Caleb stumbled upon the recipe for these sticky pork ribs while browsing YouTube one night. Somehow, he wound up tuning into Gordon Ramsay, who actually seems quite personable in his own YouTube videos (rather than his always-yelling reality persona). I'd just gotten my braces taken off and could finally eat ribs again after several years, so it seemed like a pretty opportune time to try these. Although it was posted as a video, the recipe itself is from Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking. This was lucky both because I could post about it, and also because Gordon didn't really bother to give actual measurements in his video.
These sticky pork ribs were really outstanding, which I found somewhat surprising - I never would have tried one of Gordon's recipes of my volition. They're also dead easy to make, especially if you have a friendly butcher. At Whole Foods they'll separate the ribs for you, which cuts the prep time down dramatically.
All you need to do is quickly brown the ribs on each side, add the spices, then the sauces, bring to a boil, and then put the pan in the oven to roast for an hour. After roasting, bring the pan back to the stove top to reduce the sauce. This will take another 20 minutes or so, during which time you do something else, like make some greens and rice (for instance).
The only possible inconvenience with this recipe, if you're like me, is you might not have a stove-safe roasting pan and so you may need to improvise the pan(s) you use. I opted to split the 2.5 lbs of ribs and the accompanying sauce across two saucepans and cook them that way. One more pan to wash was totally worth it to enjoy eating these sticky sweet ribs. I could happily eat this once a week, and I'm certain the same base recipe could easily be applied to chicken, steak, or even tofu and veggies. Given the huge amount of whole star anise that has moved across the country with me twice now, I probably should be making these ribs, or the sauce at least, on a frequent basis just to use the star anise up!
Sticky Pork Ribs
Ingredients
- 2.5 lbs pork ribs separated*
- Olive oil
- Sea salt and black pepper
- 3-4 garlic cloves peeled and sliced
- 2 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and sliced
- 1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes if you like things spicy, add 2 teaspoons
- 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
- 4 whole star anise
- 4 tablespoon honey
- 150 ml soy sauce
- 2-3 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 300 ml Shaoxing rice wine** or medium dry sherry
- 5 spring onions sliced (white and green)
- 400 ml chicken stock
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 355 F.
- Season the ribs with salt and pepper.
- Heat a stove-safe roasting pan*** on the stove-top with a little olive oil and sear the ribs over medium heat for 2 minutes per side, until browned on all sides.
- Meanwhile, mix together the garlic, ginger, chili flakes, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise and honey in a small bowl.
- Once the ribs are browned, add the garlic-honey-spice mix to the pan with the ribs, continue cooking over medium heat for 2 minutes until the honey begins to caramelize.
- Add the soy sauce, rice vinegar and rice wine and bring to a boil, then simmer for 1 minute. Taste and adjust the flavors, adding more vinegar if necessary. Add the spring onions and stock and bring back to a boil for 1 minute.
- Place the roasting pan in the hot oven and cook the ribs for 1 hour (until tender), rotating the pan and turning the ribs halfway through.
- Remove the pan from the oven and place back on the stove-top. Reduce over medium heat for about 20-40 minutes (this timing will vary with your pan(s') size and surface area), stirring occasionally to ensure the ribs are evenly coated.
- The ribs are ready to serve when the sauce is thick and syrupy.
