Forever Summer

Until I made these, I thought they were best eaten in Chinese restaurants. But there is just something about having a huge pile of these at home that has made me rethink entirely. Sticky with honey, but salty sharp with soy and rice wine vinegar, aromatically resonant with ginger, cinnamon, star anise and five-spice powder and eaten with a fresh and spiky scattering of chilli and spring onions, these are fabulous to pick at languorously and messily, the supreme reward for unchecked greed. They are also wonderful made with shop-bought Chinese sweet chilli sauce (I use about 6 tablespoons of the stuff) in the place of the fresh chopped chilli and honey.

You can often find sheets of spare ribs at the supermarket, or ask your butcher to cut them for you.

16 pork spare ribs

for the marinade:

4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 red chillies, roughly chopped

5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin slices

2 tablespoons runny honey

2 star anise

1 stick cinnamon, broken into pieces

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons groundnut oil

4 spring onions, roughly chopped

to cook:

2 teaspoons five-spice powder

2 tablespoons runny honey

to serve:

2 red or green chillies, deseeded or not to taste, finely chopped

2 spring onions, finely chopped, or a small bunch of coriander, chopped

Put the ribs into a large plastic bag and add all the marinade ingredients, tie a knot and squidge everything around well. Ideally leave in a fridge overnight, or for at least a couple of hours in a cool place somewhere in the kitchen.

Let the marinated ribs come to room temperature, and pour the whole contents of the bag into a roasting tin. Cover tightly with foil and put the tin in the oven for 1 hour.

Take the foil off the roasting tin and sprinkle over the five-spice powder and spoon over the amber honey. Put the ribs back in the oven for another 30 minutes, take them out half way through and turn them over before returning them to become stickily glazed on the underside. Watch that they don’t catch: they may only need another 10 minutes to become crispy and glossily brown.

Take them out of their tin, arrange on a large plate and scatter over the chopped chilli and spring onion or coriander.