Costillas a la Riojana

Costillas a la Riojana are La Rioja's slow-braised pork ribs, browned first and then settled into a brick-red sauce of onion, red pepper, tomato, choricero pepper, sweet pimentón and local wine. Their Riojan surname is in that pepper-and-wine sauce: savory, gently sweet and thick enough to cling to the meat, never sugary and never painted on at the end. This is family-table food, with bread kept close because leaving that sauce behind would be foolish.

The method that decides the dish is the sofrito, the slow onion and pepper base. I cook it low until the onion turns dark gold and the pepper nearly collapses, then add the tomato and wait until its water is gone and the oil shows again around the edges. That patient cooking concentrates the sweetness. Pour wine into a pale, watery sofrito and the ribs will be tender, certainly, but the sauce will taste thin.

If pimiento choricero paste doesn't reach your shops, scrape 15g of pulp from two soaked ñoras. Ñora is a little sweeter and less fleshy, so the finished sauce will be brighter and slightly lighter. A dry young red from where you live can replace the Rioja wine, though you lose a little of the vineyard character. The Margin beside this recipe says only, "wait for the oil to return." Do that, keep the braise at a bare tremble, and the bones loosen without the meat turning stringy. Siempre sale, si lo sigues, it turns out if you follow it.