Slow Cooked BBQ Pork Ribs

Photo: Mina "I Have a Camera" Kang

So, I spend way too much time on pinterest for someone with a penis. It's what the Food Network used to be for me. I used to get home from work and turn on the Food Network, watching until I became so hungry that I finally decided to make whatever I saw on the most recent show. This often involved trips to the grocery store for specialty items, while I was hungry. It was a bad scene. Now that I'm older and more experienced in the kitchen, I have figured out how to mold recipes to what ingredients I have instead of going to the grocery store every time I cook. Eventually I will learn to stay off pinterest while hungry...eventually.

I've run across a recipe for pulled pork in a slow cooker using a can of root beer and a bottle of BBQ sauce. As a lover of BBQ (STL style-it's what would happen if KC style and Carolina style had an illegitimate child), I was intrigued. This isn't the recipe that was on pinterest. That recipe is very easy and involves adding the pork and contents of the can and bottle to the slow cooker and letting it sit on low for about 6 hours. It's not that this recipe is hard, but I believe in making my own sauce because I am not a communist, or fascist, or whomever it is that doesn't make their own BBQ sauce...actually, I think it's the Jacobites.

Making your own sauce is easy, and has the benefit of allowing you to get it to taste exactly how you want it. It can be sweet, tangy, hot, or all of the above. Your own sauce also has the advantage of impressing the living hell out of everyone who asks you what sauce you used. Most people will look at you like you just told them you just confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, which I don't understand because it is SO EASY to make BBQ sauce. If you don't know what the Higgs boson is, don't worry, it isn't an ingredient in the sauce.

SLOW COOKED BBQ PORK RIBS:

2 packages boneless pork ribs (price varies per package but averages out to $3.55 per package)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp olive oil ($3.49 for 17 oz.)

BBQ SAUCE:

3/4 cup Ketchup ($1.19 for 32 oz.)
4 tblsp Mustard ($0.69 for 14 oz.)
4 tblsp Balsamic vinegar ($1.99 for 16.9 oz.)
3 tblsp Molasses ($1.89 for 16 oz.-specialty item that may no longer be available)
1 tblsp Chili powder ($0.99 for 4 oz.)
1 Onion diced ($1.49 for 3 lbs.)
Pepper to taste
1 tsp Garlic salt ($0.99 for 4 oz.)
Crushed red pepper to taste ($0.99 for 4 oz.)
1 can root beer ($2.29 for 12 cans)

First prep the ribs by browning them in a pan. Add the olive oil to the pan and set heat to medium high. Salt and pepper the ribs and place them in the pan for a few minutes per side until they are all brown and lovely. Don't overcrowd the pan.

Once the ribs are browned, put everything into the slow cooker and set it on low. It will not be pretty looking but you don't have to stir it up, everything will meld together eventually.

 Find something to occupy your time for 6 hours. I suggest learning to knit with no instruction whatsoever. Once you have failed at that, you can join a knitting forum and complain about how impossible learning to knit on your own is. If anyone offers assistance, kindly point out that they are being condescending. Whilst kindly pointing out the condescension of others, use a significant amount of profanity and threats of physical violence. When you are banned from the forum, join up again under another email address and threaten the families of the moderators. When this new account is banned and your I.P. address logged, the ribs should be about done. P.S. Don't do any of this.

If for some reason you do not have molasses lying around you could substitute brown sugar or honey. The sauce will taste a bit different, but still be excellent. If you don't have a slow cooker or crock pot, you can use your oven and an oven safe pot. Make sure an oven safe lid is on the pot. Set the oven to 200 degrees. When finished the pot is hot, so don't try to remove it with your face. Use oven mitts.


I was worried that these ribs would taste like root beer, but they do not. Cooking them for as long as this recipe calls for makes them literally fall apart. If you want to serve with the sauce you made, you can empty the sauce into a blender (best to wait until the sauce has cooled) blend it up and serve on the side or poured over the ribs. Even if you don't use the sauce on the ribs, they are plenty flavorful. We had a potluck the other night, and these ribs disappeared. I assume people ate them, as they were a bit solid for evaporation.

Orange Balsamic Cornish Game Hens

Every once in a while I am amazed by what can be found at Aldi. Since they market themselves as a discount bulk items shop, you would not expect to find the wide range of specialty items they offer. Things like lobster (both whole and tail), eiswein, and whole frozen duck come to mind. Just a note, I have tried each of these things and they rock. Imagine having a dinner for two with lobster risotto, a wine spectator rated wine,  and poached pears in a caramel sauce with whipped cream. Now imagine that the dinner costs less than $30.00. And you will have leftovers. Feel free to check yourself at this point as you may have just crapped your pants with delight.

