Wild Boar Ribs (Korean BBQ)
I love experimenting with wild boar, and I’ve happened upon what is probably my favorite method of cooking them.
What I love about this recipe is it was all cooked in the slow cooker, there was no grill used.
Wild boar ribs are fatty and typically don’t have much meat, this is why slowly cooking them is the best approach.
Ingredients For Wild Hog Ribs
This recipe uses only a moderate amount of ingredients for such a flavorful dish.
A classic ingredient in Korean BBQ is using a Korean pear or apple, although I’ve used many variations of pears and found no difference.
I also make sesame-flavored oil rather than using sesame oil.
I find using sesame-flavored oil works better with wild boar, balancing well with the natural nutty flavor from the hog.
To make this I gently toast 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds on a stainless steel pan. Then I blend this with 2 tablespoons of rice oil.
In this recipe, I also have an option of using a half cup of stock or water.
The reason for this is if you are using a homemade stock like my venison stock recipe, it will have no added salt and is good to use.
However, if you are using a store-bought stock it’s likely heavily salted, using this alongside the soy sauce will likely make the dish too salty.
You have two options here, you can use a low-sodium soy sauce and still use the stock, or use water instead of the stock.
For this recipe, I used my venison stock.
Cooking Wild Boar Ribs
Cooking this dish couldn’t be easier. If you are using sesame oil, simply add all of the ingredients to a food processor, minus the green onion and ribs.
Blend into a puree.
Place the ribs in a slow cooker and pour over the puree, set the cooker on low and cook for 6 hours.
Notes
Trim as much fat from the wild boar ribs as possible. Wild hog ribs are very fatty, and considering we are not grilling these ribs the fat has nowhere to go except mix with the sauce.
Although hog fat is not palatable in large amounts, some fat mixed with the sauce is fine and adds a little flavor.
I cut the ribs into singles for this recipe for two reasons, 1. it helps them cook better and be more evenly covered by the purees, 2. Serving the ribs is easier, especially as I wanted to serve on a bed of rice.
Wild Boar Ribs (Korean BBQ)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup brown sugar cocunut preferred
- 1 pear peeled and cored
- 8 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
- 1 ginger peeled
- 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 2 tbsp sesame oil see note 1
- 1/2 medium onion
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 1 tsp black pepper whole
- 1/2 cup low sodium stock or water
- 1 tbsp green onion chopped finely
- 1 rack wild boar ribs cut into singles
Instructions
- If you are making sesame flavored oil like I did instead of sesame oil, begin by toasting the sesame seeds over low heat.
- Add the toasted sesame seeds to a food processor along with all of the other ingredients, except the ribs and green onion and blend
- Add the ribs to the slow cooker and pour over the blended mixture
- Set the slow cooker on low and cook for 6 hours
- Serve over a bed of rice
Notes
- Instead of using sesame oil, I find using another oil like rice oil and blending it with toasted sesame seeds gives a better flavor. For this recipe I used 2 tbsp of rice oil and one tbsp of sesame seeds.
