Waking up this morning I decided to continue my journey through the 'encyclopaedic animal' that is the pig. It's hot today. I was thinking of doing something with loin, but no, I've had enough roasts over the past week. Time for something different. Time for sweet, sticky, salty pork ribs. Luckily, Larousse Gastronomique has a recipe.
The marinade, which must be applied to the ribs at least 30 minutes before cooking them (I'm giving them a good 7-8 hours), is made up of powdered ginger, salt, pepper, sugar, garlic and equal quantities of soy sauce and tomato sauce (60 mL to be precise--which makes the perfect amount of marinade for the half-dozen ribs I bought). For reference, spare ribs are different to the 'American-style' ribs some butchers sell. The 'spare ribs' entry explains that spare ribs come from 'the upper part of the pork belly' and are 'cut into long, narrow strips'. The 'best spare ribs are the fleshiest and the leanest.' Good thing, too, given that the ribs I bought are both fleshy and lean. I'm looking forward to this one.
Larousse Gastronomique mentions a number of ways of cooking spare ribs but provides no specific times or temperatures. A bit of research on Google told me that 50 minutes in a 200 degree oven is about right. Spare ribs require basting numerous times during cooking.
I like the ribs. I really do. In fact, they're easily one of my favourite Larousse conquests.
44. Avocado salad with cucumber
A fitting salad for a hot night. The recipe calls for equal quantities of cucumber and avocado to be dressed with a strong mustard-flavoured vinaigrette and chopped herbs. I've prepared two of Larousse Gastronomique's vinaigrette bases before. The second one I prepared, which suggested a fat to acid ratio of 3:1, was far superior to the one that called for a 1:1 ratio of fat to acid. I'll be flavouring the vinaigrette with hot English mustard, purely because that's what I have on hand.
Protip: if you're the sort of person who normally only buys avocados for tacos and sandwiches and, as such, always looks for ripe, soft avocados, understand that maybe they shouldn't be so ripe and soft if you're supposed to dice them. Just saying.
45. Boiled rice with butter
I'm getting a bit tired of having dairy fat with every meal so this will probably be my last recipe that needs butter for a while. I have a little bit of a block to use up, still. Boiled rice with butter is self-explanatory: you steam some rice and then stir a little bit of butter in.
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