Spicy ginger-honey spare ribs, grill-smoked

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 4 ribs spareribs, approx. 2.5 kg
• 1 ½ pieces of ginger, thumb-sized
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 3 tbsp oil, e.g. sunflower oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil, dark
• ½ tsp curry paste, red, if you like more
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar, dark
• 250 g honey, liquid
• 400 g tomatoes, pureed
• 3 tbsp soy sauce, dark
• 3 tbsp soy sauce, light
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• ½ lemon(s), juice

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest period approx. 1 day; Cooking/baking time approx. 3 hours; Total time approx. 1 day 3 hours 30 minutes

You’ll need wood chips for smoking; I chop them from my cedar wood stocks; it’s a matter of taste; I just like that resinous smoke. For the marinade and sauce, use about 2/3 for marinating, and serve the rest as BBQ sauce. Finely grate the ginger and crush the garlic cloves. Sauté in the oil and sesame oil. Stir in the curry paste and tomato paste until creamy. Deglaze with rice vinegar and balsamic vinegar and bring to a gentle boil. Add the honey and mix. Stir in the passata. Add the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil while stirring. I have the butcher cut the ribs in half so that I have pieces about 15-20 cm long. Cover the bottom of a shallow dish with the still-warm marinade and place the ribs in it, meat-side down. Stack the ribs, covering each layer with a little sauce so that the meat gets plenty of it. Cover the tray and let it cool. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours, moving the ribs around a few times during the process to ensure all the ribs are well marinated. For grilling and smoking the ribs, I use a kettle grill and good-quality briquettes from a well-known grill manufacturer; they actually last a very long time. Soak the wood chips in plenty of water. Let the briquettes glow thoroughly. Pile them along the sides of the grill, leaving a large area in the middle where the ribs can grill indirectly. Place an aluminum tray filled with water under the open area (this catches the fat and sauce and prevents the ribs from drying out). The temperature of the closed grill should be around 120-140°C; above this, the ribs will quickly turn black. With the kettle grill, I can easily regulate the temperature using the air holes under the base and in the lid. Stack the ribs meat-side up, four on top of each other. Use the remaining marinade in the tray to coat the top ribs with the marinade. Spread half a handful of well-drained wood chips on each stack of coals and close the lid. Be careful, this will naturally lower the temperature. Don’t adjust it! It will return to normal. Switch the ribs every 30 minutes or so, so that the bottom ones are on top. Brush them again with marinade and add more smoking chips. The entire barbecue smoking process can take about 2.5 to 3 hours or even longer. If the meat visibly separates from the ribs, they are good. If the edges appear blackened prematurely, the temperature is too high. You can then “drowse” your ribs with the remaining sauce to your own taste. Coleslaw, for example the KFC Coleslaw from sukeyhamburg17, fresh salad, raw vegetables, and baguettes are delicious with it.