When we ordered our first (half) pig, we debated getting some of it cured by the butcher. In the end, partly because I am cheap frugal, we decided to get it all fresh, hams and side and all. I had been thinking we would cure some ourselves, but I’m beginning to suspect we’ll have eaten it all by the time I get serious about it. Oh, well, there’s always another pig.

But in the meantime, we have these nice big roasts of side pork, otherwise known as pork belly, the cut that is usually made into bacon. We’ve eaten it in restaurants a number of times, but this would be my first time cooking it. I decided to play it safe and make red-cooked pork belly, a classic Chinese preparation.

We’ve tried to get fresh pork belly before, at a local meat shop, but to my dismay they had already sliced it like bacon, even though it wasn’t cured. This time things worked out better, as you can see in the top picture. Isn’t that a beautiful piece of meat?

For my braising liquid, I used a combination of Molly Stevens’ recipe and our own “glazed gingery ribs” recipe. I combined chicken stock, water, brown sugar, red chile flakes, star anise, ginger, scallions and soy sauce in a Dutch oven and brought it to a simmer.

I whacked up the pork belly into large chunks and added them to the pot. I covered it up and let it simmer for about 2 hours, then removed the lid, turned up the heat and let the liquid reduce down to a cup or two (it took a while).

After the long simmer, the meat was very tender, but still capped with a fair amount of fat. The chunks were easy to remove, but this is certainly not a cut of meat for the fat-phobic. The sauce, even skimmed lightly of fat, was beautifully unctuous and silky in the mouth. We served the meat and sauce over white rice with baby bok choi and fresh pan-fried scallion-chive breads.

The next day, with the house still smelling of red-cooked pork, I shredded the leftover meat, mixed it with its own sauce and the leftover greens, and stuffed it into fresh hum bao. Fabulous.

This is the way I most like to cook: spending a great deal of time and energy to make something delicious, but then recycling the leftovers into something equally wonderful but different. Just because you’re working with leftovers doesn’t mean you can’t give them your full love and attention. And it doesn’t always have to mean sandwiches .

After the usual holiday diet of chocolate, too much coffee and a lot of salami and cheese, it’s always a good idea to have something solid in mind for dinner. I can hardly imagine a more perfect dish for Christmas day than long-braised leg of lamb. Get it going after breakfast, peek at it occasionally throughout the day, pull it out in time for dinner. The only downside is that it takes up oven space that you might want for, say, baking pie, but the braise can easily be moved to the stovetop (which is what we ended up doing).

The lamb braises in a wine-tomato-stock mixture, but then you get to fill in the space around it with whatever veg you like. The original recipe recommends turnips, onions and carrots; we left out the onions and threw in parsnip and fennel. The long, slow braising makes the vegetables incredibly tender while still retaining their shape, so they can be scooped out of the broth and served alongside the meat.

When the lamb is done, you can hardly get it out of the pan in one piece. The meat simply falls off the bone.

We ate the tender lamb and vegetables with buttered pasta, pouring the pan sauce over everything indiscriminately. A five-year-old Cabernet from Willis Hall went deliciously.

And sweet potato pie with bourbon to finish, of course.

Six-Hour Leg of Lamb

Adapted from Molly Stevens’ 7-Hour Lamb from All About Braising. Feeds four very nicely, with some leftovers.

• 1 lamb leg roast, bone-in (ours was about 4 lbs)
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup white wine
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves
• leaves from several thyme sprigs
• 15 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 cup canned tomatoes and juice
• 1 carrot
• half of an enormous turnip
• 1 parsnip
• 2 bulbs fennel

Peel the vegetables and chop into large chunks (they’ll dissolve if you make them too small). Season the lamb roast with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 275°.

In a very large Dutch oven, heat a bit of olive oil until very hot. Sear the lamb on all sides until golden brown. Remove the meat to a platter.

Add wine to the pan and reduce, scraping up all the good lamb bits, until it’s about half its volume. Add stock, herbs, garlic, and tomatoes and simmer for a few minutes.

