Spare ribs to die for

Always admired how master chefs make those perfect spare ribs—the sauce just right and the meat oh-so-tender—that melt in your mouth? Well, you don’t need to crack the GMAT for this one, and you don’t really need to be a chef at all. As chef David Tilli, our man from Brittany, shows us, all you need to be is pretty sharp (we don’t mean just with the chopping knives—but that too).

Sitting by the poolside at Delhi’s Taj Mahal Hotel, I ask Tilli if he can teach me a couple of ways to make this mouthwatering delicacy. “It’s not fine dining, you know. You have to use your hands a bit, to eat them,” he smiles. Heck, I want to make this to impress my friends and colleagues, I tell him.

Still smiling, he tells me to follow him to the kitchen where he shows me every step of his favourite recipe, before providing me with two other, equally cool variations.

The Best Buy: To begin with, pork spare ribs are the best bet. But, yes, one can substitute it with a rack of lamb as well. “Choose a whole rib, which has a little fat but not too much,” says Tilli.

Salted and Stirred: Take a small teaspoon of salt and rub it all over the ribs. Refrigerate for three hours. This will ensure that the water comes off the meat. The Marinade: “This is what makes or breaks the dish,” says Tilli, as he goes chop-chop-chop at the speed of a Louis Hamilton on the straight. For the marinade (Pork Ribs Braised in Asian Pears is what he is making), he takes a pear, a medium-sized onion, an inch of ginger, a tablespoon each of honey, brown sugar

and sesame oil, two tablespoons of dark soya sauce and a little salt and pepper. He peels and grates the pear, onion and ginger and mixes all the ingredients in a mixer-grinder. “I usually add a cup of chicken stock to this marinade, put the rib in a microwave proof dish and cover it with the marinade,”says he.

The Fat’s in the Fire: “Here we go,” says Tilli as he covers the dish in an aluminium foil and puts it in the oven (at 180 degrees F). For the next two hours, he entertains me with stories of his native France, over pan-fried shrimps and port. In between, he gets up twice—to take the dish out and turn the ribs over. 

The Final Cut: When the meat is cooked and soft, he lets it cool, before cutting it. “Rub a bit of sesame oil to get that caramelised colour and use the remaining marinade as a sauce. You can garnish it with finely chopped cucumber and fenel salad seasoned with sesame seeds and lemon dressing,” he suggests, adding the garnishing. Almost immediately, I dig in. It’s divine. Honestly, the meat is tender, the sauce just right and even the wine tastes so much better!

The Fab Rib Recipe

The Chinese use a lot of honey when they cook spare ribs. The French, predictably, use a lot of wine. Try this recipe to be happy, in more ways than one. Confit of Lamb Ribs in Burgundy Sauce Recipe for four person.

Ingredients:
1.2 kg of prime ribs A cup of lamb stock
For the marinade: Half a bottle of Burgundy wine
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
5 black peppers
2 chopped onions
2 chopped carrots
4 chopped celery sticks
Pinch of salt

The fab rib

Method: Put the ribs in a container. Cover it with the marinade and leave for 12 hours in your fridge. Keep a part of the veggies for garnish.

Cooking Method: Pick up the ribs from the wine marinade. Strain the liquid in a pan and cook it on slow flame till it becomes thicker. Sear the ribs on both sides in another pan. Sprinkle the garnish (chopped vegetables) in the same pan.

Add the garnish and the ribs to the wine, cover everything with lamb stock then cook on slow flame in a covered pan till the meat is soft enough (usually for around 90 minutes to two hours). Once done, serve it with mashed or roasted potatoes.

What You Need

The secret of making great spare ribs is to cook them very slowly with barbeque sauce on them. You can do this in a microwave oven. Just set the temperature to 180 degrees F. You can also use the gas grill, but then you will have to cook the ribs a bit longer, maybe close to four hours. Also, use a microwave rack, so that the ribs can be cooked standing up. This will separate the racks of ribs so that the sauce cooks on to the ribs.