My Best Beef Ribs and Yukon Gold Potato Salad

Beef rib, potato salad and peach-pepper preserves

Does this really need an intro?

Ingredients:

7-10 beef ribs
1 bottle of cheap white wine
1/3 cup black-strap molasses
1 tablespoon salt 
1 tablespoon Montreal steak seasoning OR a clove of garlic and a tablespoon of cracked peppercorns. 
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 bay leaves
enough water to cover the ribs in the pot

For glazing:
One bottle of Your Favorite Barbeque Sauce
1/4 cup peach jam preserves
1/4 cup pepper jelly

Cut your rack of beef ribs into one or two-rib portions. Place in a big pot with the wine, molasses and spices, then fill with warm water until the ribs are just covered. Put the heat on high, then as soon as it starts bubbling, turn the heat down to low and simmer for at least one hour, but no more than two.

After you put the ribs on to simmer, you can make the potato salad. 

Ingredients:
24 ounces of small yukon gold potatoes, or honey gold baby potatoes (good potatoes are very important)
1/4 cup Best Foods, Hellman's or home made mayonaisse 
1/4 cup of sweet yellow onion, chopped very fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Malabar black pepper
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 teaspoon of plain prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
zest of half a lemon
juice of half a lemon

Boil the potatoes for 15-20 minutes, or just until you can stick a butter knife through one of them. Set a timer, it really sucks when you overcook them, you'll end up with mashed potatoes. 

After you drain off the water, cut the potatoes, holding them with a paper towel so you don't burn your hands. If you have the baby potatoes, just cut them in half, if they are bigger, cut them in quarters (duh). 

While they are still warm, toss the potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, chopped onion, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. Leave them out on the counter to cool to room temperature. 

Once the potatoes are no longer warm add the mayo, mustard, dill, and lemon juice and zest, mix well, taste for salt. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Sometimes I sprinkle it with chopped chives or fresh dill on top so it looks pretty.

Back to the ribs-

When the ribs are done simmering (covered or uncovered, either way is fine), remove them from the liquid and put them either out on the barbeque on medium low for about ten minutes to crisp up, or stick them under your broiler in the oven for ten minutes to crisp up, either way is fine. 

Glaze them with your favorite sauce (I like Rufus Teague) mixed with the peach jam and pepper jelly. (I had my own peach-jalapeno jam, so unless you live in my house you won't have that.) Put the ribs back on the grill for a few miutes to heat the sauce and make it sticky, then they're ready to serve. 

Don't put the ribs with sauce under the broiler though, if you are using the oven instead of the grill, just turn it down to 400 degrees for the post-sauce cooking.

Tomato 'Relish' and Tomato Jam

I had a bit of a disaster yesterday. I tried to make tomato jam, but no one ever told me that if you don't put massive amounts of sugar in with your fruit, the regular pectin doesn't work right. I have read tons of recipes where I thought to myself, "that's a freakin' lot of sugar," but I never knew the reason for it. I guess I should say "skimmed", I skimmed tons of recipes. I mean, sure, the pectin directions stated the sugar to fruit ratio facts very clearly, but by God who would have thought you would need to read a giant double-sided fold-out insert just to use a pouch of pectin?

So here's my recipe for, uhm, chunky sweet and sour ketchup salsa relish...stuff. It's not gross, I swear. In fact with some chicken stock and a splash of cream it would make a good tomato soup. I spooned some of it over an Italian sausage in a bun for dinner tonight and it was pretty damn good, so it would probably work as barbeque sauce too.

Ingredients:

5 pounds of fresh ripe tomatoes, at least half should be paste tomatoes like Roma or San Marzano. Mix it up with different varieties though, it will look cool.
1 large sweet onion
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh thyme 
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
 2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pouch of Certo pectin. But regular doesn't work here, so buy a low sugar kind instead if you want this to be jam instead of sauce/relish.

Chop up all of the fresh ingredients in a food processor, but not too much- leave it chunky. Put that chunky mess in a pot with the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn it down a bit and cook for thirty minutes then add pectin. Turn the heat back up and boil one more minute, then pour in sterile jars. 

