Kitchen Guy’s Whiskey Glazed Ribs Recipe

Ingredients
3 pounds pork spareribs

Glaze:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup minced onion
1/3 cup ketchup
1/3 cup bourbon whiskey*
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1/8 cup molasses
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. liquid smoke
1/2 Tbsp. minced orange zest

Dry rub:
2 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Method
Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and heat for 2 minutes. Add onion and sauté until pale golden (about 5 minutes). Add ketchup, whiskey, vinegar, orange juice, maple syrup, molasses, Worcestershire, pepper, liquid smoke, and salt. Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently. Reduce to a medium-low heat and cook until mixture is thick and glossy, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Add orange peel and cook 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally.

Rub pork spareribs with a mixture of sugar, allspice, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and let stand at least 45 minutes.

Prepare barbeque grill (medium-high heat). Lightly oil the grill. Place ribs on grill and sear 5 minutes per side. Move ribs to the outer edges of grill. Cover with grill lid or heavy-duty aluminum foil and continue grilling until meat is tender (about 30 minutes), turning ribs occasionally. Brush the ribs with some of the glaze during the last 5 minutes of cooking. These ribs can also be made in the oven, using your broiler first to sear each side of the ribs. Then lower the heat to 325, cover tightly with foil and roast for about 45 minutes until the ribs are very tender. Uncover, baste with glaze and cook uncovered for another five minutes.

Notes
* You may substitute 1/3 cup of warm water mixed with a 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract.

Karen in Little Rock has been getting cracks in her fresh baked bread recently, and she wonder what she could be doing wrong.

First off: cracks in bread are normal, and even desirable, especially with certain flours, like rye. But there are techniques you can use to avoid or minimize them.

The cracks are a result of two things: heat and moisture. More specifically, the moisture in the dough steams, lifting the bread and stretching the glutens. While this is happening, of course, the crust of the bread is becoming firm from the direct heat (gelatinization): that can cause cracks.

You might prevent the cracks on the side of the loaves by scoring the top of the loaves with a sharp knife. The bread dough inside the loaf will then push out the cut you made as it rises, usually with a beautiful effect.

The cracks may also be caused by cooling the bread too rapidly, so you might cool them the way you cool cheesecakes to prevent cracks: turn off the oven, leave the oven door ajar, but leave the bread in the oven for another 15-20 minutes. Otherwise, set them on top of the stove to cool, away from any drafts.

The flour could also be the cause the cracks. Each brand of flour has a slightly different gluten ratio; some crack more than others. Are you using the same flour as you always have? And be sure not to use too much flour, just enough to get the dough to ball together.

The temperature of the dough is an important factor. Slightly colder dough takes longer to heat in the middle than warmer doughs, so after the surface has begun to harden the middle will rise and cause cracks. To prevent them, allow your bread to reach room temperature, or even a little warmer, before putting them in the oven.

Also, you may try kneading the dough less, especially if you are used to kneading very thoroughly. Well-kneaded glutens may rise faster than surface gelatinization can occur, causing cracks. The surface hardens, the bread rises some more, the surface hardens again, the bread rises some more, etc. I have, however, seen cracks in no-knead bread, so there are no guarantees.

You can also put a pan of water in the oven to steam while the oven is preheating and while the bread is baking. The steam slows the gelatinization of the surface, allowing the dough more time to finish rising before it hardens, and also giving the bread surface more spring. Professional artisan breadmakers have steam jets in their large rotating ovens just for this purpose.

On that note, you can brush water and/or vinegar on the surface for a similar effect. Note the beautiful bubbles on the extra-crispy crust created by vinegar.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact ChefsLine again with all your cooking and baking questions, let us know if the above techniques still don’t cure the cracks in your bread.

Have fun baking!

An easy Thai-style recipe that you make in your own kitchen tonight!

Kitchen Guy’s Curry-Basted Shrimp
Serves 4

Ingredients
16 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp. curry powder (your choice of hot or sweet)
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup toasted coconut
8 wooden skewers

Method
Peel and devein shrimp. Rinse well and pat dry. Arrange shrimp on skewers, placing one skewer through the thickest part and one skewer at the opposite end. This will prevent the shrimp from curling. Mix together lemon juice, melted butter, curry powder, salt and pepper. Brush shrimp with curry basting mixture, store on a plate covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator for about half an hour. Reserve the remaining basting mixture in a small container in the refrigerator.

Grill the marinated shrimp and continue basting until the shrimp are opaque and firm. Serve with toasted coconut, raisins and chopped peanuts as garnish.

ChefsLine loves our mom clients. There is nothing more satisfying to us than helping you become a more confident home cook and begin to enjoy family dinner time. Whether you need a way out of preparing multiple meals (one for you, one for your children), a personalized menu plan and shopping list to save you time and dollars at the grocer, or on-going solutions and coaching on how to prepare healthier meals – ChefsLine delivers.

