Saturday Succulent Spare Ribs

Slow cooked, meltingly good spicy pork ribs…

You’ll need to have plenty of time to cook these beauties to perfection. But with little to do but baste them occasionally once you’ve bunged them in the oven, it isn’t too taxing!

If you want to keep work to a real minimum serve alongside a jacket potato. However, thick cut chips/fries are perfect, and feel more “cheat day-esque”. Yes there was a salad too (even though this really is a cheat day meal). It just wouldn’t actually fit on the plate with so many big fat fries!

Anyway let’s get on with the cooking…

Slow Cooked Pork Ribs

Serves 4

The Ingredients:

• 2 racks of spare ribs
• 10 crushed cloves of garlic
• 5 bay leaves
• the juice of two lemons
• a tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon of flaky sea salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large wine-glass of dry or medium white wine and another two of vegetable or chicken stock (or water)

Get Cooking:

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 360ºF.
2. Lay the ribs on top of the bay leaves, in an oven dish or casserole.
3. Mix the garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, fennel seeds, sugar, chili flakes, salt and pepper together with half the wine.
4. Rub this fragrant liquid into the ribs; back and front.
5. Pour the remaining wine and stock into the oven dish.
6. Cover the whole lot with plenty of foil, sealing it well and pop into the oven for 2 hours, basting once or twice.
7. Baste the ribs and return to the oven for another half an hour at 200ºC / 400ºF.
8. Remove the foil and baste the ribs for a final time. Return to the oven and cook for a further 40 minutes till golden brown and falling from the bone.

Enjoy! I would love to say I came up with this slow lazy way with pork all on my own. But the inspiration came from Nigel Slater’s Real Food. A bit of tweaking on my part has produced something easy and oh so very tasty. I hope you like it as much as we do.