Author Archives: MamaLee

I am not good at grilling, but I do bake from time to time. I used to bake ribs, such as Cumin Flavored Ribs.

Several years ago, I went to Memphis with my husband on a business trip. He introduced the dry rub ribs to me. He took me to a restaurant at downtown Memphis, it’s called ‘The Rendezvous’. That is the oldest BBQ restaurant in Memphis, and its main location is at the basement of the building. I had my first dry rub ribs over there.

The next time we went back to Memphis, we stayed at a hotel far away from downtown Memphis, So I tried to find a BBQ restaurant closer to where we stay, and I found one! We both love their ribs. And the waiter was kind enough to offer us some dry rub seasoning with our left over ribs. This restaurant is called ‘Corky’s Ribs and BBQ’. This is where I got my cooking idea.

Ingredients:

one slab of baby back ribs

I will list detailed seasoning in the methods.

Methods:

There are 3 steps to cook the rib. Let’s start with step 1.

1. Cut ribs into pieces to fit the pot.

I don’t have a pot that the uncut ribs would fit, so I normally cut every 3 or 4 bones.

2. Fill the pot with cold water, drop in a few slices of ginger root, add 2-3 tbsp cooking wine and 1-2 tbsp vinegar. Put ribs into the pot, Medium high heat bring to boil.

Ginger, cooking wine and vinegar combination are my secret when cooking meat to get rid of the meaty taste and smell. And they always work fine.

3. As the water temperiture goes up, you will see some bubbles floating on top of water. Use something to scope them out as much as you can.

4. Once you scope most of the bubbles out, turn heat off, put lid back on, let the pot sit for about 5 minutes.

Now it’s time for step 2.

5. Prepare the seasoning for step 2.

What I normally use are Zanthoxylum, Star Anise, cinnamon stick, dry cloves, basil leaves, green tea, tangerine peel and amomum villosum as the dry seasoning.

Also, cooking wine, vinegar, sugar and soy sauce will be needed. Soy sauce is only used for color purposes. I like the meat to show a darker color. You can see the difference from the below pictures.

6. Take ribs out of pot. Clean the pot, and fill up with cold or hot water, put all the seasoning in, medium high heat bring to boil, then keep it simmer for about 5 minutes.

This time, I put just 1 tbsp cooking wine, 1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp sugar into the pot. You can pour as much soy sauce in as you want to depends on the darkness you like.

7. Rinse all the rib, clean all the dirty stuff out. See before and after from the picture.

Also, rinse all the ginger slices, put them back into the pot.

8. After simmer for 5 minutes, find the tea bag, tangerine peel and amomum villosum from the pot and toss them.

These three has strong taste to me, so I don’t let them take over the taste of seasoning. My theory on seasoning is a good balance of the combination instead of a very strong individual seasoning.

9. Put all the ribs into the pot, turn heat to medium high, bring to boil, then simmer for about 35 minutes. Leave ribs in the pot for at least 30 minutes.

Time may vary, depends on how tender you want the meat to be.

I normally leave ribs in the pot for overnight, bake them in the morning.

Finally, we come to step 3.

10. Get all the seasoning ready and mix well.

What’s showing in the picture is my current favorite combination. You can make whatever changed you like to, according to how you want the ribs to taste.

11. Preheat oven to 400°F.

12. Lay a foil sheet over the baking pan, then lay ribs on top, use a spoon to spread the seasoning evenly over the ribs. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes.

I like to use foil sheet because I am too lazy to clean the baking pan 🙂

You can save the juice left from the pot. I try to remove all the grease and leftover herbs from the pot, then put the juice in freezer for next time use. And you can add less herb or no herb when you reuse it. The more you reuse, the more it tastes better.

13. Now it’s time to serve!