Put the lamb back into the liquid and scatter the veg around. Cover tightly and put the pot into the oven. After two hours, turn the meat and see how hard the liquid is boiling. If it seems to be bubbling too much, turn the heat down, or shift the pan to the stovetop and keep it at a very low simmer. Continue to turn and check the meat every two hours until it is falling apart when you touch it. This took six hours for us, but might be longer. The original recipe was for seven hour lamb, so it may depend on your oven.

Remove the lamb and vegetables to a platter, then reduce the liquid in the pan if desired (taste for salt and adjust if necessary) and serve, passing the sauce at the table.

We turned the leftovers into soup for lunch the next day, which worked beautifully, but sandwiches would also be great fun.

Here’s a lovely sauce to make you feel like it’s summer again, even though it may be more than a little snowy outside. Oven-roasted tomatoes and peppers, pureed with chipotles and spices, then simmered with onion until thick, make for a spicy rich sauce redolent of the flavors of late summer. Using the sauce to braise country-style pork ribs makes for some fabulous winter tacos.

We’ve just started to get into the half pig we bought recently. The chops we started with were fantastic, pan-seared and coated with a cider reduction. More recently I tried braising some blade steaks in a sauce of vinegar, mustard and beer, which was eye-rollingly good but one of the ugliest plates I’ve ever produced (the braised green cabbage on the side didn’t help matters). These ribs came somewhere in between, and while I didn’t get any pictures of the shredded pork tacos, trust me that they were extremely successful as well. However, don’t feel that you need to use this sauce with pork – it would be great used for enchiladas, or on eggs, or stirred into a pot of beans, or anywhere that could use a shot of spicy tomato goodness.

Roasted tomato-pepper sauce with chipotles

from (guess where?) All About Braising by Molly Stevens

• 3/4 lb tomatoes
• 1 red bell pepper
• 3 cloves garlic (we left this out of this batch, due to a friend’s allergy)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 1/2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 2 or 3 chipotles in adobo
• salt
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• 1 onion, diced

Turn on the broiler and set a rack about four inches below the heat. Place the tomatoes, pepper and garlic on a baking sheet and position under the flame. Broil, turning occasionally (and removing any vegetables that seem done) until everything is bubbly and slightly charred on all sides. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Core the tomatoes and peel off the skin, peel the garlic, and peel and seed the bell pepper. Drop them in a food processor.  Add the dried spices, vinegar, chipotles (with some of their sauce), and some salt, and process to a coarse puree. Taste, add salt and/or sugar as needed.

Fry the onion in olive oil until soft, then pour in the puree and simmer for about ten minutes. Use it for anything you like.

If braising pork in the sauce: take 2 or 3 pounds of  country-style ribs, season them with salt and pepper and sear them in batches in a skillet. When browned all over, lay them in a gratin dish and pour the sauce all over. Cover tightly with foil and put in the oven for an hour or so at 300°. Take off the foil and roast another 30 minutes at 350°. Serve as is, or take the meat out of the sauce to cool and shred it by hand, then combine it with the sauce again.

When you have a really high-quality ingredient, there’s always the risk of not using it to its full potential, or ruining it. Like accidentally burning a panful of hand-gathered wild mushrooms, or insufficiently brining, then overcooking, that free-range organic turkey you ordered specially for Thanksgiving. Or even just making something really boring with a fabulous piece of filet mignon. It’s depressing. So when I got the two shanks out from the half lamb we bought last spring, I felt some pressure to do them up right. After all, there are only two – I couldn’t start over if I messed them up!

Thank God for Molly Stevens. I (loosely) followed her recipe for Braised Lamb Shanks Provençal, and as usual with her recipes, it came out delicious. The meat fell off the bone into the unctuous, lemony sauce, and we muddled it all up on our plates with soft buttery polenta and sauteed spinach. These lamb shanks could not have asked for a better fate.