Now that the mess is cleaned up and the laundry has been started, one of those specialty items available at Aldi is the Rock Cornish Game Hen. These have been available for some time. I do not believe they are huge sellers, but don't worry. They're frozen and don't expire for quite some time.

They were on special for Thanksgiving, but are back up to the price of $2.69 each; still, that's nothing. Well, actually it's $2.69, but that's still not much unless you pay for everything in pennies. I've bought these a few times now, and each time I have made the same recipe, and each time people have asked me to make it again.

My girlfriend and I split holidays with our families, so Christmas is usually spent with one family the week before and with the other on actual Christmas. We alternate the family each year. It's a lot like being single with divorced parents. One of whom doesn't love you as much. This year my family came up for the week before Christmas, and I had to make Christmas dinner. I was asked to make the game hens. 9 game hens. One for each of us. Great. Here's the recipe (only for 3 game hens, if you want more, do math).

ORANGE BALSAMIC CORNISH GAME HENS:

3 hens, thawed, rinsed, and butterflied ($2.69 each)
salt to taste
pepper to taste (Aldi sells salt and pepper, but I don't know for how much)
1/2 cup defrosted orange juice concentrate ($1.09 per can)
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (This is a specialty item and not always available $1.99 for 16.9 oz.)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil  ($3.49 per 16.9 oz.)
2 teaspoons dried rosemary ($0.99)

Thaw, rinse, and butterfly the hens. These things take forever to thaw. I bought them on a Wednesday, put them in an old beer cooler with no ice or other coolant and they were still frozen in places by Friday. Do not expect to thaw them in the fridge overnight. You have been warned. Once you have thawed the little buggers and removed them from their plastic cocoons, rinse them and pat dry. You now have to butterfly them. Do this in an area away from other food and sanitize it when you are finished with everything. If you have never done this, it is a pretty easy process. The long and short of it is that you cut their spine out. I said it was easy, I said nothing about pretty. If you know how to butterfly a bird, skip to the cooking.

Start with your happy, thawed, raw little bird. He'll look like this:

First thing you'll have to do is position the hen so that all its friends can watch you butcher it. Next get some kitchen sheers and grab the butt end of the hen.You may notice a little tab, this is the end of the spine. Grab the tab and start cutting along one side of the spine.

 
Cut from the butt hole (heh) to where the head used to be. You will be cutting through the ribs next to the spine.

Next grab the leg and cut down the other side of the spine. At this point the other hens may try to turn away in disgust. Reposition them.

Now you have the spine, throw it away, or use it to make stock or something. I throw them away because I am wasteful.

Next flip the invertebrate hen over and press down on it with the palm of your hand. This is to further humiliate the now spineless hen and terrify the hen onlookers. There is some other practical reason to do this, but I can't be bothered to write it down now.

You now have a butterflied hen.

Salt and pepper the hens liberally. Now begin making the marinade. Yes, this is a marinade. If you are making this in the hope for a quick meal, you will be disappointed. Deal with it. Luckily they do not need to marinate overnight, they can, but they don't have to. I marinate them about 3 hours, but first I make the marinade.

Combine the oil, balsamic, rosemary and frozen orange juice concentrate in a bowl and stir to combine. Put the butterflied hens in a gallon sized freezer bag and add the marinade. When you close the bags, get as much of the air out as you can and try to get the marinade over as much of the hens as you can.

Put your birds in the fridge and do something that takes three hours. I suggest watching "The Towering Inferno" and then having a brief discussion as to why Paul Newman and Steve McQueen never followed it up with a buddy comedy called "The Architect and The Fire Chief" where they worked/lived together in a pizza parlor/loft.

When you are ready to start cooking your birds, preheat your oven to 425 and place the hens three each on baking sheet. Cover the hens with some of the marinade, reserving some for basting.

Pop the hens into the center of the oven for 15 minutes. Open the oven and bast the hens, reducing the heat to 375. In another 15 minutes baste again. Keep them in for another 15 minutes and you're done. If you notice the skin getting too brown at any time, you can put some loose foil over the hens. Set them aside to cool a bit.

There you have it. Plate, serve, eat.

I realize this is a long post with the recipe spread out over more surface area that you might like, so here's an abridged version:

O. B. C. G. H.

3 hens, thawed, rinsed, and butterflied
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1/2 cup defrosted orange juice concentrate
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp dried rosemary

Salt and pepper hens. Combine everything else into a bowl. Pour marinade over hens and refrigerate.Watch a Paul Newman movie. Preheat oven to 425. Put hens 3 to a baking sheet and cover with marinade. In 15 minutes take the heat down to 375 and baste. 15 minutes later baste. 15 minutes later done.