bbq

Amendment to my BBQ Ribs Recipe

You may remember one of my favorite recipes, my easy BBQ ribs. Well, since posting the recipe last year (and a revised version this March), I’ve been slowly honing this dish, and I’ve made enough changes that I figured I should write a quick amendment post.

The biggest change is that after cooking, I have been letting the ribs rest for about ten minutes, and then cutting each bone away from the rack using a pair of kitchen shears. This step makes for a much cleaner and fulfilling eating experience.

I’ve also found that adding peppercorns to the apple cider/white wine mixture in the first part of the cooking process really adds a depth to the meat’s taste.

Teriyaki Chicken

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, summer is a difficult time to write new recipes. We’ve spent a lot of this summer traveling or entertaining guests; when we are home, I usually prefer to grill something, and most of my grilling recipes are already on this site.

However, this has also been a good time for me to try out healthier versions of pre-Paleo dishes, like teriyaki chicken. I grew up in Washington state, where you’ll find an abundance of Asian restaurants selling “teriyaki chicken” – likely influenced by traditional Japanese teriyaki sauce, which is made with soy sauce, cooking wine, and sugar or honey. Hawaii has a similar dish, simply called “BBQ chicken”. Traditionally, the sauce is boiled down and thickened before marinating the meat, but it’s often too long of a prep to cap onto an already long marinating process (2-4 hours). Here’s how I make it at home.

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Roasted Pork Shoulder / Butt

While in Germany last year, I came across a Bavarian dish called “Schweinshaxe” (pork knuckle), which is a ham hock that is boiled and roasted to a crisp. I enjoyed picking apart this barbarian hunk of meat, and I wanted to replicate the experience at home. Since uncured ham hocks are hard to come by, and most butchers would look at you funny if you asked for a pork knuckle, I decided to try out a different cut but with similar result.

I settled on a pork shoulder (same thing as a pork butt), which is easy to find and fairly marbled. Pork shoulder is the cut used in pulled pork, so I thought I would roast a shoulder in the grill but take it off before it starts to fall apart; the outer shell came out deliciously crispy and the meat was juicy and tender.

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Grilled Split Chicken Breasts

Split chicken breasts don’t get any respect. They’re a lot cheaper per pound than boneless, skinless breasts (granted, they weigh more) plus their bones give them a natural grilling “rack” to use, resulting in a better tasting cut of meat. I decided to try out a method of grilling split breasts that I had read about, and here are the results.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I prefer to brine chicken if I’m going to grill it, in order to retain as much liquid as possible. Although it definitely makes the chicken more juicy, it does take a little bit of preparation. I think it’s worth it.

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Grilled and Braised Short Ribs

We prefer to eat our short ribs in the form of kalbi, but roasting an entire rack is also a rewarding experience. Off the rack, these ribs are meaty, fatty and delicious.

Although my pork ribs are usually cooked by braising or boiling and then grilling, I decided to do the opposite this time around, and grill them first. The result is soft, juicy meat – akin to a pot roast.

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Grilled Chicken Korma

This year we upgraded our gas grill, so I’ve been thinking of new ways to grill food. I decided to incorporate grilling into chicken korma, resulting in a creamy, delicate sauce with textured chicken chunks.

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Pulled Pork

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

Chances are you saw the picture above when you read my post about mac and cheese the other day. Maybe not. Either way, I think the picture is good enough to use twice.

This pulled pork recipe is very similar to my kalua pig recipe but with less salt and liquid smoke (and BBQ sauce). Like most slow-cooked meats, I think that less is more when it comes to ingredients, so I like the meat’s natural taste and the BBQ sauce do all the talking.

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Korean Short Ribs (Kalbi, Galbi, 갈비)

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbooks, The Ancestral Table and Paleo Takeout.

Kalbi (also known as Galbi) is one of my favorite meat dishes to grill at home. Unfortunately, all of the commercially-available marinades contain all sorts of nefarious ingredients, so I decided to try making the sauce from scratch. Luckily, it turned out to be really easy and tasted great.

This recipe calls for one Asian pear, but a regular golden pear, or even unsweetened applesauce, will do in a pinch.

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Easy BBQ Ribs

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

Successfully making BBQ ribs is probably the most hotly-debated item in my repertoire. True BBQ experts insist that the only way to cook ribs is over a slow heat outdoors for a long period of time (read: all day). My recipe creates consistently-good BBQ ribs that all but narrow-minded purists can easily enjoy.

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