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Spare Ribs

Roasted spare ribs seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and bread crumbs, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lay the spare ribs in a roasting pan.

  3. Season the ribs with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Spread a mixture of bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and sage over the ribs.

  5. Layer more spare ribs on top.

  6. Add 1 pint of water to the pan and season again.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Roast until well done.

  2. Pour off the fat for frying and add more water to the pan.

  3. Thicken the remaining liquid for gravy.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spare ribs
Are the main cut, and their fat and connective tissue render during roasting to flavor the dish.
Bread crumbs
Soak up rendered fat and juices, giving the stuffing-like layer body and a savory flavor.
Sage
Adds an aromatic, herbal flavor that pairs with the pork and the crumbs.

The step that matters

Pour off the fat for frying and add more water to the pan. Ribs release a lot of fat as they roast. Removing most of it keeps the gravy from tasting greasy, while a little liquid left in the pan helps prevent scorching and gives the gravy its base.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread. 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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