Oven BBQ Spare Ribs

This is not about cakes baking but just a bit of sharing on this Oven BBQ Spare Ribs which I've discovered days ago. There are many way to make your own bbq sauce whereas here is the one I find it quite good to share with and the sauce is nice to marinade for other meats too! Try and taste!!

Recipe for the BBQ Sauce:
(From James Martin)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onion, peeled and chopped
4 garlic, crushed
3 red chilli, finely chopped (add more if you like)
2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
115g dark brown sugar
100ml dark soy suace
600ml tomato ketchup
2 tablespoon of honey
Salt and black pepper

Toast the fennel seeds at medium heat until you got the nice smell coming out but becareful not to burnt it. In another saucepan with olive oil, fry the onioin, garlic, chilli and toasted fennel. Cook at medium heat until the onion soften but not caramilized. Add the brown sugar follow by the dark soy suace. When the sugar dissolved, add tomato ketchup follow by the honey. Let it simmering for 3 minutes then add salt and black pepper. Cook and stir another 3 minutes and set aside to cool down. If you want it to be a very smooth paste, blend it in a blender or just leave it as a chuncky mixture. You could keep this bbq sauce in a jar and store in the fridge for up to a week.
To cook the spare ribs, place it on a large baking tray, marinade with some dried herbs, either thyme or rosemary, salt and pepper. Add a cup of water into the baking tray, cover the tray with an aluminium foil and cook in the 180'C preheated oven for 45 minutes until the meat cooked. Insert a knife into the meat to check whether it's cooked. Drain the water and place a baking sheet on the tray. Put back the meat into the tray and marinade the spare ribs with the bbq sauce. Cook in the oven at 200'C for 10 minutes then turn the ribs onto another side and cook for 10 minutes. Brush the meat with some bbq sauce again and continue to cook in the oven until you've got a nice colored and caramilized texture on the meat. Enjoy!

Early summer salad

STRAWBERRY SPINACH SALAD

2009 Cardamom Kitchen LLC All Rights Reserved

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound boneless chicken breasts

1 cup fresh strawberries, sliced

5 ounces fresh spinach

2 tablespoons crumbled feta

Olive oil (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Preheat over to 350 degrees.

2) Lay parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Season both sides of chicken with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place on parchment paper.

3) Bake for 20 minutes.  Cool.  Shred with your fingers. 

4) Wash and dry spinach. Divide between 4 plates. 

5) Top each serving of spinach with 1/4 cup sliced strawberries, 1 1/2 teaspoons of feta, and 1/4 of the shredded chicken.

6) Dress lightly with olive oil (optional).

America Eats

During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration hired writers to document the food traditions and rituals of America, a sort of Hidden Kitchens of the 1930s. Out-of-work authors--Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Zora Neale Hurston, along with artists, anthropologists, librarians, and housewives fanned across the country to gather "an account of group eating as an important American social institution; its part in development of American cookery as an authentic art and the preservation of that art in the face of mass production of foodstuffs...."

The Kitchen Sisters chronicled this vast archive of American eating in the Hidden Kitchens series, in a story called "America Eats" that includes an interview with Mark Kurlansky, author of the new and fascinating book, "Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--before the national highway system, before chain restaurants and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional--from the lost WPA files."

You can listen to our story, "America Eats," here.