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Spare Ribs

A pork spare rib dish boiled, seasoned, grilled, and topped with butter and browned cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spare Ribs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the spare ribs into pieces of two or three ribs each.

  2. Place them in a covered pot with a small amount of water and boil for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and minced parsley just before removing from heat.

  4. Drain and dry the ribs, then scorch them on a grill over hot coals.

  5. Transfer to a hot dish, butter each piece, sprinkle with pepper, and sift browned cracker crumbs on top.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork spare-ribs
Main protein; boiling first tenderizes the meat before the grill scorches the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished ribs as it coats each piece.
Browned cracker crumbs
Add a crisp, toasty texture and a roasted flavor on top of the ribs.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the ribs before scorching. Surface water must evaporate before the ribs hit the hot grill, otherwise they steam instead of browning and the crust will be pale and soft.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, butter):

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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