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Baked Spare Ribs

A baked dish of spare ribs layered with onions and potatoes, simmered in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Spare Ribs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Place spare ribs in cold water and cook for almost 1 hour.

Assemble

  1. In a baking dish, layer raw sliced onions.

  2. Lay the cooked spare ribs on top of the onions.

  3. Add another layer of onions and top with sliced potatoes.

  4. Pour in enough hot water to half fill the dish.

  5. Cover the dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the cover for the last 30 minutes.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spare ribs
Provides the meat, which becomes tender during the long cooking.
Raw sliced onions
Soften and sweeten as they bake, adding moisture and flavor beneath the ribs.
Potatoes
Absorb juices from the dish and become soft, adding starch and body.

The step that matters

Remove the cover for the last 30 minutes.. Covered baking traps steam and keeps the ribs moist. Uncovering at the end lets surface moisture evaporate so the top can brown slightly.

“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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