Fragrant Sichuan Short Ribs | Cooking on the Big Green Egg | James Whetlor Cook Book

Fragrant Sichuan Short Ribs

By James Whetlor

Meltingly soft beef short ribs cooked low & slow in a fragrant Sichuan spice rub and sauce

OVERVIEW

The aim of this recipe isn’t to test your patience, although it might do that with its 5–7-hour cooking time. Here, you are managing a long cook with low temperature control and adding the wrapping element after a few hours. Wrapping helps keep the meat moist, preventing drying out and charring. As you get more experienced at temperature management, you may decide to not wrap at all.

PREPARE YOUR SHORT RIBS

Mix together all of the sauce ingredients and put to one side. Rub the ribs all over with the salt, black pepper, chilli flakes and Sichuan pepper. If you have time, let the ribs marinate overnight in the fridge (bringing them back to room temperature to cook), but at a minimum an hour or so before cooking.

SET UP YOUR EGG

Set up your EGG for indirect cooking with the ConvEGGtor in the legs-up position topped with the Stainless Steel Grid. Your target temperature is 125˚C-135˚C.

COOK YOUR SHORT RIBS

Place the beef bone-side down on the grid, close the Dome and cook for 3 hours. Remove from the EGG and place on top of a double layer of peach paper or foil. Add the sauce then wrap up well. Cook for another 2–4 hours until the internal temperature is 93°C–95°C, then rest for 1 hour in a warm place.

Strain the juices and skim off any excess fat before serving. Accompany with rice noodles or steamed greens, with the strained sauce poured over the top.

Extracted from Cooking on the Big Green Egg (Quadrille, £25)

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