Pork Ribs with Chakalaka (by G)

Biggs is out of town for the next couple of weeks so I thought I should relax the meat free rule for a night and make some ribs. Somehow or other I came across a recipe for chakalaka - I don't know how, to the best of my recollection I wasn't specifically looking for vegetarian South African dishes, it just popped up and seemed like a fun mix of vegetables that may even be flavourful so I decided to give it a bash. 

To make it you just grate a shit load of carrots, add that to some fried onion along with chopped red, green and yellow capsicum. Then add chilli, tomato paste, some curry powder and a tin of tomatoes and cook it down for a while. Once it looks edible you stir trough some baked beans and you've got yourself a lifetime supply of chakalaka.

The recipe suggested serving it with a slice of bread (check - I got an unsliced white loaf so I could cut of some thick pieces) and/or grilled meat.  Apparently they eat pork ribs in South Africa so I went with those instead.

I marinated the ribs for 6 hours in a mix of tomato sauce, apple cider vinegar, paprika, cumin, brown sugar and hoisin then placed them covered into a moderate oven for an hour and a half.  To give them some colour I popped them under the grill until they had a healthy tan - glazing them the whole time with the marinating liquid and meat juices that I had collected from the bottom of the baking tray and reduced down to a thick sauce.

Boy, it was good to have ribs again - they are even better than I remember, and these ones were amongst the finest I have personally cooked.