Country Ribs with Fennel and Chiles

Some wonderful cookbooks somehow fly under the radar. Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing is one of them. It is a compact book filled with recipes that are both appealing and approachable. Reusing’s recipe is for 2 racks of pork spareribs, but I adapted her fennel-and-chile seasoning for meaty country-style ribs, using James Beard’s salt-and-pepper rib method as my guide.

4 country-style pork ribs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I use grapeseed)
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Optional — sauerkraut

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Using a spice grinder (I use a small coffee grinder dedicated to spices), grind the fennel seeds with the red pepper flakes until fairly fine.

Line a quarter sheet pan with aluminum foil and set a wire rack inside it.

Put a large sheet of aluminum foil in your sink and place the ribs on top. Drizzle with the vegetable oil and rub it all over the ribs with your hands. Sprinkle the fennel mixture over the ribs and rub it in well. Then season generously with salt and pepper, rubbing that in too.

Arrange the ribs on the prepared rack and roast for 1½ hours, turning every 30 minutes.

If using sauerkraut, drain it well and toss it lightly with vegetable oil. After the ribs have cooked for 30 minutes, add the sauerkraut to the pan underneath the rack and continue roasting.

Note: To use 2 racks of pork spareribs instead of country-style ribs, use the same amount of seasoning. Preheat the oven to 450°F, roast the ribs on a rack for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 375°F and roast for 1 to 1¼ hours longer, rotating the pan halfway through cooking, until the meat is tender, deeply browned, and pulls away easily from the bones.