Tofu and you’ll see how easy it is.

Can you use panfried tofu instead of deep-fried tofu for a stir-fry? Yes, but slabs of panfried tofu are not as sturdy or tasty and deep-fried. Be gentle with your stir-frying motions.  

If stir-frying tofu challenges you, I hope these strategies and suggestions set you on the path to delicious and stress-free tofu stir-fries! If you’re a pro at stir-frying tofu, add your tips below please. Feel free to pose questions too.

Related posts:

Tofu, Kimchi and Bacon Taco RecipeChinese Fermented Black Bean Magic (plus recipes)Fried Tofu and Egg Pancake Recipe (Tahu Telur)Tasty Tofu recipes in March issue of SunsetPanfried Egg Tofu "Scallops"Is Tofu Healthy or Harmful?Guide to Tofu Textures - a sample video from Asian Tofu ebook; keep the info in your back pocket when shopping

 

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Comments Smart Ways to Stir-Fry Tofu

As I’ve been going around talking to people about cooking tofu, one of the common concerns is: How do I stir-fry tofu without it falling apart? My instant response is, “Don’t worry so much about it.”

But people do because they’re primarily treating tofu like a meat substitute. They expect it to behave like meat during the cooking process. And when it doesn’t, there’s an onslaught of performance anxiety.

As a workaround, many people buy the firmest tofu possible for stir-frying. They often reach for super-firm tofu, usually sold in vacuum sealed packaging. That stuff is so dense that a few minutes in the wok is not going to do much to it. The result is tofu that tastes like pieces of rubber eraser with sauce on it. Yuck. That’s not delicious tofu. It’s torturous tofu.

You can stir-fry tofu in smart ways to yield big flavor and terrific textures. Here are options and things to consider:

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