Lamb Shanks Provençal
adapted from All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking by Molly Stevens

• 2 lamb shanks
• 1/4 cup (or so) white flour
• 1 Tsp paprika
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 cup (more or less) chicken stock
• 1 meyer lemon
• 1 bay leaf
• handful kalamata olives, roughly chopped
• handful fresh parsley leaves, chopped

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Mix the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a deep plate or wide bowl. Dredge the lamb shanks in the seasoned flour. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large Dutch oven and brown the shanks on all sides. Remove them from the pan.

Add a bit more oil to the pan if necessary. Add the onion, tomatoes and garlic and cook until the onion is soft, 5-10 minutes. Add the white wine and simmer a few minutes. Add the stock and simmer a bit longer.

Use a vegetable peeler to take a couple good long strips of zest off the lemon. Add these to the pan along with the bay leaf. Nestle the shanks down into the vegetables and liquid. Cover tightly and stick the pan in the oven.

Cook for about 2 1/2 hours. Every 45 minutes or so, check the liquid level (and add a bit more stock or water if it seems to be getting low), and turn the shanks.

In the meantime, finish peeling the lemon and cut the membranes off the fruit, so you have tender segments of lemon. Set these aside.

When the lamb is falling off the bone, take the pan out of the oven and check the sauce consistency. If it’s still pretty liquidy, remove the shanks and boil down the sauce (you can try to defat it at this point, but it’s not easy). When it’s a nice thick texture, stir in the lemon segments, olives and parsley. Add the shanks back into the sauce and serve with some sort of starch: couscous, mashed potatoes or polenta would all be great.

Leftovers, if you have any, are spectacular.

At this point in the season, the rhubarb plants have peaked, attempted to bloom their heads off (and been thwarted by my Felcos), and are beginning to settle back into merely being a large green presence in the yard without actually attempting to overrun or squash anything. We’ve had rhubarb crisp, clafoutis, pie, compote, and muffins, and stowed away a large freezer bag of chopped stalks for later.

Despite all that, I’m nowhere near rhubarb burnout, and there are several recipes left that I want to try – for instance, I’ve still never roasted rhubarb. Or poached it in red wine. I have, however, braised it with green herbs, onion, tomato and saffron. Sound weird? It’s actually really, really good.

I found this recipe quite by accident, several years ago, in a library book called Silk Road Cooking (come to think of it, I should check it out again). Out of curiosity I tried it out, and liked it so much I immediately wrote it into my personal recipe notebook. My parents have made it several times, too. It’s piquant and savory and a great way to use up rhubarb. This is a perfect time of year to make it, too, when all the green herbs are hitting their stride.

The book attributes this dish to Kurdish nomads, living in the mountains where rhubarb grows wild. The smell as it cooks is very much like the Afghan soup called ash, redolent with dill and turmeric. There’s just a hint of heat, depending on what kind of chile you add.

The recipe is very specific about what herbs to use, but I would feel free to make substitutions or change quantities (make sure you use at least some dill, though, if possible). For this last batch, I happened to have tons of fresh mint, dill, parsley and cilantro, but I didn’t want to use up all my chives so I left them out. Dried herbs could work fine as well, since they are incorporated early and have plenty of time to stew.

The other ingredient that I’ve considered changing is the split peas. They give the braise a more colorful appearance – rather like corn - and a subtle nutty flavor, but I have trouble getting them to cook soft enough in the given cooking time, and find them a little distracting in texture. Next time I might substitute chickpeas, or leave them out altogether, depending on how I’m serving the braise.

Despite having both rhubarb and lime juice, this really isn’t too tart – the sweet onion and the herbs really cut the sour. But feel free to add extra sugar at the end if you think it needs it. Personally I like the tartness.

Kurdish Braised Rhubarb

adapted from Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey
by Najmieh Batmanglij

• 4 Tbsp oil
• 1 sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 hot chile or 1/2 tsp chile paste (she specifies a red chile, but I sliced up a green serrano)
• 3 cups chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped mint
• 1/2 cup chopped chives
• 1/2 cup choppped dill
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 2/3 cup yellow split peas (or canned chickpeas)
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 3 1/2 cups stock or water
• 1 fresh tomato, sliced
• pinch of saffron soaked in 2 Tbsp hot water
• juice of half a lime
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 lb rhubarb, cut into 1 inch chunks

Saute the onion in the oil until soft, then add the garlic, chile and herbs. Add the split peas, salt, pepper and turmeric, saute for a few minutes. Add stock or water, bring to a boil, cover and simmer 20 min or until the split peas have softened. Check to make sure it’s not boiling dry; if so, add a little more water.

