Pork Ribs, Pt. III - Finishing up

Almost done! Once the ribs have been cooking in the slow cooker for about 8 hours, take them out, put a last brushing of barbecue sauce on them, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Why do we finish in the oven? Because the dry heat of the oven helps caramelize that barbecue sauce into the meat--otherwise, you'll have ugly, soggy brown ribs.


Here they are, brushed with sauce and in the oven.

Beef with broccoli

It's not often that you see sirloin on sale for $2 a pound, so I had to take advantage of it. Sirloin is pretty tender as is, which means it's great for short and fast cooking--like stir-frying.

Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients: 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 pound sirloin, sliced against the grain 1/8 inch thick
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces frozen broccoli florets, thawed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup water


Ok, so I missed a bunch of pictures. Cut the sirloin as thin as you can (it's much easier to do this if you partially freeze the meat by throwing it into the freezer for about 30 minutes, since it'll hold its shape better while you're cutting it), then coat with cornstarch and add seasonings and stuff. And stuff.

Also, prep the broccoli and garlic.



Get the pan hot (like medium-high on the stove), and throw in the sliced sirloin. Let it sit for a bit so that you get that nice brown crust.


Once the sirloin is cooked, set it aside, add some more oil, then add the broccoli and garlic. Stir constantly, because a hot pan + garlic = burnt garlic, and burnt garlic = bad news. (so hot pan + garlic = bad news by transitivity?)


After about 2 minutes, add the sirloin back in, add the water and soy sauce to deglaze, scrape off all the good bits off the bottom of the pan, and let the liquids reduce to get a good sauce going.

Rather than water, I'm sure you could use something else. Vinegar? Shaohsing wine?


Serve over white rice.

Smothered Pork Chops...again

Hey, the last time I made this was like 3 months ago.

This time, I'm going to try something a bit different--I like reading through recipes with step-by-step pictures, because it's a lot more interesting than just looking at a bunch of text. (see: goons with spoons) Also, I think it'd be more interesting to follow someone through the cooking process than to just look at a picture of the finished dish. So I'm going to try that!

Anyways, this is from an Emeril cookbook (I said it last time, and I'll say it again...save your breath). It's nothing fancy, all the ingredients used are common, it's fairly simple to make, and it's somewhat cheap (except for the pork, maybe), which makes this a good choice for college students! Especially since you can use those thin cut pork chops that are sold at the supermarket.

The full recipe can be viewed online here.

Bang a gong, we are on!