Recipe: My Thai Style St. Louis Ribs

When St. Louis style ribs go on sale at Whole Foods, you can bet we're gonna buy some and make these Thai inspired ribs. Unlike traditional, fall off the bone ribs, these ribs are cooked in about 30 minutes and take a bit more than a knife and fork to eat.

Prep Time: 15 minutes - Overnight
Cook Time: ~30 minutes

Ingredients:

Marinade:
1/4c mirin
1/4c rice wine vinegar
1/4c fish sauce
1/4c mushroom soy sauce
3 stalks green onion minced
2 tbsp sugar (substitute 3 tbsp rice syrup if you have it)
1 tbsp red chili flakes (more if you like the kick)
1 tbsp minced garlic (about 3-4 cloves)
1 tbsp minced ginger

2 lbs St. Louis style ribs

Start by combining all the marinade ingredients into a large enough dish to hold the ribs. I used a Pirex baking dish. If you plan on doing the 15 minute marinade, place the ribs into the baking dish with the marinade and poke some holes into the meat with you knife. Flip the ribs over and poke some more holes into the other side as well. (If you plan to marinade it over night or all day there is no reason to poke holes in the ribs) At this point you can fire up the grill and set it up for indirect heat grilling.

After your meat has been marinating for 15 minutes, go ahead and put it on the grill. (save the marinade left in the dish) You're going to grill it for ~15 minutes on one side with the lid closed, flip it over pour some of the marinade and bits of garlic, ginger, and green onion over top of the meat and finish grilling it for ~15 minutes on the other side with the lid closed again.

I like to grill ribs with indirect heat because of the amount of fat that is on these ribs. Check the interior temperature of the meat at it's thickest point (in between a set of ribs) and make sure it's at least 140-145 degrees. Don't have a thermometer? Just grill it until the juices that run out of the meat are clear.

Make sure you let the meat "rest" for at least 5 minutes before devouring them. This will help some of the juices stay in.

This along side some rice, garlic broccolini, and jjao make a great summer meal. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did. And please email me pictures of your finished product!

Santé!
--Joe Kwon