Pork is some of the cheapest meat on the market right now, and pork ribs are among the cheapest cuts of pork.  A side of pork ribs, also called spare ribs, is easy and not at all labor intensive to cook, either.

You may come across a cut called “side ribs” as well.  The only difference is that side ribs often lack the belly portion and are just an 11-13 rib strip.

Being an apartment dweller, I won’t touch on the much loved barbecue ribs – but here’s a simple way to make some delicious honey garlic ribs.

As usual, this recipe is more about the method rather than quantities of ingredients, so add more or less of whatever you please.  I’d recommend going light on the star anise though.

Ingredients:
A white onion or two, coarsely chopped [or quartered]
2 star anise
4 cloves garlic, smashed
for every
2 strips of spare ribs or 4 strips of side ribs

Scale as necessary

Add the pork ribs, onion, star anise, and garlic to a pot and cover with cold water.  Bring the water to a low simmer and skim the top as necessary.  Simmer but do not boil the ribs until the meat is tender – this will probably take 1 to 1 1/2 hours.   Boiling the ribs will cause the meat to toughen and become stringy rather than tender with that melt-in-your-mouth quality.  The ribs will be infused with the flavour of the garlic and onion, and the star anise will enhance the pork flavour.

Remove the ribs and let them cool until you can cut them into portions, or leave them whole, whatever you choose.

For the sauce, eyeball it to suit your tastes.  Mince some garlic into 2-3mm size pieces and mix with some honey, a dash of soy sauce, and a little sambal olek.  The large size of the garlic pieces means that they’re more likely to caramelize rather than burn.

Preheat your oven to 375F and place your rib portions on a silpat or aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  Sauce the ribs [reserve a bit of sauce], and bake until the sauce turns sticky – depending on a lot of things, it could be anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes – flick on that oven light and check, as long as the sauce isn’t burning, you’re good.  Take the ribs out when the sauce is sufficiently sticky.

Add more sauce and glaze again if you like, otherwise eat.