Crock Pot Korean Style Ribs

Despite having been back at this whole law school thing for the past month, my body thought this past week would be a great time to make my sleep schedule go haywire. "What's that? You want to sleep in until noon this Saturday? You're waking up around 8:30 and you will like it." To put it mildly, it sucks. What the hell am I going to do on a punishingly early Saturday morning (Besides watch Animaniacs)?

Enter crock pot.

It's well established, to me anyway, that crock pots represent the pinnacle of human achievement. You can toss in whatever you want, spend the day doing cool things cool people do, come back and it's done! It's genius. And since I knew I had time on my hands, I figured I'd run to Jahn Iggle to grab the ingredients and fix up some Korean ribs. Let's fire up the "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" soundtrack and get to work, shall we?

Crock Pot Korean Style Ribs

Recipe Link:  Crepes of Wrath

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons ground ginger (The recipe I linked to calls for fresh minced ginger, but the one-two combo of ground ginger's relative cheapness and my laziness led me to using it instead. Seemed to work just fine.)
4 cloves of crushed garlic
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4-5 pounds pork short ribs
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons cold water
4 cups cooked rice (for serving)

The Cookin':
First things first, toss your ribs in your big ol' crock pot.

Then mix together the soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes in a bowl.

Scrumptulescent. Anyway, when you're done with that pour it all over the ribs in the crock pot.

Now put on the lid and set it to high for six hours or low for seven to eight. We're going for the low setting because it's always better. Always. You want to set it to high? Your mother and I are very disappointed.

Now go off and do whatever. I decided to try to read law school stuff, which put me right to sleep (I'M CURED). I then woke up at halftime of the Penn State game, and made a face that looked a lot like this upon seeing the score.

We were losing to Temple. TEMPLE. Urge to kill. Rising. Anyway, after that wet fart of a game, the ribs were done! Let's get back to those.

Yessiree bob. Take out all the meat and bone that you can and put it all on a plate. Then skim all the excess fat off the sauce and pour it into a saucepan. This might be when you wanna start making the rice too, but really you can make it whenever.

Put the ribs back in the crock pot, put down the lid, and for fuck's sake, make sure it's turned off. Not to warm. Off. PAY ATTENTION. Now throw the cornstarch and cold water into the saucepan, and bring it to a boil for two minutes, stirring the entire time. Once it gets nice and thick, that's when to stop.

Time for the main event, folks. Throw some ribs, rice and veggies (I stir-fried what I had in my fridge up real quick) on a plate, and drizzle that sauce all over the ribs. I tossed on some sesame seeds, but if you've got some green onions sitting around somewhere, those work too.

I took one bite of the ribs, and came to one immediate, startling conclusion.

Quoth the prophet Martin Lawrence, "This shit just got real." The meat was a little dryer than I would've liked, but it was so tender, and the sauce and the veggies did a nice job of counteracting the dryness. And that sauce. Hoo boy that sauce. THIS is something I'm making again sometime soon, but not too soon, because there are roughly enough leftovers to feed me for a week.

Yes, I watched Wallace and Gromit while I ate Asian food. Deal with it. Now please excuse me while I go look for a job read for International Law play Halo.