K'ao-Pai-Ku - 烤排骨- Barbecued Spareribs

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K'ao-Pai-Ku
烤排骨
Barbecued Spareribs

From Time/Life's Foods of the World - The Cooking of China, 1968:

 Barbecued ribs are crisp and succulent when seasoned the Chinese way and cooked suspended from a rack in the oven by S-shaped lengths of wire.

To Serve 4 to 6 as main course or 6 to 8 as part of a Chinese meal:

2 pounds spareribs in one piece
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine, or pale dry sherry
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons chicken stock, fresh or canned
Canned plum sauce

PREPARE AHEAD:

1. With a cleaver or large, sharp knife, trim any excess fat from the spareribs. If the breastbone is still attached, use a cleaver to chop it away from the ribs and discard it. Place the spareribs in a long, shallow dish, large enough to hold them comfortably.

2. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, honey, hoisin sauce, vinegar, wine, garlic, sugar and chicken stock. Stir until they are well mixed. Pour the sauce over the spareribs, baste them thoroughly and let them marinate for 3 hours at room temperature (6 hours if refrigerated), turning them over in the marinade and basting them every hour or so.

TO COOK:

Preheat the oven to 375°F. To catch the drippings of the spareribs as they roast, and to prevent the oven from smoking as well, fill a large shallow roasting pan or baking dish with water and place it on the lowest rack of the oven. Insert the curved tips of two or three S-shaped hooks-such as curtain hooks or 5-inch lengths of heavy-duty wire or even unpainted coat hangers bent into shape-at each end of the spareribs. As if hanging a hammock, use the curved ends of the hooks to suspend the ribs from the uppermost rack of the oven directly above the pan of water. Roast the ribs undisturbed for 45 minutes. Then raise the oven heat to 450°F and roast about 15 minutes longer, or until the spareribs are crisp and a deep, golden brown.

To serve, place the ribs on a chopping board and, with a cleaver, separate the strip into individual ribs. If the ribs are large, chop them each in half crosswise. Serve hot or cold with plum sauce.