Fall-apart ribs

You might have noticed I don't post on here a lot.  I had the best of intentions to do so, but this isn't my job.  It's not even my second job.  Or my third.  I haven't seen a penny of payment for this, in fact, so it's not a job at all.  That's not a complaint, I'm just saying - I guess I get out of it what I put in, right?

Anyway, since I started this blog, there's been a minor revolution in paleo - there are cookbooks (and I mean a LOT of them - I have a dozen myself, and I'll eventually start posting reviews here) devoted the the paleo way of eating.  In that respect, this blog probably isn't as necessary as it was, since there's lots out there now (a lot more blogs as well).  But I'm going to keep it, and I'll keep updating it when and where I see fit.  Like today, for instance.

Today, I want to tell you how I do ribs in the oven.  You might already know this, you might not, but the secret is this:  time.  Long time, low temperatures.  Here's what I do:

Ingredients

• 1-2 racks ribs
• barbecue sauce (lately I'm using Xyla brand, but I've also made my own)
• lots of aluminum foil (yeah, not environmentally friendly - try to recycle it!!)

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or the equivalent in Celsius.
2. For each rack of ribs, lay out a single piece of foil longer than the ribs.
3. Pour a bit of barbecue sauce down the length of the foil, lay the ribs on the foil length-wise, and pour some more barbecue sauce on top.  You can get pretty saucy now if you want.
4. Bring the edges of the foil up and crimp on top - if you need more foil because your ribs are too wide, make sure the seam is on top, not underneath. You want to make sure any juices don't leak out.
5. Lay the foil package of ribs on a baking sheet.  If you're doing multiple racks of rib, repeat with the other rack, and lay them side-by-side on the baking sheet.
6. Bake in the oven for at least two hours.
7. At this point, your ribs are technically done, and you have two choices:
1. "Crisp" them up on the grill with more barbecue sauce, or
2. Carefully drain the juices from the foil packets into a saucepan, thicken it on the stove by reduction, brush it onto the ribs as a glaze, and broil under your broiler for 1 minute.  Repeat three or four times until you have a nice thick coating of reduced-juice glaze baked onto the ribs.

Let them cool a few minutes, and dig in!  Napkins pretty much mandatory, by the way.

Reducto ad delicious!

Recently, I came into the possession of two cases of pure mango juice - 12 tetra packs of one liter in each case, 24 liters of mango juice in total.  That's a lot of mango juice.

In addition to drinking it, I decided to try using it in sauces, via the reduction method.  In case you don't know, that's pretty much exactly what it sounds like - you reduce the liquid by simmering, which drives off the water and concentrates the flavours (and the sugars).  When you've reduced it by 3/4 or so, and you cool it, you're left with a thick, concentrated juice (think concentrated orange juice in the freezer at the grocery store - same idea).

On its own, this makes a great glaze for chicken or fish.

Something else you can do with it is add some hot sauce just before you're done reducing it (I added two or three dashes each of a habanero-based sauce and some Louisiana-style cayenne-based sauce).  It ends up being a great sauce for stir-fry; it starts out sweet and ends with just a bit of a burn.

Again - this concentrates the sugars in the juice, so if you're concentrating on the low-carb aspect of paleo, this isn't the best idea.  However, it won't give you any more sugar than was already present in the juice, so as an occasional treat (and to help convince your friends who aren't sure about this whole "caveman diet" thing), it's not bad at all..

Makin' mayo

Most commercially-available mayonnaise contains sugar, and as such is not really acceptable on the paleo diet. If you decide that you really want "mayo", you have three choices:

1. Accept that you're going to have to eat a bit of refined sugar with your tuna salad,
2. Hunt all over for a commercially-prepared brand that doesn't contain any (it exists, it's just very hard to find in some places), or
3. Make your own.

If you decide to go the third route, every cookbook you read will tell you the same thing - the oil has to be added to the emulsion very slowly. Here's a tip I picked up a while back, which has enabled me to make perfect mayonnaise every time: find a "squeeze bottle" (like you'd have ketchup and mustard in at a picnic - check the local "dollar store"), and place the oil in that, and use that to pour the oil in a small, steady stream into the blender (assuming you're using a blender rather than whisking by hand).

Recipes for mayonnaise are literally a dime a dozen, and they all contain pretty much the same basic ingredients - oil (olive oil is suitably primal, but unfortunately this is one place we can't use coconut oil), mustard (which helps the emulsion hold together so your mayonnaise doesn't separate), and raw egg, along with some salt and pepper and maybe lemon. The raw egg can be problematic for some - only use fresh eggs from a reliable source, refrigerate anything you don't use promptly, and use it all up within a few days. Here is one possible recipe, which also suggests using almond oil or walnut oil in place of the olive oil.

That link also notes that homemade mayonnaise has a much lighter taste than the commercial stuff. Don't be afraid to "zip it up" - add a dash of cayenne pepper to the mix, or maybe a couple of roasted cloves of garlic.

One of my favourite things to make that requires mayonnaise is "tuna wraps", using lettuce as a method of conveying the tuna. These would also be good with crab, chicken, or other such meat, and you could add chopped onions or peppers to the mix to spice it up a bit.

Ingredients

• 1 can tuna in water, drained (or use other similar meat, such as chicken, turkey, crab)
• mayonnaise to taste
• leaves of butter lettuce or similar

Instructions

1. Mix the tuna or other meat with the mayonnaise (and any other ingredients you'd care to add).
2. Place a dollop (1-2 Tbsp) of the tuna mixture in the middle of a lettuce leaf, roll it up, and tuck the ends in.
3. Repeat as necessary.

Why not roast those vegetables?

When I was growing up, having a side of vegetables at supper meant something boiled - carrots, peas, beans, corn, whatever. It was boiled. Eventually we got a steamer basket, and then it was boiled or steamed. Still not impressive.

These days, I often roast vegetables such as brussel sprouts (see the recipe a few days ago), cauliflower, broccoli, or even carrots.

The basic process is:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 or so.
2. Toss the vegetables with olive oil and seasoning (salt, pepper, maybe some garlic).
3. Roast until soft. (Depends on the vegetable, usually 20-30 minutes)
   

Because you're not boiling the veggies, you're not washing away the vitamins, and you get some tasty charring and caramelization that you don't get in a wet cooking method. So if you've got some vegetables and you're tired of soggy sides, fire up the oven and roast 'em!