To celebrate Mother’s Day, we want to offer you a BONUS service. Purchase a three month gift subscription and our chefs will develop a completely customized one month menu plan for you. Imagine an entire month of carefree, fun meal preparation with our help! Your month menu plan includes a weekly shopping list set to your personal budget, weekly menus including exclusive recipes scaled to your family size AND a prep schedule.

Your Mother’s Day Gift Includes

• Up to five live cooking sessions by phone on the culinary hotline every month. Just call the hotline at 1-800-977-1224 to be connected to a chef consultant. Hours are every day from 9 am – 11 pm EST.
• An introductory ‘Cook More’ private cooking class with Chef Erika.
• Access to our chefs online using our LiveChef Chat every day.
• As a Cook More member, customized services and cooking classes are $12 per 30 minute, private consultation.
• BONUS. A one-month menu plan with weekly recipes and shopping list.

If you’re like me, you’re relieved Spring is finally here and with it – some new fresh ingredients. My cravings this time of year turn to rhubarb, strawberries, asparagus – and for some reason a powerful urge for fiddlehead ferns. But fiddlehead ferns are not cultivated – they are instead found on the floor of many beautiful forest trails. Where to find these wild goodies?

Wild vegetables can be found in in the woods, fields, and meadows of rural and even suburban areas. In fact, you can grow some of the more popular varieties in a shade garden in your own backyard. However, finding them is fun and requires only a personal commitment to self-education, a great photo manual, and a willingness to explore.

There are a few mail order sources for wild vegetables. I recently ran across a reference to MarxFoods‘ Wild Produce Sampler, so I picked up the phone and gave them a call. I spoke with Justin Marx who, with his two brothers and father, own and run the New Jersey-based company. I gratefully accepted shipment of the sampler within a week – just in time to entertain guests for this year’s very early Spring Easter dinner.

The sampler included fiddleheads, stinging nettles, ramps, and miner’s lettuce. These are all plants that grow wild (to the best of my knowledge none are cultivated commercially) and are among the first spring greens.

Fiddleheads have an asparagus flavor to them. It’s not a precise match, but they’ll remind you of really fresh asparagus. They can be tough so some precooking is called for. They are medium to dark green and stand on a short or tall slender stalk. They edible part is the “fiddlehead” – so named because the coil looks like the scroll of a violin. They taste great raw, in a stir fry, or with pasta. Although wild, they are popular in the Northeast and can be found at local farmer’s markets.

Ramps are essentially wild leeks that taste like a perfect cross between onion and garlic. They grow and then disappear / take a new form very quickly so they can look like a small scallion to a larger, flat leafy scallion. Their odor and flavor is more potent, but becomes milder when cooked. They are a great choice for grilling and other high-heat cooking methods such as sauteing. Ramps are readily available in the Southern US where they grow in hardwood forests. They are such a treat! be sure to ask for them at your farmer’s market or take a hike before the end of May.

Miner’s lettuce is similar in flavor and cooking character to spinach, but milder in flavor. It’s great raw or cook this delicate green gently and quickly. It grows in the Northwest US. Notice it only gets a minute in a skillet in the recipe below.

Wild Vegetable Medley Recipe
Chef Kevin Weeks
Serves 6.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb fiddlehead ferns – picked over, trimmed, and cleaned
• 1/2 lb ramps – trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces including the lower part of the greens
• 1/4 lb pancetta -cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 2 anchovy filets – minced
• 1/2 lb miner’s lettuce

Method
Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook fiddleheads for 5 minutes. Transfer ferns to a bowl of ice water to stop cooking, drain, and pat dry. At this point the fiddleheads can stored in the refrigerator overnight.

Cook the pancetta in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat until the fat begins to render – about 2 minutes. Add ramps and minced anchovy and cook, tossing occasionally, until ramps begin to brown – about 3 minutes. Add miner’s lettuce, cover, and cook 1 minute longer until lettuce begins to wilt. Serve immediately.

There is no salt called for because both the pancetta and anchovies provide salt. The pancetta I used was my own and was cured with herbs and spices so I didn’t add any additional flavorings. If you use store-bought pancetta adding a bit of chopped rosemary and thyme as well as some pepper would be a good idea. Last, MarxFoods hadn’t gotten in any ramps yet and so I subbed scallions.

Stinging nettles are smallish green plants (about 12-inches tall) with mint-shaped leaves and small spines along the stems. These spines are like hypodermic needles and when they prick you deliver a stinging chemical – so why did anyone think to eat them? They’re one of the first green vegetables to appear in the spring and fortunately a short bath in boiling water (around five minutes) disables both the spines, which get soft, and the stinging chemical. Cooked, they have a flavor most reminiscent of spinach but slightly wilder. They really are delicious and if you’re careful to wear dish-washing gloves while handling them you won’t get stung. As for the nettles, I cooked them just for myself dressed simply with butter and a splash of cider vinegar. Delicious.

More fun in the woods:
Foraging education with Steve Brill
Edible Flowers
How to Forage for Wild Edible Plants