Add the tomato, the saffron and its soaking liquid, the lime juice and sugar. Bring back to a boil, then arrange the rhubarb on top, cover and simmer another 10-15 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft. Taste and adjust salt or sugar as necessary.

Serve over couscous or rice, or with plenty of bread – something to soak up all the tart herby sauce. Excellent with lamb or chicken. Leftovers could easily be turned into a soup.

This post is part of the Grow Your Own blog event – check out the roundup at Gardenopolis!

We’ve made good progress through our freezer full of cow, but there were a few packages of stew beef crying out (figuratively speaking) to be used. Jon decided to pull out an old recipe that we hadn’t done in ages, a slow-cooked beef daube with black pepper, orange peel and shiitake mushrooms. He did all the work, and all I did was buy the bread to go with. Oh, and I made sheets of pasta to wrap around the leftovers to make cannelloni.

The daube is not one of those spur of the moment meals. Jon got the meat marinating three days ahead of time, with wine and vegetables. He braised it the second day, and we ate it on the third.

It tastes a whole lot better than it looks (I know, it looks like cat food. C’est la vie.) The individual flavors meld into a dark, complex meatiness. We accompanied it with Breadfarm farmer bread and a spinach salad.

In  honor of all Jon’s hard work making the daube, we hauled out the bottle of wine I got him for his birthday – a cabernet franc from Cougar Crest winery. This is some kick-ass stuff, redolent with butterscotch and dark fruit. Wowie.

Peppery Beef Daube with Shiitakes

adapted from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook

• 2 pounds beef stew meat
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 strip of orange peel
• 1/2 bottle fruity red wine
• 2 Tbsp minced salt pork
• oil
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 oz dried shiitake mushrooms, broken up if large, rinsed

Halve the onion and set one piece aside. Cut the remaining piece in half again and roughly chop the carrots. Put the two onion quarters and the carrots into a bowl along with the herbs, orange peel, and half the salt, pepper and garlic. Pour the wine over, mix, cover and refrigerate overnight (or at least 4 hours).

Put the salt pork in a heavy pan and cook until the fat is rendered out. Discard the crisp bits (or, it seems to me, eat them). Chop the reserved onion and garlic, and saute in the pork fat. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Drain the meat, reserving the marinade, and pat dry. Saute the meat in batches in the pork fat, then set aside.

Add the flour to the pan and cook, stirring, until it browns. Pour in the marinade and deglaze the pan, then add the meat, vegetables, the remaining salt and pepper, water and mushrooms. Bring almost to a boil, cover and set to a low simmer. Cook 2 ½ to 3 hours, until the meat is completely tender. Discard the herbs, orange peel and carrots (we left the carrots in, but it might be better without). You can serve right away, or refrigerate the daube overnight and serve the next day.

Good with pasta, polenta or bread.

Emboldened by our recent experience of making caramel candy at home, we decided to take the next step: Vietnamese caramel sauce. Some time ago, I got a copy of Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. It’s a great book, and just reading the recipe titles will make you salivate, but so far the only thing I had done out of it was follow general guidelines for fresh spring rolls. Jon had discovered a recipe for a kho of pork ribs cooked in caramel sauce, though, and since he was on winter break he decided to go for it. Vietnamese caramel sauce is very different from caramel candy: it’s very dark, with a deep, almost burnt, bittersweet flavor. I had never tasted it before, and I was amazed at the savory scent of the ribs as they braised.

This is not a quick weeknight recipe, let me warn you. Jon made the caramel sauce in the morning, got the ribs marinating early, then broiled them in the late afternoon. We braised them after I got home from work and had a late dinner. But leftovers were fabulous – even better than the first night – so you could definitely do this recipe ahead and set it all aside for later. We thought the sauce was best when it was reduced down to a syrup, which is easiest to do if you take the ribs out and just boil the heck out of the liquid in the pan.

