Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant Secret For The Perfectly Glazed Ribs
If you're a meat lover, then you probably know that there's nothing quite so satisfying as gnawing meat straight off the bone. It satisfies a primal urge, but meat that's cooked on the bone also has the added benefit of staying a little juicier, and even tasting more flavorful than other bites, thanks to the connective tissue that fuses the meat to bone breaking down during the cooking process, imparting a rich mouthfeel and flavor (via Smoking Meat Geeks). And while eating a smoked turkey legs recipe and chicken wings is plenty satisfying, it can't hold a candle to the ultimate bone-in meat experience: ribs.
The absolute best ribs should be juicy, tender but not falling off the bone, and flavorful. But getting those results at home can be hard. Practically speaking, at home we usually make ribs in the oven, which means extra effort needs to be taken to ensure they're super flavorful without the help of a smoker or grill. One of the best ways to impart flavor to a rack of ribs at home is by glazing them. A sticky, sweet, savory, and tangy glaze can make even slightly dry or tough oven ribs taste like food made for the gods. If you haven't had success making perfectly glazed ribs at home before, then Gordon Ramsay is here to help. He shared his restaurant-style glazed oven ribs recipe, and it just might make you think twice about slapping bottled barbecue sauce on your next rack of baby backs.
Ramsay's glaze is sticky sweet
Gordon Ramsay's restaurant-style oven ribs use a lot of bold flavors that you wouldn't necessarily find at a traditional southern barbecue joint, but his recipe is the perfect way to boost ribs that aren't cooked over smoke (via YouTube). Ramsay sears his ribs in a roasting tray on the stovetop, then adds ginger, star anise, pepper, garlic, and other aromatics to the pan, along with honey, which he says "glazes the meat beautifully." He adds other seasonings like soy sauce and vinegar, then slides the ribs into the oven, where they cook for an hour.
When Ramsay pulls the ribs from the oven, he lifts one up, saying "each side has got a really nice crispy roasted edge, it becomes sticky and chewy sweet and sour." But to take things to the next level, he adds the pan back to the stove top, and further reduces the cooking liquid into a thick glaze. He says it's how they do it at his restaurant, and that "for every minute they glaze in that tray, they just get to taste better and better." This is the secret to getting that irresistible, finger-lickin', lip-smackin' barbecue experience at home, even if you aren't actually smoking your ribs. Turning a sauce into a glaze is a handy skill to have in general, but it will definitely help when it comes to replicating restaurant-style meat dishes at home.