Sunday, August 26, 2012

Rainy Weather?? Deep Fry those Spare Ribs!!!

Well it's rainy season in Guam right now. We only have two seasons, rainy and dry. Typically, rainy season runs from July through December and the dry season runs from January through June. Of course there are plenty of dry and wet days in both seasons. But today we had on and off rain. My plans to BBQ pork spare ribs were sidelined. So I went to Plan B......Deep Fried Pork Spare Ribs!!!!


Deep Fried Pork Spare Ribs, Chicken Kelaguen, Red Rice and a Garden Salad.

Here is how I do it.....

Take the rack of spare ribs and remove the membrane on the bone side.

Separate all the ribs and cut up the rib tips into nice size two inch chunks.

I rub them down with my salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powders.

Give them a healthy coat of regular mustard. 

I let these sit and marinade for a couple of hours.

When it's time to cook, I pour the oil into a large, high sided pot, and bring the oil temp up to about 350 degrees F.

Coat the ribs with self-rising flour. This really gives a great, crispy coat to the ribs.

Fry them until they get a nice golden brown.

Remove them and set on a drip grate over a flat baking pan for 5 minutes.

And they are ready for serving.

You would not believe how tender, juicy, and crusty these ribs are and with such tremendous flavor!! This is a big winner in my book.

Hope you give it a try. My bet is you'll be glad you did!!!

Until next time....

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

BBQ'd Spare Ribs.....From Zero to Done in 3 Hours


Being in the semi-retirement mode has it benefits. Even my wife Lupe is cashing in on that action.

Here's the story. Lupe works for one of the local elementary schools, Harry S. Truman here in Santa Rita (Guam). As school was getting closer to the beginning of the new year, all hands have been on deck to clean everything up, give the school a new paint job and all else that goes with readying the school for the new year.

Well this past week all the employees brought in pot luck food to feed all the volunteer workers that were not employees of the school. She told me about 10 persons total from the outside. Well, I get this semi-frantic call from Lupe about 8:30 in the morning, about an hour after she left for work. She said that they had a whole lot more volunteers show up than was anticipated. A whole lot more. She asked for my help. No problem, what can I do, right?? Lupe says I need for you to BBQ!! Ahhh, that may be a problem!! I have no nothing on hand to feed the multitudes. She said and I need for you to BBQ Spare Ribs. Oh yeah right!!! Ha, even better yet. I asked her what time is feeding? Lupe says 11:30am. Great, that would mean that I would have to go to the store, buy a case of spare ribs, which will be frozen, come home, defrost them, prepare them, season them, build a fire, grill them and have all that ready by 11:15 so that she can deliver them to the school in time for lunch. Oh yeah, no problem I told her. Just be here to pick them up. I will try my best. Small order...right??

Well, I went to the store, which is 10 minutes away, and bought the case of ribs. Returned home, put them all in the sink filled with water, and defrosted the ribs. Not my #1 choice of defrosting meat, but in a pinch it works just fine. Remember, just like the old days when we didn't know any better. No one died or got sick back then. At least no one I know.

Anyway, while the ribs were defrosting in the sink, I went outside, cleaned out the ashes from my Santa Maria-style BBQ pit from the last BBQ and started the fire with a small bag of Match Light Charcoal. It's the rainy season on Guam and I had a lot of wet wood. But I had some dry stuff, though not enough for the BBQ. That is why I will use the Match Lite as a starter. Works great to start up wet wood, as it did on this day. I loaded up the pit with small kindling on top of the Match Lite and placed my dry stuff with a little of the wet wood on top of that. After about 10 minutes of burning it was all a go.


I went back inside, and started trimming the rib tips off the rib racks. Then I cut each rack in half just to expedite the defrosting. The rest of the rib prep was just rubbing them down with my basic salt, black pepper, onion and garlic powders. I placed the ribs in a large plastic bag to marinate until the fire was ready.

After the rib preparation, I went back out to the pit and spread the fire out, cleaned and oiled the grill down and readied everything for the ribs. Just before I slapped the ribs down on the hot grill, I oiled it one last time and starting cooking. 

Time was a little after 10am. I thought I would have plenty of time for this. Ribs are normally only about an hour long grill time for me. The case of ribs filled up my entire grill. The fire was still a little too hot so I raise up my grill just enough so that the right amount of heat was hitting my ribs. Love my grill. I basted my ribs with olive oil and freshly squeezed calamansi lemons as they cooked. We have the lemons in our garden.


