I love hot and spicy food.
(You know, the kind that makes your nose sweat just the tiniest bit?)
Wasabi. Chili peppers. Lots of ginger. You name it, chances are it’s on my list.
These ribs combine two types of heat with red currant jelly. The sugar in the jelly adds just the right amount of understated sweetness to balance out the heat—and practically guarantees that your ribs will develop a deep reddish brown crust. A shot of mushroom soy sauce enhances the flavor, and adds all the salt you’ll need.
Warning: These ribs are pretty darn hot. It’s that slow kind of heat that creeps up on you.
If you’re sensitive to hot stuff, cut way down on the chili sauce when you mix the glaze. You can always add more once you taste it before you put it on the ribs.
I used beef back ribs for this recipe, but the glaze is just fabulous on pork ribs and chicken, too.
Fiery Red Currant Ribs: A note on ingredients
I like Trappist brand jams and jellies an awful lot. If you can’t find it, use any quality jelly that lists fruit and sugar as the main ingredients.
If you can’t find Turkish Aleppo chili pepper flakes, you can order them from Penzey’s. A 4-oz. bag is $5.45.
For the hot sauce, I like Sriracha hot chili sauce. You should be able to find it at an Asian grocer. You can also order it online here.
Fiery Red Currant Ribs
5-6 large beef back ribs
1/2 cup red currant jelly
1 Tbls. mushroom soy sauce
1 Tsp. Sriracha chili sauce
1 Tbls. Aleppo chili flakes
Serves about 2 as a main course, depending on how meaty your ribs are.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a sheet pan with foil and/or parchment and set it aside.
Fiery Red Currant Ribs: Make the red currant glaze
Measure out the currant jelly into a medium-sized mixing bowl. (So pretty!)
Add the mushroom soy sauce.
Next, add the sriracha chili sauce.
Toss in the Aleppo chili flakes.
Whisk the glaze together with a fork until it’s uniform in consistency.
Give the glaze a little taste. If you held back on the chili sauce earlier to wait and judge the heat, add more now if you like.
Fiery Red Currant Ribs: Glaze your ribs
Line your ribs up on your prepared sheet pan.
With a brush, paint the ribs with the glaze on all sides.
(When I use a thinner marinade, I usually shake everything up in a large, zip-top bag. For a thicker glaze like this, I like to paint it on to help ensure more even coverage.)
Keep going ’til the ribs are covered on all sides.
If you have extra glaze left in the bowl, pour a little bit down the center of each rib.
Fiery Red Currant Ribs: Roast and serve
Pop the pan into your preheated oven. Roast at 350 degrees for 60-75 minutes, depending on the size of your ribs. Normally, an hour will do it for me, but these ribs were enormous, so I left them in a little longer.
They’re done when they’ve developed a deep reddish-brown crust and the meat comes away easily when you pull at it with a fork. Mine looked about like this:
Serve and enjoy!
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Copyright 2008-2009 The Hungry Mouse�/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.
