I love making these ribs, it's really really good fun to do, it's kind of epic
It's an amazing weekend feast. Whenever you do this, it silences a room and
people just get stuck in and go a little bit Fred Flintstone's about their eating
I love it. So first of all we've got the beautiful pork, I'm using lovely
free-range pigs here, you can see it's the ribs, it's the long cut with the
belly attached as well so you're gonna get loads of sweet meat. These racks
weigh about 2 kilos each and will feed 12 to 16 people. So just get yourself 2 long pieces of tinfoil
Get your pork like this, season the ribs with salt and the star of the show
Chinese five-spice. This stuff is incredible, it's guaranteed sort of big
beautiful flavour, it's traditionally a grind of cinnamon, cloves, Chinese star
anise, black pepper, fennel seeds and it just smells and tastes fantastic. Roast
the pork ribs curved upwards so that the meat on the underside is bathing in all
those juices. This is important this wrapping part, okay, because in the belly
in the ribs it works a lot, okay. So it's gonna be super tough, but when you slow
cook it it allows the flavor to penetrate and the kind of steam hydrates
the sinews and then it kind of breaks and become sticky and gorgeous and
tender. Cook them in the oven at 160 degrees centigrade for three hours. Next
barbecue sauce. To create a spiced Asian version of this classic, finely slice
three red onions and soften in a hot pan. Then add some more of that Chinese
five-spice and a few extra whole star anise. So look at this star anise, the
flavor of the inner and outer part is just incredible quite licorice but it's
just got so much more than that, really really integral to Chinese and
Vietnamese cooking. I'm just gonna put six or so star anise in there. We just want to
fry off these onions so they're super super super sweet. Add eight tablespoons
of apple juice, along with six spoons of hoisin sauce, four of honey, two of
ketchup and two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar. So all we need to do now is just
simmer it away for a couple of minutes to go thick and shiny and gorgeous
Remove the star anise and liquidise the sauce in a blender
then pass for a sieve for an ultra silky consistency. I'll just use a spoon just
to move around, delicious. Three hours later the ribs come out of the oven
ready for stage two. This is the really really exciting bit, let's have a look
what we got for our money. Look at the juice that's come out. I'm gonna pour
these juices, all of them, into our barbecue sauce, that is so good. With the
juices added the sauce will need to reduce down until it's thick and glossy
So let's do the fun bit, let's glaze our beautiful pork. So get your DIY skills
ready and raring to go, and let's have a little paint up. Cover
every inch of your ribs with the sweet sticky glaze, it's gonna seal in the
moisture and give us incredible flavour. I'm gonna whack this in the oven at
about 200, so a little bit hotter now, in she goes. Now, so that's in the oven, that's
gonna go beautiful, shiny, sticky and glaze and there's one more little tip
that's an optional extra. To really give these ribs the edge, I want to inject
some serious smoky flavours. So how do you turn an everyday home oven into a tiny
miniature smoker? You're gonna need a metal sieve and some barbecue wood chips
available online or from your garden centre. Just get it going it takes
seconds, as soon as you see a little bit of flame happening, we're laughing. What
that's gonna do is create a little smoker in your oven, it doesn't create
loads of smoke outside the oven, but, any chilli, any soup, any rice dish, any curry
that you do will be transformed by this little trick. We blow it out
in we go. The fans pushing that smoke around, the cinders in there will just
keep it kind of smouldering away and that is a great tip. 10 minutes later and
you're ready to get those beautiful smoky ribs out the oven. This is a
showstopper you know this is gonna put smiles on people's faces, I've got a
massive platter like this, so let's get it happening. I'm serving my ribs with
fluffy fragrant rice, now you're ready to carve up. Look how tender, oh my lord, just
look into there. You can even taste the smoke, oh my god, yeah that's exactly
what I want. To garnish just sprinkle with some finely sliced chillies
spring onions, radishes and coriander why do you want this? Because it's just
contrast, colour and freshness and that my friends is the beautiful sticky Chinese
ribs, in all of its beauty. That is a big juicy incredible rib right there. Let's
just tear a little bit of that meat, bit of the rice, bit of chilly, bit of radish in
the gob, mmm. Oh my god. Big insane flavour. Like that, amazing.