Spare Ribs for City Dwellers

Note: allow a pound and a half of spare ribs per person. For every two pounds of ribs use roughly one star anise seed and four cardamom pods.

Heat the oven to 300F.

Put the racks of ribs in a large, shallow, ovenproof dish (or dishes). Set them in one layer only, membrane side down. Rub with salt. Crush the star anise and cardamon seeds in a mortar and rub the mix on top of the salt. Pour water into the dish, an inch or two high, and cover tightly with foil. Steam-cook for two hours in the 300F oven. High temperatures will toughen the meat, and it will not pull so easily off the bones.

When the two hours are up, remove from the oven and pat the racks of ribs dry. Cut them into more manageable pieces and brush liberally with BBQ sauce. Leave for an hour or so to marinate in the BBQ sauce (optional).

Heat the oven to 400F.

Place the pieces of spare ribs on the rack in the oven and bake for about half an hour or until the BBQ sauce has caramelized and the thing looks good enough to eat.

I don’t have a recipe for BBQ sauce. There’s a wide variety of interesting BBQ sauces available in specialty stores. If you think your store-bought BBQ sauce is not sweet enough (unlikely) or hot enough or spicy enough, you can always add stuff to it: chili pepper, cayenne, cumin powder, onion powder, etc.