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

Fragrant Sichuan Short Ribs

By James Whetlor

Short ribs: a BBQ classic you'll want to master; pulling bones from a cooked rack and having them slide out clean is a moment of great satisfaction.

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 and better at temperature management, you may decide to not wrap at all.

I suggest you do, though, for the first few cooks at least. Now... the peach-paper-versus-foil debate. It’s not something we are going to waste our time on here. Using peach paper is favoured by the BBQ traditionalist. Using foil, known a little disparagingly as the ‘Texas crutch’, is fine, but it will speed the cooking up a little. If you have peach paper, use it, but if you don’t, use foil.

PREPARE YOUR SHORT RIBS

Mix the sauce ingredients together well and put to one side. Season the ribs all over with the salt, black pepper, chilli flakes and Sichuan pepper, rubbing them in. If you have the 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, and the Stainless Steel Grid on top. Your target temperature is between 125-135˚C.

COOK YOUR SHORT RIBS

Place the beef on the grill bone-side down, close the lid and cook for 3 hours, then remove and place on a double layer of peach paper or foil. Add the sauce then wrap up. Cook for another 2–4 hours until the internal temperature is 93–95°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.

Recipe © Cooking on the Big Green Egg, Quadrille 2021. Author: James Whetlor Photographer: Sam Folan

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