Chamorro BBQ Short Ribs

On Guam this is fiesta food — half-drum grills at village fiestas, church fundraisers, and roadside barbecue stands, cooking short ribs and chicken side by side over open fire all afternoon. The marinade is the CHamoru foundation: shoyu, vinegar, onion, garlic, and a heavy hand with black pepper. Sugar shows up in some households and not in others. What never changes is fina'denne' on the table.

Get flanken-cut ribs — sliced across the bones at 1/4 to 3/8 inch, the same cut Korean kalbi uses. Thin is the point: the meat cooks in minutes over screaming heat, which is what lets you build char without turning a tough cut to leather. Fina'denne' is a dipping sauce, never a marinade, and it's built on donne' sali, Guam's small hot boonie pepper. Thai bird chilies or Hawaiian nīoi are the honest substitutes off-island — hot and grassy, not smoky. Say what it is.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs flanken-cut beef short ribs, 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick
• Marinade: 1 cup shoyu, 1/2 cup white or cane vinegar, 1 large onion thinly sliced, 6 garlic cloves crushed, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 2 tsp coarse cracked black pepper
• Fina'denne': 1/2 cup shoyu, 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (or white vinegar), 1 small onion finely diced, 4-6 donne' sali or Thai bird chilies, minced, 1 chopped cherry tomato (optional), cracked black pepper
• Steamed white rice or Guam red rice, to serve
• Lemon wedges

Cook Sequence

1. Whisk the marinade, pour over the ribs in a bag or pan, and press out the air so every slice is wet. 4 hours minimum, 12 maximum — vinegar past that starts cooking the surface and the meat goes mealy.
2. Make the fina'denne' at least an hour ahead: shoyu, lemon, onion, chilies, tomato, pepper. Do not cook it. It sits at room temperature and gets better while it waits.
3. Full chimney of lump spread flat, kiawe chunk on top, grate 4-5 inches off the coals. 500°F at the bars.
4. Pull the ribs and let them drip for 30 seconds — dripping marinade means flare-ups, and flare-ups mean soot, not smoke. Chips on the coals as the meat goes down.
5. 2-3 minutes a side, lid open, one flip. You want blackened lacquered edges and the fat lines just rendered. That's it — flanken this thin goes past done in about 90 more seconds.
6. Pull to a warm platter and rest 3 minutes. Don't stack them or the steam softens the crust you just built.
7. Serve with rice and fina'denne' on the table in a bowl, not on the meat. Everyone doses their own — that's how it's eaten.

Round Out the Plate

• Coconut Rice — the sweet, rich base fina'denne' was built to hit
• Asian Slaw — sharp crunch against fat and shoyu char