We’re going crazy again. When I started this blog, I wanted to showcase some good, traditional BBQ items. As the search for recipes, seasonings, sauces commenced – so did my knowledge of what I was missing out on. One of those things was Gochujang. Apparently popular in Korean cuisine, it’s described as “sweet, savory, and spicy”. Well shit, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.
Having that new found knowledge, I peddled my happy ass down to an absolutely fantastic Korean market and bought some up. Naturally, I grabbed the “Very Hot” version having never tried it before, but for my palate, it turned out to be the right call. These aren’t your usual spare ribs, but then again, this ain’t your usual food blog. Let’s get this thing going!
The Prep Table
This marinade is going to have quite a bit going on. When I got to that Korean market, I picked up a “Korean pear”, some good red pepper flakes that’ll dust while cooking, and of course, my green tea/matcha Kit Kat bars. Something about those KitKats, gotta do it.
Anyway, we’re soaking these ribs up overnight. We’re going to puree that pear and onion, add it to the gochujang, the garlic, the ginger, worcestershire, brown sugar – a LOT of flavor here.
Did a quick rough chop on the onion and pear, added the ginger, and puree’d the hell out of it. I always thought liquifying an onion was kind of weird, but the more I venture out of traditional Americana foods, it really isn’t all that weird. Once we brought that down to a thickened liquid, it was time to get a cook on the rest of it.
Like I said, hot pepper paste is right up my alley. I wish I had found this stuff sooner. I can’t wait to use this in other applications aside from the ribs. But today is about the ribs. Specifically the marinade. What my plan is.. let’s mix up the ketchup, salt, gochujang, brown sugar, and worcestershire and ready this up. I got my puree blend in a separate container ready to go. As soon as we get ready to start heating things up, it’ll be go time.
In a medium pot, I dropped some sesame oil in the bottom and toasted up that garlic until it was nice and brown. I then dumped in that puree and reduced her down – probably down only a quarter or so based on the line in the pot. When it’s reduced down, dump in that gochujang mix and put a simmer on this thing. Let it cook and combine for a short period and really let them flavors work with each other. Your kitchen will have a fabulous scent after this, I guarantee it.
The Process
Peeking at the above picture, you know where I spent my time trimming. Didn’t have to do much, obviously – but it still needed a little attention. I didn’t have a large enough baking dish to do a uniform marinade cover, so I had to fold her over a bit. Please be sure you let your marinade cool down to room temperature before topping your ribs with it. We don’t want the ribs to start “cooking” with a hot-ass marinade splashed on top of it. We’re doing this the night before, we aren’t in a rush.
Because I had that fold up thing going on, I did make sure to re-position them ribs at some point overnight to make sure we’re spreading that love evenly. Overnight marinade, and prepare yourself for tomorrow. I’ll additionally say, I used probably 3/4, maybe 4/5 of the marinade to actually marinade. I reserved some of the sauce for later as a topper during the cook. This is going to be a heavily sauced cook. If you’ve been around here for a bit, I don’t normally like a sauced rib, let alone a heavily sauced rib. I knew this was going to be different.
We all know the 3-2-1 method for ribs, so I always plan for 6 hours for ribs. Since I’ve been doing my cooks on my RecTeq, I’ve altered it to a 2-2-1 method – you learn your smoker. We’re not doing that middle “wrapped for 2” hours for this one since it’s saucey as hell. We’re just going to let it go until we’re roughly 190F. Or, for the pros out there – you get that “look and feel” of a done rib. When she starts to pull back away from the bones and it has that “feel” when you pick it up and it doesn’t break apart, but you know it wants to.. hard to describe, but smoke enough racks and you’ll know.
Anyway, you can see the marinaded ribs on the grates, I did that korean red pepper flake sprinkle on there and just let it ride.
You can see the rib meat pulling away from the ends of the bone. There’s a slight black char on the sauce, the mid-bone blackness is a good sign – we’re nearing the end here. It’s time to top the rack with some of that reserve marinade to really let that flavor shine. We’re also going to mix up that bok choy namul (baby bok choy salad) because we’re about an hour away from finishing up.
