Korean · Main · From the menu Brasa
Korean-marinated pork ribs
Costillar de cerdo, gochujang
Racks cooked low and slow until the meat gives, then glazed with gochujang and finished over live coals so the edges catch. Sticky, hot, faintly sweet.
I had these at 140 degrees for three hours. Both American sources put them at 107 for five to six, and that is the version I have moved to: lower and much longer, which is what actually renders the connective tissue rather than merely cooking it. The glaze still goes on at the very end, because gochujang is loaded with sugar and it will be black long before the meat is ready.
Ingredients
- 2 racks of pork ribs, about 1.2 kg each, membrane removed
- 2⅔ tsp coarse kosher salt for the dry brine
- For the rub: 135 g light brown sugar, 2 tbsp gochugaru, 2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp ground ginger
- For the glaze: 240 ml ketchup, 160 ml gochujang, 120 ml rice vinegar, 80 ml Korean rice syrup, 80 g light brown sugar, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp gochugaru, 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil, garlic and ginger
- Spring onion and toasted sesame seeds to finish
Method
- Pull the silvery membrane off the back of each rack. Get under it with a butter knife, grip it with a paper towel and take it off in one. It never softens and it blocks everything else.
- Dry-brine: salt the racks and refrigerate about twelve hours. Salt separately from the rub, which carries no salt of its own.
- Apply the rub and let it sit while the fire comes up.
- Cook at 107 °C for five to six hours. If you want to speed the middle stretch, wrap in foil with a splash of water for no more than an hour.
- Test by bending: lift a rack from one end and the surface should crack across the top. A thin probe reads around 93 °C.
- Whisk the glaze ingredients together and warm them gently until loosened. Do not boil it.
- Brush the glaze on for the last thirty minutes of the low cook.
- Move the racks over the hottest part of the fire for ten to fifteen minutes, glazing again each time you turn, and let some edges properly char.
- Rest five minutes, cut between the bones, then toss the cut ribs in whatever glaze is left. Spring onion and sesame over the top.
Serve it with. Grilled corn, and something sharp and crunchy: pickled cucumber or a raw cabbage salad.