I think instead of screwing it up like I just did, you really could make tomato jam by adding 2 more cups of white sugar and cooking it down a little longer before adding the pectin. Then you could actually spread it on crackers and cheese like I originally planned. When I get more ripe tomatoes I'll try it and let you know how it works out. I actually tried to save mine after it was too late by adding an extra cup of white sugar, but one more wasn't enough, I think you would need four cups of sugar total for jam. 

Or just get the Pomona stuff that works with low-sugar recipes, which, now that I know about, I will purchase ASAP.

Update, Day 2: Successful tomato jam has happened, and I tried a simpler flavor approach too. I'm going to make a bacon, cheese and tomato jam sandwich for lunch, yay me.

3 pounds tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 cups white sugar
1/8 cup apple cider viegar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 rounded teaspoon dried savory
Pomona Universal Pectin



I simmered the ingredients about 20 minutes, then added 3 tsp. calcium water, turned the heat up and added 4 teaspoons pectin mixed with 1/8 cup sugar, and stirred while it boiled for about one minute, then filled the jars. (Both the calcium and pectin come in the box together.) 

    
I found a few good jam recipes online, but none that looked just right. In my search I found some great blogs, but also some of the cheesiest food blogs that made me cringe. I don't mean like, "a blog about cheese," I mean like cheesy. I read one where in order to find the recipe from the title I had to slog through paragraphs of the author raving on and on about his upcoming honeymoon overseas (gag me) and another where the author went on and on about her adorable little boy who just loves his vegetables (double gag me). If I ever sound that insipid (and way off topic,) for chrissake someone just break my laptop and put me out of my misery. 



So I promise, if the title implies that a recipe is forthcoming, I will give you the goods up front and put my off-topic ramblings at the end. Like this. 

Roadside Fig Preserves

Directions:

First, find yourself some figs.

You could go buy some at the store, or if you live in California you can tool around the back roads, preferably near old farms and river levees, and look for huge out-of-control fig trees that grow on the side of the road. 

 My rule of thumb for scavenging figs is that if the tree is not obviously part of someone's yard, and has a large amount of figs on the ground, you can bet that no one will care if you take some. 

If it's part of an orchard, that's pretty much stealing. 

Although having said that, I did take some pears from an orchard that had already been harvested and only had a few banged up stragglers left that were obviously going to be allowed to fall on the ground. I feel no guilt.

This is what I mean by out-of-control fig trees.

After you've collected your loot, you will want to eat a bunch of them in the car. Judging the ripeness of figs is a little different from other fruit. You don't want them firm, although for preserves or jam it's okay if they're not quite ripe yet. Ripe figs feel soft to the touch and come off the tree very easily. If it feels like a firm tomato, it's not ready. If it feels like an over-ripe slightly squishy tomato, it's just right. If they look like they have cracks, that's fine. 

Our Fruit Haul

To make about two big jars of preserves, you need:

Two of the larger sized canning jars and lids
3 pounds of fresh figs 
2 1/2 cups of sugar, or 3 cups if the figs aren't super sweet
1/2 cup water
Zest and juice of one large lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Boil your jars and lids to disinfect. Meanwhile, slice your figs into discs, about four slices per fig. Put them all in a big pot with the rest of the ingredients, and simmer on a brisk med-low simmer (I set the stove top on 3) for about 30-40 minutes uncovered, stirring gently and occasionally, it should look all thick and chunky and syrupy when it's done. 

Fill the jars, leaving just a bit of room at the top. Screw on the lids really well and them put the jars back in the pot of bubbling water that you used to disinfect the jars, for about five-ten minutes. 

Remove and let them cool. I store them in the fridge, but you should be able to store them in a cool dry cabinet until they're opened. 

Serving suggestions-

Obviously you could serve this with good old bread and butter, but fig preserves go really well with goat cheese, and other cheeses (I'm sure you've seen fig and goat cheese recipes all over the internet) and it's also great with Greek yogurt or ice cream. Add a 1/2 cup of it to your favorite beef stew recipe along with some coriander, or use it to glaze a roasted chicken about ten minutes before you take the chicken out of the oven.