The Result
I ate up some serious bok choy when I made that korean venison the other day. I wanted to add some greens and this seemed like the right idea. All I really did for this one was heat up some garlic/gochujang on the Blackstone, tossed it with the bok choy on the Blackstone and then splashed it with a slurry made of soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, corn starch, and water.
I know, you aren’t here for the salad, and I’m not here to write about the salad. The recipe for it is down below, but let’s get back to the spare ribs.
Right before I was going to take these off, I dressed the top with some green onion and cilantro. Normally I’d do this as a garnish to add some color at the end. Sure, same concept here, but I wanted to get it soft and ready for eating at the same time.
Okay, if that picture doesn’t get you excited to try a Korean rib, I don’t what else I can do to get you excited to try this recipe. I even threw some sesame seeds on there ?. In all seriousness, this was looking good, it was smelling good – it was time to plate and eat.
And that’s how it’s done, my friends. What a different taste we have here. That gochujang is no joke. One of my favorite sauces, condiments, ingredients, accoutrements, whatever you call it. It was LEGIT. The mouth was going crazy with all the flavor. Remember when I said gochujang was “sweet, savory and spicy”? Nailed it. Even adding it to the bok choi namul was a welcome addition. You really got the heat when it was coated on the leaves. This was a fun recipe – quite involved, no joke.. but one you should try if you want to wander outside the box.
Let me know if you do, I’d love to hear how it went and if you enjoyed it! Sign up for our e-mails, get notified when we posted a new recipe for you!
The Recipe
Gochujang Ribs, Bok Choy Salad
Ingredients
Ribs
- 1 Slab Ribs Spare Ribs/St. Louis cut
- 1 Onion
- 1 Asian Pear
- 1/8 Cup Sesame Oil
- 4 Cloves Garlic Minced
- 1 Tbsp Ginger Minced
- 1 Tbsp Salt
- 1/8 Cup Light brown sugar
- 1/2 Cup Gochujang Very Hot
- 1/2 Cup Worcestershire
- 1/4 Cup Ketchup
Bok Choy Salad
- 1 Lb Baby Bok Choy
- 2 Cloves Garlic Minced
- 1.5 Tbsp Gochujang Very Hot
- 1/2 Tbsp Amino Acids or Soy Sauce
- 1/2 Tsp Sesame Oil
- 1/2 Tsp Sugar
- 1 Tsp Corn Starch
- 1 Tbsp Water
Instructions
Gochujang Spare Ribs
- Rough chop the onion and Asian pear and throw it in a food processor.. puree until smooth. I tossed the minced garlic in there at the end, hit it with a few puree-pulses, and saved it for later.
- In a small bowl (or a measuring cup like I did), add the gochujang, Worcestershire, ketchup, salt, and brown sugar. Save that for later as well.A
- In a medium/large pot over medium-high heat, add the sesame oil and garlic. Toast the garlic until it is golden brown.
- Add the puree blend to the pan. Cook it down until it is reduced by maybe a quarter or so – just make sure them flavors are well incorporated.
- Add in that gochujang blended bowl, and bring it to a simmer. Let it stay for about 5-10 minutes and remove from heat – let it cool to room temperature before we're coating.
- In a baking dish, coat them ribs with the marinade. Cover the baking dish and refrigerate overnight. I used most of it, but I saved some to add to the ribs at the end.
- Fire up that RecTeq to 225F, and when hot, place it on the grates. Plan for at least a 4 hour cook.. pull it when it "looks" and "feels" done. Or around 190F or so.
- When you know they're close to done, layer on the remaining marinade sauce and top with some green onion/cilantro.
- Remove the ribs from the grill, sprinkle some sesame seeds on there, put a slice on, and eat 'em up!
Baby Bok Choy Salad
- Mix up a wet blend of corn starch, amino acids, sesame oil, sugar and water. Set it aside, we'll use it at the end.
- Fire up your Blackstone (or a pan, or whatever ya got) and toss on your cooking oil, garlic and gochujang. Get the heat going to around medium and when that garlic gets aromatic (not burnt), mix it up and throw that baby bok choy on there.
- Coat the bok choy in that flavored oil and let it cook for about 2 minutes. When it starts to look a little bit wilted (cooked), throw that corn starch wet blend on there, mix it up and after about 30 seconds or so, remove from heat and plate.