We served these with white rice and some stirfried Savoy cabbage. Afterwards, we picked the meat off the bones and turned the whole thing into fried rice, which was pretty spectacular. We don’t feel that this recipe has replaced glazed gingery ribs in our hearts, but it was a lot of fun to try.

Pork Ribs Braised in Caramel Sauce (Suon Kho)

from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen

• 3 pounds pork spareribs, cut apart (she wants them cut extra-small, for riblets, but we just left them as whole ribs)
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 6 Tbsp fish sauce
• 6 Tbsp caramel sauce (see below)
• 2 scallions, green part only, chopped

Combine the onion, sugar, pepper and 3 Tbsp of fish sauce and rub the mixture over the ribs. Wrap and refrigerate at least two hours or overnight.

Place the ribs on a foil-lined sheet (reserve the marinade) and broil until lightly charred.

Put the ribs, their juices and the leftover marinade into a large Dutch oven and add the rest of the fish sauce, the caramel sauce, and just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, turn to a simmer and cook, covered, 45 minutes. Uncover and cook another 20 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced enough to be tasty.

Take the pan off the heat and try skimming  some of the fat off (hard to do with the ribs still in there). Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve the ribs with their sauce and a sprinkling of scallions.

Caramel Sauce (Nuoc Mau)

• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

Put the sugar and 1/4 cup of the water into a small heavy saucepan, and place over medium-low heat. Stir for a couple of minutes, until the sugar is evenly melted. Let it cook, without stirring – it will begin to bubble vigorously.

After 20 minutes or so, it will darken and begin to smoke. Swirl the pan gently as the caramel turns a dark coffee color, then put the pan into a sink partly full of water to stop the cooking. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of water to the caramel and put back on the heat. Stir until it has re-dissolved, then remove from the heat and cool for 10 minutes. Pour into a clean glass jar and let cool completely. Cover and store – will keep indefinitely in the cupboard.

Last Saturday we cooked up quite a storm. We were kind of stuck at home, since Jon managed to throw his back out a few days before and was still on a fun variety of medications and spending most of his time on the couch. So why not cook?

To start, I made up a batch of carrot dip. I made this for friends a week ago, and it was so good it vanished instantly, so I wanted to do it again just for the two of us. It’s just roasted carrots pureed with olive oil, salt, fresh mint and a pinch of caraway or cumin seed, served with a sprinkling of feta cheese, and it is great. Plus it did a fantastic job of using up the six-pound bag of carrots we bought at the last farmer’s market.

Then I threw together another recipe from good old Art of Braising, which is rapidly becoming one of those cookbooks that I want to make every single recipe out of. I had tried the “Best Braised Cabbage in the World” already, but I saw a rave about the “Savoy Cabbage Gratin with Saint Marcellin” on Orangette that made me head straight out to the co-op to look for French triple-cream cheeses. I ended up with Delice de Bourgogne, which I thought worked splendidly [huh. I just realized that's what Molly ended up using, too. Weird]. The final dish was smooth and sweet, with a delightful funkiness about it from the cheese. Leftovers have been singularly tasty.

To support the cabbage, then, I invented a pork braise. Years ago, my father came up with a nifty preparation for pork blade steaks (which are excitingly cheap!), roasting them slowly in the oven with lots of preserved lemon and garlic. It occurred to me, though, with all the braising I’ve been doing, that blade steaks should braise wonderfully. So I seared the pork, deglazed the pan with a bit of dry Riesling and some chicken broth, tossed in half a preserved lemon and some slivered garlic, and let it braise for an hour, tossing in some olives partway through. Then I took the pork out and boiled the liquid down into a fabulously unctuous gravy. That’s made pretty darn good leftovers, too.

To go with dinner, we had a bottle of beautifully dry, delicate Riesling from Pacific Rim, and an olive baguette from the Breadfarm.

