"Quarantine Cooking"
Six months ago, back in October, a time when we didn’t have to wear
masks to step outside, we could brave restaurants, malls, and farmers markets
without fear of catching a deadly virus…..sigh…. the good old days. Anyway, I digress,
back then, I was in Canada with my sister. We took the drive from Mississauga
to Waterloo to check out St Jacobs farmers market (which is amazing) close by
is a restaurant our friend took us to called Crazy Canuck. That is when I first
had a taste of a salty, sour, crispy rib.
At first, I was like, what is this? He assured us it was good, he was right. Totally addictive, It had a slight crunch. Salty, undertones
of sour, just nice. It also seemed to have a kind of dry rub exterior. So I decided
that I would attempt to make it myself. To be honest I am not even entirely sure it was fried. I just know it had a dry seasoned crust, slightly crispy edges and I assumed it was fried.
I personally adore lemon pepper anything. I think the sour and salty
work well together. If lemon pepper ain't your thing, then this might not be the
recipe for you. Or it may be the recipe to convert you. Who knows? I made a delicious dry brine, coated my ribs, and was set to fry them. As usual, I did my research. I knew right off the bat, I would not be
dredging in any flour, egg, none of that. Crazy Canuck's ribs were flour-free,
plus the thought of reheating leftover breaded fried ribs made me cringe. I watched
so many videos of persons frying their ribs straight from raw on youtube. I mean if that
is your method and it works for you great. But I cannot see how one would
achieve fall off the bone tender ribs that way, those seemed to result in chewy
ribs. I saw Christy Teigen fried ribs recipe too, looked amazing, but it fried for 5 minutes. I'm still trying to figure that one out. My basic bbq ribs are falling off the bone so ain't no way I was about to
fry them, and they are not just as good. So I decided they had to cook in some
way first to tenderize, then fry it.
Of all the cooking methods, braising would be the method of choice because
it renders the most flavor out of the meats. But with a one-year-old on my hip,
I didn’t have time to braise in a pot, so I utilized the broil feature on my
oven. That worked wonders to quickly sear and caramelize each side without me having
to tend to a pot of ribs turning occasionally.
Now here lies the gag. They came out of the oven after two hours just
perfectly tender. And I tasted one, I said, no way am I frying this. It is too
perfect as it is; juicy, salty, sour. I just made the sauce and tossed them in
it. I let fear and to an extent, laziness get the best of me. However, I have
included my “shoulda coulda woulda” instructions for what I would have done had
I followed through with my intention to fry. They taste exactly like Crazy Canuck's
ribs, they just are not crispy. This recipe is a keeper. And to be honest, its
really extremely easy, even if you decide to fry it!
Ingredients (Printable recipe)
For the dry brine
2 racks ribs
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon or lime zest
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
For the lemon pepper sauce
Pan drippings
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon shredded garlic
2 teaspoon lemon/lime zest
1-2 large lemon (juice)
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoon sugar
Additional ingredients
1 cup hot water
1 ½ tablespoon oil
(Oil for frying)
Greedy Tips:
- I tend to use the word broil a lot in my insta-stories and I am not sure persons realize that your oven isn’t a one size fits all system. Do not mistake Broiling for Baking. Baking which is the traditional setting on an oven uses indirect heat at a lower temp which sometimes circulates hot air around the food using a fan (convection baking) the heat source comes from the bottom of the oven. Broiling uses fast direct high heat cooking and is a heat source from the top (ceiling of the oven) So broiled foods would need to get flipped in order for both sides to get a sear. While most time when you bake, the top and bottom are slowing cooking at the same time.
- Braising is a completely different thing. Braising just means searing/frying the meat in some oil until it develops color and then sealing it in a pan (usually the same pan u seared it in) with a little liquid and allowing it to slowly cook at a low temp until tender. In this recipe, I did my braise completely in the oven starting with the broil setting then changing to the convection bake setting
- Dry brine just mean its a brine without the added water. Same salt sugar but the sugar and salt seep into the meat mixing with the water in the meat to create a kind of internal brine. Works great for turkey since its very hard to find a container big enough to hold the liquid and the turkey for a traditional wet brine. I have switched to dry brining turkey for a few years now.
- Wash and pat dry the ribs
- Combine all the ingredients for the dry brine and sprinkle over the ribs evenly back and front
- Place on a tray in the refrigerator overnight uncovered
- Preheat oven to broil 550 degrees
- Slice the whole rack of ribs into individual ribs
- Lay the ribs in a sheet pan and coat lightly with 1 ½ tablespoon of oil
- Place in the oven and broil the two large sides until slightly golden about 8 minutes per side
- Reduce oven heat to 325, pour the 1 cup of hot water over the ribs, cover tightly with foil and let it cook for two hours or until fork tender
- Once done pour off the liquid (discarding any excess oil)
- Reduce the drippings with shredded and chopped garlic, lemon/lime zest, and juice black pepper and sugar. Reduce until it is a rich glaze.
- Toss the ribs in the garlic lemon pepper sauce and serve.
Instructions for frying
- Follow all the instruction above until its cooked tender in the oven
- Once done and out the oven, pour off the liquid (discarding any excess oil)
- Reduce the drippings with shredded and chopped garlic, lemon/lime zest and juice black pepper and sugar. Reduce until it is a rich glaze set aside
- Allow the ribs to completely cool to room temp and set in the refrigerator to firm up a bit about 30 minutes
- Meanwhile in a deep pot heat up some oil to 375 degrees
- Fry the ribs in small batches in the hot oil for about two minutes until the exterior is crispy
- Quickly drain on a paper towel
- Then toss the ribs in the garlic lemon pepper sauce and serve immediately.
Xoxo Greedygirl
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