Dear Eric: Can you tell me how to make Maui ribs? I鈥檝e bought them at the store before, but would like to try making my own. Thomas
Dear Thomas: When you say you bought Maui ribs before, you鈥檙e referring to raw, thinly sliced strips of beef short ribs that were marinated and sold ready to cook. They are offered in this form at some supermarkets, either prepackaged or sold by the piece from a meat showcase.
You can also buy Maui rib sauce, a bottled product you can use to marinate the ribs at home.
This succulent way to prepare beef short ribs is said to have become 鈥渢he way鈥� to cook ribs on Maui thanks to a family-run business called Azeka鈥檚 Market and Snack Shop. It was located in Kihei and after more than 50 years in business closed its doors in 2006.
The style of ribs the Azeka family became renowned for were Kalbi 鈥� also known as Korean-style 鈥� ribs. The Azekas鈥檚 ribs showcased the sweet and salty Polynesian and Asian-style tastes favoured on the Hawaiian Islands.
Locals and tourists alike, including visiting 91原创s, loved them, began to consider them part of the Island鈥檚 cuisine and wanted to prepare those Maui-style ribs at home.
The Azekas鈥檚 original recipe, not surprisingly, is still a family secret, but you can get some insights on how it was made at azekasauce.com. On that website you鈥檒l see a video about the sauce/marinade used on the ribs that is just now in the planning stages of being produced on a commercial scale in the United States.
But Thomas wanted to try to make this dish, and the good news is that he can cook up ribs at home that taste similar, not to mention yummy.
In my recipe for Maui-style ribs the key was to get the right balance of sweetness and saltiness. To get that I used two parts soy sauce to one part cane sugar, which is sold at many supermarkets. The results were addictively delicious, particularly when the ribs were also flavoured with fragrant fresh ginger, onion, sesame oil and garlic.
Many think of short ribs as being tough, more thickly cut pieces of meat you need to braise for hours to make tender. But for Maui-style ribs the short ribs are thinly cut, into one-centimetre thick, long strips that become tender by marinating the meat, not slowly cooking it. The result is short ribs that take about 10 to 12 minutes to cook.
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Note: If barbecued pork back ribs are more your thing, then check out my story this Wednesday. In it I鈥檒l offer an easy way to prepare them and offer side-dish suggestions.
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Maui-style Beef Short Ribs
For a Hawaiian-style accent, try serving these ribs with grilled, fresh pineapple slices. You could also serve the ribs with steamed rice and a simple salad of sliced sweet onions and ripe tomatoes set on salad greens. Because of the high sugar content in the marinade you need to cook the ribs over medium heat; any hotter than that and the sugar may burn before the ribs are done.
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Preparation time: 15 minutes, plus 12 or more hours marinating time
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes
Makes: 4 servings of 2 ribs each
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1 3/4 cups soy sauce (see Note 1)
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp cane sugar
3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1/3 cup grated yellow onion
3 medium garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp sesame oil
8 thinly cut (about 1/2-inch thick; 4 bones each) strips of beef short rib (see Note 2)
鈥� vegetable oil for the grill
2 green onions, thinly sliced
Make marinade by placing the first 5 ingredients in a pot. Bring to a boil and cook and stir 1 minute to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat, cool to room temperature, and then stir in the sesame oil.
Place 1脷2 cup of the marinade in a small bowl, cover and refrigerate until needed for drizzling on the cooked ribs. Set the rest of the marinade in the pot aside for a moment.
Place the ribs in a slightly overlapping layer in a 9- x 13-inch glass or other non-reactive (non aluminum) dish. Pour the marinade in the pot over the ribs.
Cover, refrigerate and marinate the ribs, turning them occasionally, for at least 12 hours, or up to 24 hours if you want them nice and tender once cooked.
To cook the ribs, preheat an indoor or outdoor grill to medium heat. Remove the meat from the marinade; discard the marinade in the dish. Lightly oil your grill, and then grill the ribs five to six minutes per side, until cooked through but still juicy.
While the ribs cook, place the 1/2 cup of marinade you reserved in the bowl in a small skillet and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the mixture is reduced a bit and thickened very lightly.
When cooked, set the ribs on a platter, drizzle with the mixture in the skillet, sprinkle with green onions and serve.
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Note 1: I used Kikkoman soy sauce in the marinade. It鈥檚 a little lighter in colour and did not turn the ribs a deep black colour the way some darker-styles of soy sauce can do. I didn鈥檛 want that to occur with my ribs because they would be very dark before hitting the grill, and then become overly dark and less appealing looking once cooked.
Note 2: At some supermarkets, unmarinated, thinly cut short ribs are labelled Maui-style short ribs. If you can鈥檛 find them, ask you butcher to cut them this way for you. The eight strips of short ribs I bought for the recipe weighed 2 lbs.
Eric Akis is the author of the hardcover book Everyone Can Cook Everything. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
