HONEY GARLIC RIBS

One of my favorite rib recipes is to cut side or back ribs into individual or three rib pieces, simmer the ribs in water until the meat is cooked, (about 15 or 20 minutes) and then open up a bottle of garlic rib marinade and pour the marinade over the ribs in a roasting pan.  I bake them at 350 degrees F for about 50 minutes.  The sugar from the marinade is caramelized and the sauce bakes onto the meat.  I usually find the marinade in the Chinese food section of the local grocery store.

I realized that I could just as easily make my own marinade as it is basically garlic, sugar and soy sauce.  I found the following recipe on allrecipes.com and made a few changes.  For the vinegar, I used a blackberry balsamic vinegar and it worked out really well.  To measure out 1/8 of a cup I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup and just fill it to half to get the 1/8th measure.  After baking for 90 minutes, the sauce was very caramelized on the ribs and the picture above shows the sauce baked into the meat.

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds pork spareribs

1/4 cup honey

1/8 cup soy sauce

1/8 cup white vinegar or balsamic

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

garlic powder or salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F .

Slice the ribs into pieces. In a large bowl, combine the honey, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and brown sugar. Stir until honey and sugar are completely dissolved, then stir in the baking soda. The mixture will begin to foam.

Transfer ribs to the bowl, and turn to coat.

Cover a cookie sheet with several layers of foil, and arrange the ribs meat side up on the sheet. Baste the excess sauce over the ribs and sprinkle with the garlic powder or salt.

Bake for 30 minutes uncovered and then turn the ribs over.  Baste with the leftover sauce and loosely cover the meat with a sheet of tin foil.  About every half hour, turn the meat over.  Bake for about 90 minutes.  Serves 2 to 3 people.  To serve more people, use 4 pounds of ribs and double the sauce mixture.