Carla Makes Instant Pot Ribs

Um, alright.

[Instant Pot chimes]

Oh, God.

It makes such beautiful noises, the Instant Pot.

I think that's why people love it so much.

It just makes the cheerfullest,

like, Hello Kitty noises you've ever heard.

[upbeat hip hop music]

Once again,

I'm back with tow of my favorite things,

pork ribs

and pressure cooking.

This is the Instant Pot

glazed and grilled

ribs.

And it starts with four pounds

of St. Louis-style ribs.

St. Louis-style ribs have

like, what I think is the ideal

proportion of

fatty and meaty.

So before I cook these--

actually, before I even season these,

taking some paper towel

and I just wanna pat any

surface

moisture off of them.

And that's gonna help the rub

adhere.

When I was working on the dry rub for these ribs,

I was

kind of inspired by like,

a Chinese like, hot mustard.

You know the hot mustard that you get

at the Chinese restaurant

that you can dip your lacquered ribs into?

So that was in the back of my head.

In no way was I trying to

recreate that exact thing,

but it did make me wanna use

Chinese hot mustard as one of the dry spices.

This is granulated garlic.

Another ingredient that is in my top 13

favorite spices of all time.

Sugar's gonna obviously balance the

pungent, spicy flavor of the mustard,

but also,

when you grill these after they cook,

they're gonna get really nice color on them.

If it seems like you have too much dry rub,

you don't.

You just need to pack it on.

Both sides.

So now, I'm flipping 'em over

and getting that spice rub all over.

So, as these sit,

they're gonna absorb this flavor.

Dry spice is on,

my hands are now clean.

I'm just putting a sheet of parchment paper over them.

It's okay if it's touching.

This is gonna go in the fridge

minimum for an hour.

Maximum,

two days.

And,

the longer they sit, the better they get.

Thank you.

Ribs flying in.

My weekend was so great that I just decided to

wear the same outfit the whole time.

Why distract yourself

with something

as trivial as changing an outfit for the weekend?

Yeah.

The Instant Pot is doing in nine minutes

what it would take

an oven environment and a low and slow like,

three hours.

It's gonna take what is

a pretty touch cut with a lot of

inter-connective tissue

and collagen

and turn it into something that is just like,

rip right off the bone tender.

So that is an amazing thing.

This is mirin.

This is

going to add a little bit of sweetness and also

the juices from

the ribs are going to

like, get down into the pot.

They're gonna mingle around with the mirin

and

there's gonna be excess liquid left in there

when this is over and that's gonna be the basis

of the glaze.

So you're really like,

finding a lot of opportunities along the way

to build flavor

and all of the flavor that's part of the rub

is gonna end up being part of that glaze too

so you're really just getting 100%

of what you put in, guys.

I like the idea of standing the ribs up

while they're cooking,

rather than stacking them on top of each other

'cause this way I feel like

the heat and steam

is getting all around all of them,

as opposed to if they were laying on top of each other.

I feel like the guys in the middle

would just be sandwiched in there

and maybe not getting

full exposure.

Alright, so they're stood up now.

I can already smell

like, that nice, sharp, mustardy smell,

which I really like.

So first thing, seal the lid,

and I want this to go for nine minutes

on high pressure.

Normal high.

Okay, so the ribs finished cooking about 10 minutes ago

and I let them do natural release,

which is just where you're like,

really find a nice spot in nature

and just

doing a lot of exhaling and relaxing.

So, there's a lot of residual heat in there

during that 10 minutes.

Things are still very intense and very hot.

There's a good amount of carry-over cooking

happening during that 10 minutes.

It's not like

everything just stops.

And now we can just open up.

It's still gonna be quite hot in there.

Sometimes it's still

at a borderline simmer.

And I'll be honest with you,

at this stage, the ribs look like hell.

It's just gray, steamed meat

that was seasoned, okay?

And that's why you just have to remember

the beauty of what's happening here in the pressure cooker

is like, this is that

pre-cooking time.

So let's talk about the glaze.

Okay, so in the bottom of the pot,

there's all of this liquid that started with the mirin

and now has the meat juices

and it has the flavor of the dry rub

and everything has

gone down to the bottom of the pot

and made a really

concentrated

like, pork stock

that I'm gonna use

to build a delicious,

spicy,

sticky, sweet glaze.

