I use the so called "country style" cut of ribs, but this will work with regular spare ribs. Baby backs, not so much. It's a marinade, so all quantities are approximate and can be altered to taste. Exactitude is not that important.Ingredients:
- 3-4 lbs bone-in country-style pork ribs (should be about 8 pieces). If you use spare ribs instead, cut the ribs into individual pieces.
- a small jar of gochujang - 4oz is more than sufficient, but you can't buy it in quantities that small (it's Korean condiment, a hot pepper paste - this is something Koreans used to put in jars in their backyards to age, as it is quite aromatic. A good Asian grocery will have it - but you need to get the authentic Korean stuff, as there really isn't a comparable substitute in other cuisines. Might be called "Ko Choo Jung" or "Ko Chu Jung" or "koch'ujang" or "고추장". Better yet, print the image from the wikipedia page and ask someone in the grocery for help.)
- soy sauce - 16 oz or so (see below)
- green onions - enough to slice into about 3/4 cup of onions or so
- three medium-large cloves of garlic
- about 1/2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
- about 1 teaspoon of sugar (optional)
Slice the green onions into disks about 1/16" thick, and place in a 13x9x2 pan.
Crush (or mince) the garlic and add to pan
Add the sugar and sesame oil to the pan
Using only part of the soy sauce, add enough so that you have thin (1/4 inch) layer or so of soy sauce on the bottom of the pan. Stir the pan gently to mix ingredients thoroughly.
Rinse and pat dry the pork ribs.
Here's where things can get messy - you might want to use a mixing bowl as your working surface.
Take a rib, and coat with about 1 teaspoon of the gochujang. You can use a broad knife to spread the paste onto the rib - but avoid contamination (or dedicate a jar to be used only for pork.) You should be able to see the meat through the paste, but don't make the coating too thin.
Once you coat all sides of the rib, place it in the pan with the rest of the marinade, and turn the piece over so it gets a coating of the soysauce-onions-garlic and liquid.
Coat the remaining ribs in the same way, and place the rest of the ribs into the pan. You shouldn't need to pack the pan in tightly.
Now, add soy sauce until the level of the marinade comes close to covering the meat. Don't overfill as that will make moving the pan very difficult. Rock the pan over a sink to allow the new soy sauce to combine with the rest of the meat.
At this point, if you want, you can transfer the entire contents of the pan into large ziplock bags - or you can just keep it in the pan, and turn the meat over once.
Allow to marinade for three to six hours - but not too much longer.
Light your grill, and allow to come up to temperature (or if you're like me, use allow the charcoal to burn until coated with a thin layer of ash.) Spread the meat over the grill, and COVER the grill. Turn meat down to medium if you're of the gas persuasion. Allow the meat to cook for about 20 minutes. You'll have plenty of liquid marinade left over - but discard it.
Don't peek - you don't want flare-ups - and you want to keep a warm interior so the meat can cook from all sides.
Turn the meat over, then cook COVERED for an additional 15 minutes or so.
Remove from grill. If you're uncertain about the doneness of the meat, you can cut in and check to make sure the center meat is cooked white - but still juicy. The outer bit might be reddish - but that's from the marinade.
Serve with steamed rice and a vegetable like steamed sugar snap peas or stir-fried snow peas.
