This is high on my list of favorites // Costillitas de Puerco en Salsa Rojo

Hi everybody, I'm getting ready to make Costillas de Puerco and Salsa Roja. Now these are little pork ribs in a delicious red salsa. My Ron and I absolutely love them. They're way up here on our list of favorites. Very easy to prepare and today I'm going to show you how to make them step by step. Now I've got some St. Louis ribs right here. My butcher just cut them in half the long way so that the ribs are not so long. See now I'm just going to separate each rib and I have already removed the silver skin. You just want to peel it up in the corner, grab it with a paper towel and just peel it off like that. Very easy. So this is my last one. I have them all cut up. Now I'm going to salt them really well. This will help draw out all the water from the ribs. You can use as much salt as you want and that's good. So I'm going to put them right here on this tray and I'm going to take them to the stove. So I'm going to be using this Mexican olla right here and it's nice and hot. Set on medium. Now I'm going to add all my ribs in here. I've got two large garlic cloves and I smashed them so they can release their flavor. I'm going to put them in there and I'm going to add one cup of water. Now you want to put your ribs in place and every so often I'm going to come and I'm going to give them a good stir. I'm going to cover them up with my lid and I'm going to let them cook like that for about 35 minutes. So while my meat is cooking on medium, I'm going to roast all the other ingredients that are going to be going into the blender. I'm going to be using five Roma tomatoes and I'm going to be using about half of a medium onion. I've got two guajillo chiles. See they're nice and clean. I removed the seeds and the veins. Now don't be afraid of these because these will give you a fantastic salsa. You don't want these to burn. And here are my four chile de arbol. I'm just going to move them around carefully because I don't want them to burn. I have a serrano pepper and I have four garlic cloves. Now when you look at these guajillo chiles they'll scare you, but these are so mild and they add a fantastic flavor to your salsa. Now I'm going to put them right here in this very hot water and I'm going to remove my chile de arbol too because you don't want these to burn. Now as you can see I removed the core from the tomatoes because you don't want those going into your blender. So while my vegetables are roasting I'm going to give these a good stir. There's water in here and that's what we want. I'm going to replace the lid and I'm going to let them continue cooking. Look at these. Look at how pretty these look. Now we can take these to the blender. I'm going to put my tomatoes into my blender. Here are my two chile guajillos. Nice and soft. My chile de arbol. My serrano pepper. My garlic cloves. My onions. I have one tablespoon of chicken bouillon. That's optional. I just think it gives the dish a delicious flavor and I have one and a half cups of the water I used to soak my chile guajillos. Now I'm going to blend it. Really good. And that's good. Now I'm going to set my blender aside until I'm ready to use it and I'm going to move on to the next step. So it's been 35 minutes. Now as you can see almost all the water has evaporated. There's still a little bit left right here in the bottom. So what I'm going to do is leave the lid off and I'm going to let it continue cooking until all the water is done evaporating. Just like this. So while I wait for the water to completely evaporate, I'm going to grind my spices. I have three whole cloves. Five whole allspice. One teaspoon of Mexican oregano. One teaspoon of whole peppercorns. And one teaspoon of whole cumin. Now these together is what makes this dish a winner. Now I'm going to grind them really well. Now you can leave some of these spices out like the whole cloves and the allspice, but these are the aromatics and this is what makes the dish a winner. So if you have them, try and use them. It might be something new for you, but you're going to love this dish as much as we love it. So everything is nice and ground. Now we can go to the stove and see if all the water is gone. Now as you can see, all the water has evaporated and all we have in the bottom is just the grease that it has rendered. Now I don't want that much grease in here, so I'm going to remove some of it. Now I have removed a lot of it, but I do want a little bit in here. I'm going to move these around until they get real nice and golden. You want to sear them really good before we move on with the other ingredients. Now as you can see, we've got a beautiful golden sear. Look at that. That's exactly what I wanted. Now I'm going to add my onions. I've got a fourth of an onion and I cut it up julienne style like this because I like texture in my dish. I'm going to move the onions around like this so they can get just slightly translucent and the flavor they release into this dish is amazing. So my onions are slightly translucent. Now I'm going to add all my spices from the molcajete. Oh man, this is going to smell and taste delicious. I'm going to add two large bay leaves. I'm going to give it a stir, make sure that everything is well coated. Now I'm going to add all the mixture from my blender. Now my heat is set on medium low. You don't want it at a rolling boil but you do want to see some bubbles here and there. Now I'm going to replace my lid and I'm going to let it cook like this for about 30 minutes. My costillas and salsa roja are ready. Come take a look. Oh look at this. They are still very hot and I am so ready for the taste test. Look at how tender these ribs are. Just falling off the bone. Yum. So I've got my corn tortillas that I made earlier, refried beans and Mexican rice. I like to smear some of the beans right here. Now I get some of the rib meat here. Look at this. It's time for the taste test. Oh my gosh. Heavenly delicious. And now my peach iced tea. Oh my gosh. These costillas and salsa roja are heavenly delicious. This is definitely one of my favorite dishes and I know you're gonna love it too. If you like my recipe, give me a thumbs up, send me a comment and tell me what you think. Thank you.