EVERY NOW and then, Hotel InterContinental comes up with dining promotions to spice up lunch and dinner buffets at Café Jeepney. This time the café features the favorite dishes of celebrity TV chef Rosebud Benitez.

A graduate of the prestigious Center for Culinary Arts (CCA), Benitez hosts the popular short-format TV cooking show ?Quickfire: 10-Minute Kitchen Wonders,? which airs several times daily on GMA News TV (formerly QTV). A popular endorser of food products, she also hosts media events and conducts cooking demos.

At the press launch, the dishes prepared by Chef Rosebud included a garden-fresh salad of lettuce leaves, cherry tomatoes, carrot strips and orange segments tossed with hoisin sauce dressing; battered prawns enhanced with a dip of red curry sauce; and a mildly citrusy cold drink of honey-sweetened chamomile tea spiked with crushed cilantro leaves and squirts of lemon.

Her pasta dish was coated with pesto sauce made with cashew nuts, basil leaves, cilantro and sesame oil.

The grilled pork ribs were slowly cooked in cola soft drink, which helped to flavor and tenderize this usually tough cut of meat. It was then grilled and basted with lychee and rum sauce.

Though the dishes were all good enough to serve in a five-star hotel, they also had a kind of simplicity that hinted of the comforting flavors of home.

Here?s Chef Rosebud?s recipe for Baby Back Ribs with Cuba Libre Barbecue Lychee Sauce.

(Lunch and dinner buffet of Rosebud Benitez?s dishes ongoing at Café Jeepney until April 15. For reservations, call 7937000).

Baby Back Ribs with Cuba Libre Barbecue Lychee Sauce

6-8 Servings

2 racks (around 2 k) pork baby back ribs

1 tsp salt

? tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 onion, peeled and quartered

6 cloves garlic, crushed

6-8 c cola soft drink

For the sauce:

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 onion, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chili powder

? c tomato ketchup

? c lychee juice (see tips)

1/3 c dark rum

? c packed brown sugar

? c cider vinegar

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Dash of hot sauce

Preheat oven to 200?F (95?C). Trim the ribs of any visible fat and remove any membrane that may be attached on the underside of the meat. Season both sides of the ribs with salt and pepper and arrange ribs, meat-side down, in a large baking dish. Sprinkle onion and garlic evenly over the ribs. Pour enough cola to cover ribs completely. Cover dish tightly with foil.

Bake in preheated oven for 3 hours (alternatively, you can shorten the cooking time by preheating your oven to 350?F or 175?C and cooking the ribs for 1? hours). Remove dish from oven and let ribs cool to room temperature in the cooking liquid (around 1 to 1? hours).

Make the sauce and grill the ribs:

In small saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Stir in onion, garlic, cumin and chili powder. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add ketchup, lychee juice, rum, sugar, vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until sauce has thickened.

When ready to cook: Preheat an indoor grill to low. Arrange ribs, meat-side down, on grill. Cook ribs, turning occasionally, until meat is browned and caramelized, around 20-30 minutes. Brush ribs with prepared barbecue sauce during last 10 minutes of grilling. Cut meat into 3-rib portions before serving. (If desired, serve any remaining sauce on the side.)

For more on this and other recipes, as well as for tips and stories, visit www.normachikiam co.com.

COOK?S TIPS:

? You can bake the ribs a day ahead. Let cool then cover and keep in the refrigerator. When ready to grill, remove ribs from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 45 minutes to an hour before grilling.

? Chef Rosebud uses baby back ribs, but if not available you can use spare ribs.

? So the meat doesn?t stick on the grill, brush the grill with vegetable oil before preheating it.

? Be careful when adding the hot sauce. Just add one to two drops first then taste for the degree of hotness. Add more sauce only if desired. Remember that when it comes to hot sauce, a little goes a long way.

? For the lychee juice, you can use the syrup from canned lychees. You can then serve the lychees with the ribs (or serve the lychees as dessert).