Victoria Day long weekend unofficially kicked off summer and my family celebrated accordingly. It was also Little Brother’s birthday so I seized the opportunity to make boys food such as pizza and ribs. It must have been at least three years since I last cooked ribs at home. That is an awfully long wait especially for these succulent sweet and smoky oven spareribs. I may be an advocate for meat-lite diet but that doesn’t mean I should subject the boys to feel the same way especially for birthday celebrations.
A man may be able to live on ribs alone but this girl certainly cannot. I completed the menu with a full range of traditional and not-so-traditional side dishes that appeal to my taste. Thanks to my renewed interest in smitten kitchen recipes, I present you:
Very Smitten Ribs Night
Preparing this meal was an all day affair but only because the ribs and beans both required long hours of unattended cooking. I woke up bright and early to set the yellow eye beans in the slow cooker as per the trusted recipe in Slow Cooker Revolution. The dried beans nestled with hickory bourbon barbecue sauce, onion, garlic, brown sugar, bacon, and coffee. I made this many times before and it is one of my favourite ways to prepare beans. Off I went to the store to pick up some last minute ingredients.
I dry rubbed two racks of pork back ribs as per smitten kitchen’s adaptation of Harold McGee’s recipe. The sweet and smoky taste came from the combination of brown sugar, ancho chilli, chipotle, smoked paprika, cumin, garlic powder, cinnamon, and cloves. The foil packets cooked in the gentle heat of oven for six long hours. The slow and low approach rendered the connective tissues unbelievably tender yet not mushy.
What did I do in the mean time? Side dishes, of course.
First I started with the potatoes. Potato salad would be an obvious dish to pair with ribs and I chose The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s Fingerlings Vinaigrette with Sieved Eggs and Pickled Celery. It was a lighter and more refined take on potato salad with the assortment of toppings (dare I call it “deconstructed” without sounding silly?). I love the creamy texture of simple boiled fingerling potatoes. They tasted fantastic with bracing mustard shallot vinaigrette, celery pickled in sherry vinegar, hard boiled eggs, and parsley.
I cannot imagine a ribs dinner without cold crunchy slaw so I included two, neither of which involved a jar of mayonnaise. First was Vinegar Slaw with Cucumbers and Dill (found in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s salad chapter). Wielding my trusty mandolin, I decimated a head of green cabbage and an English cucumber into a pile of shreds and slices. They were quick pickled in a sweet white wine vinegar mixture until puckery and crunchy. Such a refreshing side dish! The Sugar Snap Salad with Miso Dressing was a lovely mix of nappa cabbage, sugar snap peas, radishes, green onions, and toasted sesame seeds in the most luxuriously creamy dressing. The boys couldn’t get enough of the addictive taste of ginger, garlic, miso, brown rice vinegar, tahini, and toasted sesame oil. I already received request for an encore (yes, encore for salad)!
Good thing I did not plan for dessert because we were stuffed. Strawberry shortcake or cherry pie would have been perfect if only we had the stomach space! With Memorial Day long weekend coming up south of the border, this is a menu I highly recommend.
