Long Island Foodie

Years ago, in preparation for a summer party at a friends house, I created this recipe for ribs. Since I don’t have a smoker, I needed a method to slow cook the ribs so they were nice and tender when we were ready to eat them. This recipe can be made in the middle of the summer or the dead of winter, like we did the other night when family was visiting. From start to finish it takes about 4-5 hours, but most of that is inactive cooking time. Since we have a “No Secret Recipe” policy here at the Long Island Foodie, I’m happy to share this rib recipe with you and yours. Enjoy!

BBQ/Oven braised spareribs

Ingredients
2-4 racks of ribs depending on how many servings necessary
S/P

1. Preheat oven to 250-275
2. Coat ribs with salt and pepper
3. Tent ribs in foil
4. Cook ribs for at least five hours
5. When ready to serve, throw the ribs on the grill to get an initial char, and then continue to cook while basting in BBQ sauce (recipe below).

BBQ Sauce

Ingredients
2 cups organic ketchup (sweetened with sugar, not agave)
2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon hot sauce (Frank’s or Hoy Fung siracha/sambal olek)
1 chopped chipotle with adobo sauce
1 tablespoon seasoned salt
1 teaspoon chipotle or chili powder
S&P
(if cooking pork spare ribs in the oven, wrapped in tin foil so that they confit in their own fat, add this rendered pork fat to the bbq sauce)

Ever since Dylan was born it has been hard for Stefani and I to find the time to sit down and enjoy a home cooked meal. So last night for dinner we made pan seared wild sea scallops in a classic beurre blanc sauce and strawberries with zabaglione for dessert. I’ll post the recipe for the entree at another time, but for now, please enjoy the following:

(on a quick aside, zabaglione is not only easy to make, but extremely inexpensive and you probably have all the ingredients in the house already)

Stawberries and Zabaglione

Ingredients

10-12 fresh strawberries, thinly sliced
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sweet Marsala wine

1. Divide sliced strawberries evenly among two glasses and set aside. Martini glasses work great here.

2. In a large metal or glass bowl, whisk 2 large egg yolks, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 2 tablespoons sweet Marsala wine until combined and place the bowl over a saucepan filled with 1-2 inches of simmering water as you would with a double boiler. Continue to whisk until doubled in volume and thick, about 4-5 minutes. Spoon over berries.

3. Enjoy!
Hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day.  If you cooked for your loved one, why don’t you tell us what you made?  Maybe your recipe can appear here on the Long Island Foodie.

Happy Holidays all!  The Foodie kitchen has been extremely busy these past few weeks.  Delicious latkes, chicken noodle soup as well as gourmet mac and cheese.

But the thing we are most excited for is a dinner with one of our readers.  Macho Brendacho and K Scan invited the Long Island Foodies over to their place for the traditional family Christmas dinner and we got to provide Bren with the recipe for the main course.  After a crazy food shopping experience at Fairway on Tuesday, the day before Christmas Eve at like 3:00pm, we picked up all the supplies that we all needed for Thursday night’s meal.  So, good luck with the crown roast Bren. I will be bringing my appetite.

Macho Brendacho’s Traditional Christmas Crown Roast with SAC Stuffing

11 lb Roasted lean pork roast, center rib loin with bone
1 cup Fresh parsley, chopped
3/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Black pepper
3 3/4 tsp Thyme, ground
3 3/4 tsp Sage leaves, ground
5-6 Granny smith apples, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 1/2 cup Canned chicken broth, low sodium
1 1/2 lb Precooked pork sausage
8 cup couscous
1/4 cup Salted light butter
2 Large Spanish Onions, chopped into a small dice, slightly smaller
than dice on apples

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place foil covered rack in roasting pan with pork roast on top;
cook uncovered 1 hour.
3. Butter a square 8 x 8 x 2-inch deep baking dish; set aside.
4. In a large skillet over medium-high heat melt butter; add sausage and onion.
5. Cook until sausage is cooked through, about 10 minutes.  Add
apples, cook additional 2 minutes.
6. Remove from heat; mix in couscous, three-fourths of the broth,
parsley, sage and thyme.
7. Season stuffing with salt and pepper.
8. Remove pork from oven; loosely fill cavity with stuffing, mounding in center.
9. Place remaining stuffing in the baking dish and cover, after
moistening, with aluminum foil.
10. Moisten pork roast and stuffing in dish with remaining chicken
broth; cover rib ends and the stuffing in pork cavity with foil.
11. Return pork to oven and place stuffing in dish in oven.
12. Roast pork and stuffing in dish until thermometer inserted into
center of pork registers 155 degrees F., about 45 minutes for stuffing
in dish and 55 minutes for the roast.
13. Place pork on a platter and cover until ready to serve; carve pork
between bones into chops.

Update: I think it is important that I state that this year’s latke making experience has probably been the best in my life ever.  Now, obviously it couldn’t replace the years of cooking them next to my grandmother, being responsible for grating the potatoes on the small box grater that my mom had (always remember grating my knuckles whenever they were made).  This year, using the 14 cup Cuisinart Food Processor and Arthur Schwartz’s recipe, the latkes were made with such little fuss and mess that I think I might just make them all the time.  They were delicious and convenient.  All I did was peel the onion and peel the potatoes; the food processor did the rest of the work.  Plus, they came out great.  Here is a photo of some of them cooling on the rack before being eaten up with applesauce and sour cream.