This is my own version of Japanese BBQ sauce and all of the ingredients are top umami performers. The trick to all great ribs is to slow cook them first and you can do that by either boiling them or cooking them slowly in the oven. Once that’s done, they only need a char on the BBQ.
Serves: 4
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 onion, quartered
- 3 racks pork baby back ribs, halved into 6 small racks
- 150 ml (5 fl oz) tamarind purée
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 60 ml (2 fl oz) mirin
- 60 ml (2 fl oz) rice vinegar
- 4 tbsp miso
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp chilli sauce
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- chopped coriander (cilantro) and sliced green chillies, to serve
Directions:
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the onion and ribs. Boil for 1 hour or for longer, if needed, until the meat is tender. Drain and pat dry.
- In a small bowl, mix together the tamarind, garlic, mirin, rice vinegar, miso, soy, honey, chilli sauce and sesame seeds.
- Preheat an outdoor grill or chargrill pan. Brush the meat with the oil and season well with sea salt and black pepper. Grill on low direct heat until the edges start to crisp and the meat begins to brown.
- Start to brush the marinade on and then turn over after 5 minutes.
- Keep brushing until everything is sticky and golden.
- Serve the ribs with a sprinkle of chopped coriander and green chilli and extra marinade to dip into.
NOTE: Choose your favourite chilli sauce to use here. Sriracha, toban jiang or a Chinese chilli sauce are all good.
Also from My Asian Kitchen:
Jennifer Joyce shows how easy it is to create zingy, fresh, healthy Asian flavours at home. From grilled sticky skewers and steak tacos, salads, rice bowls and dumplings, to prawn katsu bao and miso-glazed ribs, My Asian Kitchen is an adventure in the dazzling diversity of modern Asian cooking. Bao buns, pho, sushi, poke bowls, gyoza, ramen and kimchi: Jennifer’s exquisitely simple recipes, no-nonsense explanation of ingredients, hand-drawn diagrams and beautiful photographs are all you need to start cooking in your very own Asian Kitchen. If you are a fan of Asian cookbooks such as Asian After Work, Complete Asian Cookbook, Thai Street Food, Lucky Peach or David Chang’s Momofuku you will love creating your own mouth-watering Asian dishes with Jennifer Joyce’s My Asian Kitchen.
Reprinted with permission from My Asian Kitchen by Jennifer Joyce and published by Murdoch Books, 2019.
