A recipe with beer generally pings off the page to catch my eye – In the Sat Telegraph 26th September, Xanthe Clay wrote a feature in the Food and Drink section called ‘The hungry fresher’s survival guide’ – in it was a cooking with beer recipe for Beer-braised sweet and sticky ribs. It was exactly as she said easy peasy, sticky and tasty. In order to try this I strayed from her recipe to use what was to hand, some small pro chops instead of the ribs and a pale ale instead of lager. A perfect Saturday evening dish for non students to munch while watching Strictly!
Beer-braised sweet and sticky pork ribs.
Serves 4 with rice and salad
2tblsp oil
1.5 Kg/3lbs pork ribs
2 onions
1 can cheap lager (doesn’t matter if it has been open a day or two)
1 chicken stock cube
1 tsp smoked paprika or chilli sauce (opitonal)
1/2 mugful of cider vinegar
3 tbsp honey, brown sugar or golden syrup ( I used honey)
Set oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. heat the oil in a big pan and sizzle the pork ribs in it until they are HP sauce brown. You may need to do this in batches.
Take the ribs our of the pan and keep to one side. Slice the onions, put them in the pan and cook until they are really floppy. Pour in the lager and let it boil and bubble while you scrape all the gunk from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add 2 mugfuls of water and a chicken stock cube. One teaspoon of smoked paprika would be good here too, and/or a shake of chilli sauce.
Return ribs to the pan, and pop it in the oven uncovered for an hour. Take the pan out of the oven and stir in the vinegar and honey/sugar/syrup. Return to the oven and cook for another half-hour until the ribs are really tender. If the sauce is still a bit thin, put the pan on the hob again and boil liquid down until it is the consistency of runny ketchup.
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