What's great about calamansi lemons is they are not as overpoweringly tart like the regular yellow lemons. Great flavor for BBQ and grilling.

My Santa Maria-style pit (B-Pit) by made by my Son-In-Law, Barry Quinata, Umatac, Guam

Ribs on and cooking nicely.

Ribs are just about done.

Well, when it was all said and done, the ribs were cooked, packaged and ready for delivery by 11:20am. Lupe was waiting and she made the delivery. 

Yep, BBQ'd Spare Ribs from Zero to Done in less than 3 hours!!! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Just another beautiful and fun grilling day on Guam.

Until next time....

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Rubbing Butts

My good buddy Bill, from Three Dogs BBQ, has a great blog site. He definitely has plenty of BBQ stuff to see and I go there often.


Smoking Butt. 
Photo from Three Dogs BBQ

His latest blog post really got my attention. The title is, "I rubbed my Butt for Two Minutes....". Now if that ain't an attention getter, I don't know what is. But it is a wonderful post showing you one of his low and slow cooking methods for Pork Butt. Here is the post link for you to check out:


Doesn't reading his post make you want to rub your own butt??

Until next time....


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

BBQ'd Pork Country Ribs

Pork Country Style Rib Dinner

Pork is without a doubt my favorite BBQ meat. Spare ribs are my favorite. But running a close second are Pork Country Ribs. 

Pork Country Ribs are not true ribs. They are cut from the front end of the baby backs at the shoulder. They typically will have part of the shoulder blade bone in them. But they are short at around 5 to 6 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches square. They are meaty and grill fantastically. They are also excellent for low and slow cooking. But I also like them because they are about a 30 min. grill. So if you are in a hurry and want to chow on some great "ribs", this is the cut for you. Fat, Juicy and Tasty. A great "Triple Threat".

Typical package of County Ribs

Well, my wife Lupe had a long day at work. I asked her if she was up for some country ribs. She said she was definitely game. So I figured I would grill the ribs, heat up some fresh, garden picked long green beans in butter and serve with a little bit of butter/herb mashed potatoes.

Long beans (asparagus) harvested from our garden. Heated in butter with a little salt and pepper.

Well about 30 minutes later, dinner was served.

Viola!!!

BBQ'd Pork Country Ribs, Butter/Herb Mashed Potatoes and the Buttered Long Beans

Though this was a very simple menu, it was very tasty and quick to put on the table. We were more than satisfied.

Until next time.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

BBQ'd Red Snapper and Trevally


When it's fishing season you know we are going to BBQ/Grill plenty of fish. And this past week I have done my share. My last grilling experience was grilling Red Snapper (Fafaet/Babui on Guam) and Trevally (Skipjack/Tarakito on Guam).

I recently went bottom fishing out to the Southern Banks of Guam about 50 miles out and that is where the snapper came from. The trevally was a result of kayak fishing in the Coco's Lagoon, located in Southern Guam. There is no short supply of fish on Guam.

My wife, Lupe, loves fresh fish. Especially when it's BBQ'd. So I fired up my Santa Maria style grill and got down to business.

Here is my grill made by my son-in-law Barry Quinata of Umatac, Guam.

It's a real simple process that turns out a fantastic flavor.

Here are the steps:

Scale and gut the fish.

Make two diagonal slices on each side of the fish so that the seasoning can permeate into the flesh a lot easier.

Olive oil the fish. This helps to "non-stick" the fish as well as add a little crispness to the skin.

Lightly salt, pepper and garlic powder the fish inside and out.


Make sure the grill is very clean and well oiled (just maintenance)

To add another layer of "non-stick" I cut a coconut tree branch, strip the leaves and cut up the main stalk into smaller pieces so that I can lay the fish on those to guarantee there will be no sticking to the grill. If there are no coconut trees around your area, any "green" branches will do, such as willow, etc. You can see this process here.

Grill the fish on one side, then the other, squeezing fresh calamansi lemon as it cooks.

The calamansi are the smaller lemons in this photo.

When done to perfection, serve it up with white rice and lemon finadenne. But the sides are all up to you.

Again, here is the picture of the finished product that I served my wife. I poured the lemon finadenne' over the top.


Fish, cooked over a wood fire, is outstanding. Especially if it is not overcooked and still moist.

Until next time....