Fish Sauce Baby Backs

We recently went up to Seattle for a night to see some friends of ours band play. It was a quick trip, leaving Saturday afternoon, and coming home Sunday afternoon.  We took advantage of the opportunity while up there to hit the Asian market and picked up a few things that we can't get living down here in Klickitat County.

We also stopped by Gartners, our old school meat market in Portland and did a little shopping. I went a little ape crazy in there, and scored and bunch a stuff.  Sometimes I just can't help myself!!

We got home Sunday evening, and immediately got to work. We had picked up some palm sugar, and several bottles of fish sauce which are key ingredients, for among other things,  fish sauce ribs. Coincidentally, I picked up severally slabs of ribs at Gartners. Two worlds were about to collide - The Freaky Asian ingredient world and old schhool world of BBQ.

We've made these before and really enjoyed them. Why they certainly are not an everyday menu item, I do like having them in the rotation, and enjoy making them for guests, as the recipe is sort of unique and few have had them before. Above we have garlic, shallots, Indian long pepper, the fish sauce and those bun looking things up front is the palm sugar.

Just look at these slabs- These are a work of art (Remember, you can click on all the pictures to enlarge.) These things are monsters, and an all natural, non-enhanced product from Carlton farms in Oregon. They are the goods.

 

 Sorry, I had show one more shot of these guys- just because they are so purty! 

OK, now down to business. We trimmed the slabs,  removing the membrane from ribs along with any  unnecessary fat....that seems like a oxymoron - Unnecessary fat.. Anyway, we soaked the ribs in pepper, garlic, the shallots and fish sauce overnight for about 10 hours.

 Memorial Day in the Northwest means a couple of things. We don't have work, and its going to rain. This year was no different, but we're a fairly hardly lot when it comes to outdoor cooking. We roll with it.



On they go - We cook them at about 250 degrees  for 3 hours. We did a few chunks of peach wood. We flipped and spritzed them after about 1:45 minutes with  a mixture of water and  a splash of  fish sauce. After 3 hours we wrapped them on foil and added about 2 tablespoons of the spirtz  stuff, and some butter. We returned them to the cooker for another 2 hours.

After 2 hours we unwrapped them  and hit them with a reduction sauce of more fish sauce, water and palm sugar. they are beginning to look pretty tasty - This is a good thing because the Hawks game will be coming on soon and we need some game 6 rally slabs.

 Well, typically I like to provide a plated shot of the finished product. The Hawks came on, and I said forget it, lets eat. I can tell you they were very good, and we had the Thug Kitchen vegan potato salad - I can also happily report that the Hawks won!