Thai-Style Pork Ribs (Sii Khrong Muu Yaang)

(from Andy Ricker's Pok Pok)

My family knows me well, and I got about five new cookbooks for Christmas this year, all of them awesome. One is Pok Pok, a Thai cookbook that at first completely intimidated me. I tend to feel more comfortable with recipes with limited, easily-recognized ingredients. But where's the fun in that? I think this cookbook might be turning me around. It is really fantastic, different, fun. We've made two dishes from this book in the past week, and they've both been incredible, and not really that complicated when it comes down to it.

Now, in fairness, Joef made these ribs. 100%. I didn't even really help. I just enjoyed the amazingly delicious result. He marinated the ribs the day before, and then grilled them the next day for about two hours. Yes, that's a lot of prep; yes, it's absolutely worth it.

Ideally, you'd grill these over a charcoal fire. All we had to work with was a gas grill, and they still came out great. If you can't find some of the ingredients, you could probably do regular soy sauce (vs. "thin"), although it is a little different, use medium-dry sherry for the Shaoxing wine, use regular black pepper, etc. But if you can find the right ingredients, so much the better.

So, here's Andy Ricker's fantastic recipe for about 20 "riblets" (drool):

6 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Thai thin soy sauce
2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 tbsp finely grated ginger
1/2 tsp Asian sesame oil (try to find brands that are 100% sesame oil)
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/8 tsp ground Ceylon or Mexican cinnamon
Pinch grated nutmeg
2 lbs pork spareribs, cut lengthwise across the bone into 2-inch-wide racks (ask your butcher to do this for you)
2 tbsp hot water

Start by marinating the ribs for at least two hours, and as long as overnight. Whisk 2 tbsp of the money with the soy sauce, wine, ginger, sesame oil, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg together until the honey dissolves. Put the ribs in a large Ziploc bag, pour in the marinade, get the air out, and seal it up. Put it in the fridge.

Once the ribs have marinated, you're ready to grill. Prep a baste - stir the remaining 4 tbsp honey with the 2 tbsp hot water until the honey dissolves, and set aside.

Prep your grill to cook at 200-250 degrees. Ideally, you want to cook your ribs over indirect heat. If you're using charcoal, push the coals to one side of the grill and shape them into a mound. Place the ribs, meat side up, to the part of the grill opposite the charcoal. If possible, rotate the grill top so that the open vents are directly over the ribs. Cover the grill.

Slow-cook the ribs for 2-2.25 hours, flipping them occasionally and rotating them 180 degrees when flipped. You might need to add more charcoal to maintain the temp. They should end up a mahogany color, crisp, with slightly charred edges. In the last 30-45 minutes of cooking or so, you can start brushing the ribs with the honey mixture every 10 minutes or so.

When they're ready, take them off the grill, let them sit for about 5 minutes, and slice them into individual ribs. Devour!

(You can oven-bake these, too. Preheat the oven to 250. Put the ribs on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 2 hours, rotating the sheet a couple times. Increase the heat to 300 degrees, and brush with honey every 10 minutes, about 30-60 minutes more.)

The Best Shrimp Recipe Ever

 

Are you ready for this? The best shrimp recipe ever? Yes, you are. Because it is so delicious, and so easy, it will become your new go-to, and you'll make it again. At least I do.

100% credit - maybe 110%, it's that good - goes to my dad for this one (and, admittedly, for many others!). He made it for us when we were home over the summer, and oh my God. I mean, I love shrimp already, but even people (ahem, Joef) who don't go insane for shrimp (really, though? How could you not?) love this recipe.

I made it for the first time on one of the first nights in our new place, accompanied by some truly amazing steak from The Local Butcher Shop (yet another reason to love Berkeley, by the way). Unfortunately, I lost/deleted pictures of that steak (gah!). Fortunately, we made the shrimp again (as if we wouldn't!), so at least we have that going.

The secret is my dad's marinade, and cooking them up nice and quick over the grill. Oh, and leaving the skin on. You can turn it into a big meal (serve with steak and fresh salad for some surf-and-turf), medium (maybe some nice aglio e olio), or relatively light, just the shrimp and, say, a nice arugula salad with fresh cherry tomatoes, baby mozzarella, and a cherry balsamic vinaigrette. Drooling...

           

This might be one of my favorite recipes, period. I mean, I don't want to artificially raise hopes and all that, but I'm pretty confident it won't fail you.

Because it's a marinade, the recipe is rather loose. Here's what my dad said:

Olive oil, garlic, ginger, black pepper, parsley, lemon juice.

You can kind of play with the amounts of the ingredients, and my general guidance would be:

1-2 lbs shrimp, cleaned and deveined, but NOT peeled
Juice from two lemons, and some pulp (take the end of a spoon or tongs and just jam it into the lemon while squeezing)
2-4 cloves garlic, smashed a bit with the side of a knife, then roughly chopped
2-4 twists of the black pepper mill
Small bunch of parsley, chopped
Generous amount of ginger powder (yes, powder) - 5 or so shakes?
A few glugs of olive oil 
Bamboo skewers, soaked in water beforehand

You should have enough liquid to coat the shrimp, and some will pool in the bottom of the bowl as well. You combine all of these ingredients in a bowl, stir them up to coat the shrimp, then pop them in the fridge for about 3 hours. Skewer them, making sure the skewer pierces the shrimp in two places, and that all tails are facing the same direction.

Shrimp cook really fast, so just cook them a couple/few minutes on each side on the grill, so that they get nice and pink. Eat outside with a nice white wine, and it will be a wonderful evening.

Tequila-Lime and Lemon-Mustard Chicken Marinades

Wow, I have been lazy, haven't I? This is the only problem with a food blog - it keeps track of how well I'm doing at making my own food rather than ordering Thai or driving to Chipotle.

In any case, after weeks of forty-degree weather, Madison finally jumped right into the 90s today, and the 80s last night, which is when we grilled chicken on our friends' penthouse rooftop (ooh, sounds fancy). We finally found some time to actually marinate chicken (about 3-4 hours), and I say "we" because Joef and I each made our own marinades, according to our tastes. Yes, you guessed it, Joef's had habanero, and mine had garlic. Actually, Joef says he would have "quadrupled" the amount of habanero, and for once I agreed with him that it wasn't overly spicy (it was just about right, really, in my opinion). In any case, these (as always) can be adjusted to your own personal taste.

We each marinated a pound of chicken tenders (man, those things shrink on the grill) by mixing the sauces, adding the chicken, and letting the flavors blend in a bowl or ziploc bad in the fridge for about three hours.

We also both approximated the quantities as we went, so unfortunately our record-keeping in that area is a little sketchy. My sense is, though, that you could vary the quantities according to your taste, just making sure that there's enough sauce to cover all the chicken.

TEQUILA-LIME MARINADE (on the right)
Chili paste/sauce
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 habanero, chopped
Tequila
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Soy sauce

LEMON-MUSTARD MARINADE (on the left)
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
Dijon mustard
Olive oil
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Rosemary leaves
Juice of 1 lemon
Ground pepper
Salt (optional)