Pork Rib Roast with Potatoes and Chili

Take fresh pork ribs and medium-sized, starchy potatoes, and the meat with potatoes will turn out great. It is better to use plenty of onion in this dish, it tastes good. If you like, take not a couple of onions but twice as many, it will only be better. Hot pepper is a treat of its own. When cooked it doesn’t make the dish hot; when serving, the pods are simply put on the plate, and one pod is not the limit.

Pork ribs are often sold with quite a lot of meat on them; you can cut it off and use it in the dish. The rib bones need to be chopped into portion-sized pieces so they are easy to eat. Usually the ribs are cut to a length of 4-4.5 cm, and the pieces of meat are about the same size. Don’t salt the meat or add spices at this stage.

The pork needs to be fried to get a golden crust. Pork is usually fatty enough, so you can fry it in a dry pan, as the fat renders quickly. Fry in a well-heated pan over high heat, turning the pieces all the time. Don’t cover the pan with a lid, or the meat will steam instead of fry.

It is better to take medium-sized potatoes with elongated tubers. Wash the potatoes very thoroughly. Then pat them dry with paper towels and cut into elongated wedges with the skin on. The wedges should not be too thick, or they may not bake through. As a rule, we cut each potato into 6-8 wedges, which is enough.

Put the potato wedges in a bowl. Add salt, ground black pepper, a little dried savory (not thyme!) and 0.5 tsp of ground sweet paprika, then mix. The spices should spread well and coat the wedges evenly. After that add 1 tbsp of vegetable oil and mix once more. Peel the onion and garlic. Add the whole peeled garlic cloves to the potatoes, cut the onion into very thick strips lengthwise, add it to the bowl too, and mix.

We bake meat with potatoes in a clay pan with a lid, and it turns out very well. You can use ceramic dishes, or glass or porcelain baking dishes will do too. If you have no lid, cover them with a layer of foil. Put the vegetables in the pan.

Spread the prepared pork pieces over the vegetables, then pour over the remaining fat from the frying pan. Add the hot pepper, a few whole pods if you like. Cover the pan with the lid and put it in a cold oven. Clay doesn’t tolerate sudden temperature changes well, so it is better to heat it together with the oven. Heat the oven to 200°C.

It takes a while for the whole mass of food to heat through. Don’t remove the lid until the potato pieces are easily pierced with a toothpick. After that you can take off the lid and keep baking the pork and vegetables. There is very little moisture in the pan, so everything bakes beautifully. Usually the total cooking time for the pork ribs and potato wedges is about one hour.

We serve the pork with potatoes in the same pan they were cooked in. When serving, you can sprinkle with finely chopped parsley or green onion. The pork comes out juicy, and the potato wedges are a bit like oven-baked country-style potatoes. At the table you can spoon the pork and potatoes onto your plate, or eat straight from the pan.

For variety, you can add smaller mushrooms and sweet pepper cut into strips. It is very tasty with porcini mushrooms, which should be cut into large pieces.