Then we made brownies.

Think of it as training for Thanksgiving…

The braised red cabbage salad we had at Gretchens the other day reminded us that we do actually like cabbage. It can, of course, be awful – and a good way to stink up your house – but it doesn’t have to be. I discovered the appeal of plain green cabbage when I lived by myself in college – I had a miniscule food budget which I spent primarily on cabbage, potatoes and a single bottle of cheap white wine that lasted me the whole term (Sutter Home, I think it was). I would saute the potatoes and cabbage, then add wine and let the whole thing simmer until tender. Not bad, and as cheap as it comes.

Once my budget got a little healthier, though, I stopped buying cabbage as often. I would occasionally toss some in a Russian soup or make a coleslaw, but that was about it. Recently, though, I’ve become more aware of the possibilities of cabbage – especially braised.

Molly Stevens touts this as the best braised cabbage in the world. I can’t vouch for that as yet, but I can say it’s very easy to eat: tender, sweet, just a touch earthy. We served this alongside our favorite Ethiopian beef tartare and spiced curds, and it was the perfect foil for the hot green spice. You could also adjust the seasonings to reflect different cuisines: a bit of turmeric would make this very similar to the cabbage served at the Horn of Africa stand at the Folklife Festival (yum!) and maybe caraway and apples for a more Germanic take.

Because this braises for a long time, and I wanted it as part of a weeknight dinner, I did it in two steps: I braised the cabbage the day before, then put it in the fridge. The next day after work, I rewarmed it, then did the final roasting just before serving. Worked like a charm.

Braised cabbage

adapted from All About Braising by Molly Stevens

one head of green cabbage
one or two carrots
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup chicken broth
pinch red pepper flakes
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 325°. Core the cabbage and cut it into eight wedges. Lay them in an oiled roasting pan – if they don’t all fit in one layer, set the extra aside for something else (we used some in a pork stirfry – delicious). Cut the carrots into 1/2 inch rounds and scatter over the cabbage. Pour the oil and broth over, then sprinkle with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Cover the pan with foil and put it in the oven. Let braise for two hours, turning the cabbage pieces halfway through. (This much can be done ahead of time)

Turn the oven up to 400°, remove the foil, and roast about 15 minutes so the cabbage turns a little brown on top – it produces a wonderful sweet crispy effect on the tips of the leaves. Sprinkle with fleur de sel, if you like, and serve the wedges either whole or chopped up.

I have no idea where this recipe came from. I think it was a library book, maybe something general like “Asian Cooking” by somebody-or-other. I don’t think the original recipe called for star anise or chile pepper – I think J thought that up himself. But, you know, we just have no record of it. The recipe is written in our little home recipe binder and has been there for years, and every time we make it we’re impressed anew with how easy and delicious it is.

It’s a great dish to make for company because it’s so hands-off: you combine the ingredients with water and let it simmer, then boil off the liquid. Stir occasionally and cook some rice and veg to go with it. That’s it! The only downside is being able to start it early enough, since it takes a long time to boil down – not really a weeknight meal unless someone in your house gets off work well before 5.

Glazed Gingery Ribs

• 2 lbs pork ribs (baby back or boneless country style – we like it with bones in)
• 6 Tbsp dark soy sauce
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 2 inches of fresh ginger, cut in half and lightly crushed
• 3 scallions
• 3 Tbsp sherry
• 1 Tbsp chile flakes
• 2 star anise

Cut apart ribs and put in a large Dutch oven. Add all the other ingredients plus 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn heat to medium-low. Simmer 45 minutes, turning meat occasionally.

Take the lid off, remove the ginger and scallions from the pot, turn the heat to high and boil 40 minutes or until the liquid has boiled down to a thick, syrupy glaze (it may take quite a bit longer, depending on the size of your pot).

The flavor of the ribs is really intense – sweet, spicy and rich – so I like to serve them with plain white rice and a very simple vegetable like wilted spinach or stir fried bok choi or cabbage. Put out lots of paper napkins and maybe finger bowls. Excellent with beer or a fruity red wine.