Sticky Ribs with Goose Fat Fries | You've Got Meal!

Ah, sticky ribs, the reason God gave you fingers. And there you go. Enjoy! Just kidding, Mrs. G says I have to give you guys the full details of the recipe. Not that I wouldn’t have done that, but I think I mentioned before I’m kind of lazy. 

The main idea of the whole meal is to enjoy a Friday night sticky, greasy, delicious dinner made of some oven baked ribs, some potatoes cooked in goose fat, everything balanced by some crunchy and tangy salad leaves with beets and pumpkin seeds. 

The ingredients we used: 

• 3 single ribs, about 100 grams each (makes it easier to cook), 
• some potatoes, preferably new, 
• salt, pepper, 
• thyme, oregano, smoked paprika, 
• ketchup. 

For  the salad we had some crunchy iceberg leaves, with some radicchio rosso, an oven cooked small beet, cut into sticks, pumpkin kernels, salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar and a tsp. of some not very strong mustard.

I find that cooking ribs has a positive effect on my mood, maybe because of the delicious smell of grease and condiments melting away into something great. Despite that, it has a definite negative impact on the look of the kitchen, especially if you pan sear it. So, I like to slow cook the ribs in the oven, in an covered tray until the fat melts and the meat gets nice and tasty.

1. Start of by rubbing the meat with the dry condiments and some salt. 
2. For the next step, you can choose to use a tray with a grill on top, so the fat will melt and fall into that, or you can place the ribs straight in an oven tin, in which case the fat will melt and the ribs will also cook in it. 
3. We went for the second, mainly because I find that cooking meat in fat of any kind makes it really tender and elevates the taste. 
4. So, we covered the tray with some tin foil, and cooked the meat for 80 minutes on a medium low heat, turning the ribs half-way and covering back the tray with tin foil. 
5. In the last 10 minutes, remove the tin foil and brush the ribs with some ketchup or barbeque sauce. Turn up the heat and cook in order to create a glaze.

Meanwhile, you can cook the spuds by, you’ve guessed it, frying them in goose fat. Start of by cooking them on high heat for a couple of minutes, in order to get some color, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for around 15-20 minutes, until you get a golden brown color on all sides.

The salad helps the meat and the potatoes tone down on the fatty note. Just make a vinaigrette with the juice of half a lemon, 3 tbs. of olive oil, 1 tbs. of red wine vinegar, 1 tsp. of mustard, salt and pepper. Mix the result with the salad leaves of your choice – choose some crunchy ones, the beet and pumpkin seeds.

This meal, that you’ve just got – pun intended, screams for some Cabernet or a nice, red ale, so take your pick with the alcohol.  A full, heart meal that can get you ready for a lazy weekend at home, perhaps in the company of some chicken wings? Because that’s the second reason God gave you fingers.

Guys, we try and give you in every recipe we post here our honest and explicit experience with food, and any feed-back or tips for further improving any dish is well appreciated. So feel free to comment, criticize or like any post here, can’t wait to be hearing from you!

Enjoy,

Noodle Soup with River Bass | You've Got Meal!

River bass is one of my favorite fish. The meaty, lean, white, subtle fish is very versatile and can be cooked in so many ways that is too bad that I don’t get my hands on bass very often.

And considering the fact that Mrs. G’s name day was coming, I decided to turn this fabulous fish into an Asian style noodle soup. To say she loves those is an understatement, and I would really like to see what she would do in a Ramen restaurant.

Cooking this soup is super simple and it’s composed of 3 parts: the fish, the stir fry, the boiled ingredients and the broth (the base of the soup). This feels like actually building the soup from different parts, the ingredients for each being: green onions, carrots, chili, garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce and fish sauce  (1 teaspoon each for the last 3) for the stir fry; broccoli and instant noodles to boil; cardamom, allspice, star anise, pepper, salt for the broth.

Start of by  gutting and cleaning the fish. Next, take all the ingredients for the broth and put them in a tea satchel. Place it in salted water and boil until the liquid has been infused by the spices. Next, massage the fish with some salt and a hint of 5 spice and place it in the oven, high heat, on a rack that has a tray under. Depending on the size of the fish, it will take to cook from 8-15 minutes.

Remove the fish from the oven and set aside. The next 2 parts take literally 2 minutes. At  the same time, boil the broccoli in the broth and stir fry the vegetables in a wok, in a little peanut oil .

Time to plate your soup. First, place the vegetables from the wok, then the instant noodles (that’s the kind I used here, but you can choose a different kind- just be careful with the ones that take longer to cook – boil them in the infused broth before adding them to the soup ), soup (up to 90% of the bowl), pieces of broccoli and flaked pieces of bass. Let the noodles cook- it takes 2-3 minutes, they will absorb a fair amount of liquid so feel free to add more broth to the soup if you feel like necessary.

Now, I’m gonna go and say here that the resulting dish was a comforting, savory soup. Thing is, in order to fully demonstrate this would be to actually show you Mrs. G just munching it away in under a minute (but she hid the recording). Like I said before, she LOVES her noodle soups.

Enjoy,