Razzamatazz ribs

Recently I met a man, under 30, who used the word razzamatazz. He also used the word jeepers without irony or a hint of self indulgence. I was waiting for him to use ‘moreover’ within a sentence but he left me wanting more on that front. Something for another day perhaps.

It got me thinking about all those words that have fallen out of favour. Old fashioned names have become very popular though I have yet to meet a baby Deidre. A quick poll of Twitter tells me that skedaddle, spiffing, fiddlesticks, dash, smashing, hurrah, cripes, palaver, nincompoop, jolly, crikey and rather worryingly please and thank you are all words that are in danger of extinction. I suggest we all take responsibility for one word each, per week and aim to resurrect these endangered species before it’s too late. Please feel free to add yours to the pile.

Here are some razzamatazz ribs to start us all off. They’re sweet, a little spicy and really very agreeable. Spiffing even.

Ingredients:

– 8 or so handsome looking pork ribs

– Bunch of fresh thyme, squashed up a bit

– 3 tbsp honey

– 3 tbsp dark soy sauce

– 6 cloves of garlic, crushed

– 2 chillis, chopped up roughly with seed

– 1/2 bottle Womersley raspberry and apache chilli vinegar or another white vinegar of your choice

– 1 tbsp cornflour

This is jolly easy. Place the ribs into a baking tray in the morning. Pop all the other ingredients into a jam jar and shake well. Then pour over the ribs, cover in foil and leave in the fridge until about 5 hours before you need them. When you’re ready to go preheat the oven to Gas 1/140C and place, still covered, in the oven, on the middle shelf. Leave for 4 hours.

Remove the grey looking ribs from the oven and turn up the heat to Gas 7/220C. Throw the foil away but keep the sauce. Place the ribs onto a baking sheet and pop at the top of the oven for about 20 minutes until they are crispy around the edges but not burnt. Do keep a good watch of your ribs.

In the meantime strain the marinade through a sieve into a small saucepan and heat on the hob. Once simmering remove a good tablespoon of the sauce and mix in a cup with the cornflour until really smooth. Then add back into the simmering sauce, stirring continually. The sauce should thicken. If it doesn’t do the same again with half a tablespoon more cornflour. If it goes lumpy worry not! Just strain through the sieve again.

Serve the ribs with this sauce either on the side of poured over the top depending which way your guests swing.

P.S. If you wanted to follow the man I mentioned then you would find him @gowen1

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