Jamaican Rum Ribs by Chef Watson

I was going to make Chef Watson's garlic cake today, but I don't have a kitchen aid and the thought of standing and holding a mixer for 20 minutes is really unappealing to me. So instead I tried another Chef Watson recipe, Jamaican Dark Rum Ribs. The only criteria I put in for ingredients was pork ribs, the rest was a surprise. The recipes Watson generates have not been reviewed by a human and I was expecting it to be somewhat confusing and hard to follow. It wasn't. The recipe was actually straight forward and written better than many I have seen written by humans. I don't usually take pictures of my food, it'll take some work to get them pinterest quality. The ribs were not as dry as they look. 

The marinade included several ingredients that I have never combined or even thought about combining. Rum, ketchup, apricot preserves, ginger, lime, brown sugar, sesame oil, cumin, allspice, and vanilla. It's the combination sesame oil with vanilla that's new to me. I was skeptic, but it turned out delicious! "Tangy" was the word my wife used. Our consensus was that it should be made again but probably not put on a weekly rotation. 

One of my complaints about Watson is that where the recipes are generated on demand instead of held in a file in a server somewhere it is difficult to get the same recipe if you don't save it. I did not save the recipe, I was working from the browser on my phone. When I was done I closed the tab, now I can't find the recipe again. When I looked through the history, every IBM entry took me to the ingredient selection page. I tried the same search criteria and couldn't find it. On me desktop I can include up to four ingredients, and being more specific I still couldn't find it. I did however find a recipe with the same name and ingredient's close enough that substitutions would work and get similar results.

IBM Chef Watson

I like strange things. When I saw a recipe involving a jar of salsa, peanut butter, zucchini and sweet potatoes, I had to try it, and it was amazing! The recipe is for an African peanut soup. The Anthropologist in me wants to know what part of Africa, but the author of the recipe doesn't want me to. But nonetheless, it is tasty although probably not very authentic. When I learned about IBM's Chef Watson, I was very curious. The people at IBM and Bon Appetit decided to feed thousands of recipes in to Watson and see what it could learn. Watson is an artificial intelligence (AI), so rather than searching everything, it learns and recalls information fed into it. From all these recipes Watson has learned what flavor profiles go together. From IBM's Chef Watson website (https://www.ibmchefwatson.com/community) you can search for one or up to four ingredients and Watson will create a recipe based on those ingredients. You can adjust the results provided from normal to bizarre. I encourage you to check it out, play around, and get inspired. On my next day off, I'm going to try a garlic cake recipe from Watson. I have no idea what to expect.