This is one of my favorite ways to make ribs. It is based on the ribs at the Brooklyn Restaurant, Fatty Cue. Fabulous flavors from Asia and succulent meat with a hefty bite and amazing sauce on the side.Here is what I have learned about really great ribs:#1 You do NOT want fall off the bone ribs, those are ribs smothered and cooked in a way that loses much of the flavor and all of the bite of a good rib.
#2 When smoking (my favorite way to do ribs) you need to take time, do it slowly and in the end, you must have a smoke ring when you bite into it.
#3 My favorite ribs are those cooked with Malaysian/Asian elements.
#4 Sauce is good, but it is not the key element and I usually do not sauce my ribs, but serve sauce on the side, though these ribs end up being lacquered with a glaze at the end of the cooking process.

I have a Digitally controlled Bradley Smoker, so I used it, but this can also be done using the indirect method on a grill and with a smoke box in the grill. I did finish my ribs off on the grill, just to get a nice char on the exterior.

Here is the recipe. There is some wiggle room if you want to personalize it, but one thing you cannot remove or change is the element of the Fish Sauce. Red Boat being the preferred brand. This takes an entire day to do. I added the star anise, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, chiles and increased a few things like the amount of garlic. This makes a lot of brine, I halved the recipe because I was using just one rack of ribs, this formula would work for two racks, maybe even three if you cut them up into sections as I did.

Recipe: Fatty ‘Cue Spare Ribs (slightly altered)