Your last meal on earth: what would it be?

I can now safely say that, along with my Big Green Egg Ribs, these peppery Asian ribs are right at the top of my list. We need a food bucket list, people!

I’ve meant to cook these ever since I wrote the crock-pot posting—the comment section has been filled with wonderful slow cooker recipes since then, you might want to take a peek. And this beauty was among them. I’ll be eternally grateful to Maureen for sharing it.

I made a few changes to the original recipe: I substituted the ground ginger and garlic with their fresh counterparts. I omitted the white wine vinegar and replaced it with lemon juice. Plus, I poured in some sweet chili sauce.

Now, I love the smell of something slow cooking all day, but this had me desperate and ravenous. It’s unbelievably good.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 pound ‘country style’ ribs (mine were spare ribs)
thumb-size piece ginger
1 large garlic clove
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 tsp tabasco
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp cornstarch

Garnish: sliced chili pepper and scallions

 
Directions:

In a bowl you combine the soy sauce, molasses, hoisin sauce, sesame oil and brown sugar.

Add the tabasco, pepper, chili powder and chili flakes. This will give a wonderful kick!

Grate the ginger and garlic in there and squeeze in the lemon juice. The scent is already killing at this point.

I finished the sauce with sweet chili sauce. So, so good.

They don’t sell country-style ribs here, so I opted for meaty spare ribs. Matches my spare tire.

My butcher was sweet enough to remove that pesky membrane for me. Oh, how I love the man.

Pile them up in your slow cooker.

Pour all the yummy sauce in there.

Dig your hands in there and make sure both sides of the ribs are coated.

 
Give the ribs 8 to 10 hours on low: 8 hours was perfect for these.
 

The sauce will lurk at the bottom, so I brought the ones at the bottom on top a few times throughout the cooking process.

That gave them all a chance to get a bit of color.

After 8 hours these will be incredibly tender and moist fall-off-the-bone kinda ribs. Delicious.

 
They will be absolutely perfect like this. But I like my ribs to have a bit of a crust, so I gave them a couple minutes under a hot broiler.
 

Preheat your broiler/grill, slap them on a grilling rack (6 inches from source of heat) and give them 10 to 15 minutes.

Now you’re left with all these cooking juices. Terrible, isn’t it? Mix the cornstarch with some water and pour it in. Simmer the sauce for a few more minutes.

 
Pour some of the sauce over the ribs and serve the rest on the side. Perfect match for this was steamed rice and sambal goreng buncis. 

 
Garnish the ribs with sliced chili pepper and scallions.
 

Oh lord. I could never be a vegetarian.