Ginger Glazed Sticky Spare Ribs… wow!

Wow. Just wow.

This recipe was always one of my favourites as a child, but when I realised it was this cheap and easy to do, I feel like I’ve discovered Heaven. Or Narnia.

It’s one of those meals where you’re proud to come away with sticky sauce all over your face- and therefore one that the kids will LOVE!

The recipe originally came from Far Eastern Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey, who got it from Andy’s Kitchen Restaurant in Causeway Bay. I, in turn, give it to you, with one or two tweaks! The meal works out at about £1 a person, or a little over, once you have done some veg.

Pork ribs are very cheap, and can be picked up from your local butcher, or also from Morrisons, who seem to have them most days! This pack will feed two easily, and as you can see is only 1.67!

First, cut your ribs away from one another by pushing a knife between the bones. You could ask your butcher to do this for you, but it isn’t hard to do!

Place them in a saucepan with:

• Equal parts soy sauce and sugar (10 desert spoons is about right for 4 people) The sugar can be partly replaced with honey if you prefer.

• 2 one-inch pieces of ginger (lightly crushed, so the juice escapes)

• A litre of water

Then cover, bring to the boil, reduce and simmer hard for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

Remove the lid and cook for a further 30minutes or until the sauce has reduced to a sticky glaze. This happens quickly towards the end so keep an eye on it and stir it to make sure the glaze sticks to all the ribs!

Serve with sweet potato chips or plain boiled new potatoes crushed into the sauce, and lots and lots of kitchen roll to wipe the mucky hands and faces!

Fennel Seed Wine

Our attempts at homebrewing have been a bit variable so far… the dandelion Montpelier smells foul, but tastes of virtually nothing, and the Berry Blush (summer berry tea wine) is a pinkish red that smells alcoholic but tastes a bit like bitter Ribena. Still, they’ve got a good 6 months in storage to go yet!

The elderflower wine recipe we’re following is a bit odd, so as usual we’ve adjusted it. We don’t presume we know more than the guy who wrote the book, I just really struggle to follow recipes to the letter. I blame my mother. Anyway, crossed fingers that that one is a bit more appetising when it comes out of the demijohn!

So on to the fennel seeds. This is a delightful little recipe I found here. I’ve been wanting to do it for aaaages so i’m really excited about trying it out!

For this one we’ve done pretty well at following the recipe, at least mostly… This is what it looked like when we put the yeast in last night. I tried to get this photo because the yeast was falling like snowflakes. Less than an hour later it was frothing and beginning to bubble slowly!

And this morning when I got up it was bubbling at a rate of 114 bpm and looked a lot like this:

I love the drastic change in colour! This one had quite a lot of tea in it, which accounts for the dark brown initially, but I did say that it’s supposed to end up white….. It’s almost possible to imagine it with this second photo! The fennel seeds are drifting lazily around the demijohn with the bubbles and it’s soooo cool!

Give it a go!