MockRib Sandwich

I've always enjoyed McRibs, riblets, On-Cor boneless rib patties, and other similar pork products, but haven't been able to eat them in awhile due to gluten.  This was my first (and to-date, only) attempt to make a McRib-like sandwich that was free of gluten (and suspicious chewy bits, and organ meats).

The ingredients in the McDonald's McRib are pork, water, salt, dextrose, and preservatives, so there's not really any secrets blend of flavors to unravel. I planned to use a mix of ground pork with minced pork belly to replace the flavor of the organ meats.

Chopped Pork Belly

When I went to the store, they didn't have any ground pork, so I got ground chicken and pork belly. I figured the patty was pretty bland and the pork belly would add enough flavor. I combined the pig and the chicken and added garlic powder, dehydrated onion, salt, and pepper.

I made these into patties and cooked them up. Ground chicken is best not handled too much, and is best kept chilled, otherwise it becomes sticky and difficult to handle. These still got sticky. Next time I will definitely try to use pork, or probably a 50-50 mix of pork and chicken. 

I put them on a gluten free roll with BBQ sauce and 2 or 3 pickled jalpenos and ate them with Duck Fat Potatoes. The taste was better than any of the industrially processed versions, but there is room for improvement here. The patties should have been made thinner (it was hard to do because of the stickiness of the meat), and the pork belly should have been chopped finer. A pineapple-chipotle BBQ sauce would also kick ass. The chicken and pork belly mix had enough pork fat mixed up in it that it could pass for straight pork, at least to my taste buds.