Soy-flavoured Spare Ribs 和風スペアリブ

Soy-flavoured Spare Ribs 和風スペアリブ (Mark's book p92)

This is from Mark's book p92. Again, this is not a quite traditional Izakaya fare but this is a type of dish that goes perfectly well with sake or beer or even wine. I followed the recipe fairly closely but the marinade is sort of standard. Remove bones from pork spare ribs and also remove fat if too much fat is attached. The marinade consists 2 tbs each of sake and mirin and 3 tbs of soy sauce with grated ginger root (1/2 tbs) and pressed or finely chopped garlic (one clove). (The recipe in Mark's book also adds 1/4 sliced onion and dark sesame oil). Marinate the meat in a zip-lock bag for at least 6 hours or overnight (I did overnight). Place the meat in the baking pan with a grate and bake it in a 350F oven for a total of 30 minutes.

It is not bad but we are not sure if this is the best way to cook pork spare ribs. It has nice sweet, soy sauce and ginger flavors; however, although there is good amount of fat, the meat is a bit dry and the fat appears not to be adequately rendered. We sort of like American ways of cooking such as long baking in a liquid/sauce or more traditional barbecue. We may post the way my wife cooks pork spare ribs in the near future. In any case, we enjoyed this with California Bordeaux blend, Burgess Cellars "Ilona" Howell Mountain Red  2003. Rich pork tastes went very well with this wine.