So while I'm doing that,

I'm just gonna let the ribs hang out

and even, if you weren't gonna grill today,

you could let these cool down all the way

and put them back in the fridge.

So I've got that.

The combination of all the ingredients in the dry rub

plus the mirin that we put in the bottom of the pot.

I wanna strain that because there's gonna be

little bits of protein,

maybe parts of the dry rub that didn't fully dissolve,

any impurities that come off.

And then,

if you did this in advance, you could chill it

and it would be really easy to remove

any fat from the top.

But I'm just kind of

casually and imperfectly

skimming that off.

This glaze is gonna be used to brush over the ribs

while they cook,

so a little bit of fat is not gonna hurt them.

But I just don't want

the glaze itself to be

too greasy.

I'm boiling this mixture down

with a few other

magic ingredients.

Sriracha,

everyone's favorite magic ingredient.

This is distilled white vinegar,

which is just adding that

just straight up sour punch.

You need that with all this fat.

This is fish sauce.

You can totally put soy sauce in

as a replacement.

That will also add like,

some deep,

umami flavor,

it's also salty.

So that's a good one for one.

Just a little bit more sugar.

And that's gonna help it get to that glaze consistency

and it's gonna help bring on color.

And then, this is a pretty good

amount of ginger that's cut

into fat slices.

And I want this to come down until

it's reduced by about half way.

So you can keep an eye on

the edge of the pan where the original liquid level was.

This is looking just about perfect.

The bigger bubbles are indicating to me that

we're closer to

that caramel stage.

I'm gonna strain this

just to get out the solid pieces of the ginger

and any other pieces of

like, coagulated protein that might've

come up from the,

the meat juices that were in here.

So yeah, meat juices,

coagulated proteins,

we're gonna leave those behind.

Alright, the grill is set up for

medium high, direct heat.

I don't need a cold zone,

I'm just gonna get these very hot,

turning them a couple of times,

and getting the glaze going.

Before we put the glaze on, though,

I want to brush these with a little bit of oil

on both sides

and the first thing I do when I put 'em on the grill,

is I'm just gonna grill them

with this oil over direct heat

to get

just really jump start the browning

and get a little bit of a sear

happening on the ribs.

I wanna do that because

they didn't get any browning while they were in

the Instant Pot and that is such an important part

of the flavor development.

Alright, meaty side down.

And just looking to get like, a light,

golden brown,

get the browning process started.

So while they're cooking on the first side,

I'm gonna

brush the less

meaty side.

Even if they aren't totally golden brown

to the level that you want,

if you do see them start to flare up,

just go ahead and turn them a little bit early,

you can always turn them back.

Alright, so as soon as they turn over,

they get glazed.

Alright, so this guy's looking really nice to me.

It's got great color on that side

and pretty terrific color on the meaty side too

so I'm gonna take 'em off.

And this one as well.

A good mix of charred and glaze.

So I have a tiny bit of glaze left in here.

While these ones are still warm,

I'm gonna brush 'em just with a little bit.

It's gonna warm up

and kinda melt into the surface.

Alright, rib time.

So, I don't know about you,

but when I grill ribs,

I'm always

kinda keeping an eye on the

rack that

I wanna eat from.

I guess that's the opposite of being,

like a selflessly generous hostess,

where like, I want the other people to get the best bits.

But I don't know, I kinda like

fall in love with it while I'm cooking it.

And I think it's this one for me because

it's actually

one of the thinner ones,

so I know that that's gonna be

kind of the perfect ratio

of meat to

surface area

and the surface area is where

the glaze is.

So the meat is kinda falling apart

but not to the point where it's sliding

off of the bone.

And it just

pulls away in that

perfect, I'm a carnivore,

satisfying way, but

also is completely tender

in that

way that you want your ribs to be.

That there's no toughness and there's no

like, undercookness, or chewyness, or any of that.

Mmm!

Mmhmm.

I'm just gonna finish eating this one.

This is also a thing you have to do to check.

I'm checking to make sure they're good.

'Cause

maybe it is a selfless act.

The eating of the rib in the kitchen

before you serve them because

I have to make sure they're not poisonous.

Mmhmm, definitely not poisonous.

Chewy, tender, glazy, sticky,

spicy, sour,

and just sweet enough.