Chinese Steamed Pork Ribs with Salted Soyabeans.

This is a dish that I grew up with and one that I’d always wanted to recreate since getting my own kitchen. Absolutely easy to make and so delicious, it’s no wonder that my mum served this for dinner at least once every week when I was younger.

The pork is juicy, tender and succulent. The salted soyabeans, or “taucu” makes a distinctive and delicious savoury sauce that goes extremely well with piping hot plain steamed rice. You can add more chillies for kicks but if you’ve got children at home, they can be omitted for a milder version.

Ingredients:

• 400-500 grams of pork ribs
• 2 tablespoon of salted soyabean paste or “taucu” (if they’re still in bean form, mash it with a fork or pestle & mortar or food processor)
• 2 medium sized chilies or dried chillies, seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons of minced shallots
• 1 ginger about the size of a thumb, julienned
• 5 tablespoons of water
• 2 tablespoons of chopped spring onion (for garnish)

For marinating the pork:

• 2 tablespoon of corn flour
• 1 tablespoon of chinese rice wine
• 1.5 tablespoon of sesame oil

If you don’t quite fancy visiting the morning market, it’s quite easy to get pork ribs at places like Tesco, Cold Storage and Jaya Grocer. The ones that I bought were about 400grams for just under RM12 from Cold Storage. I believe it’s probably slightly more expensive than the wet market but I guess you pay more for convenience.

# – Pork ribs from Cold Storage.

# – The ingredients for the sauce. Ginger not in picture thanks to my carelessness.

Lets begin…

# – Clean the pork ribs and cut them into more or less equal sizes then marinade with chinese rice wine, cornflour and sesame oil for at least 5 hours. Overnight is even better. So yes, adjust your timing as you don’t need to deal with the pork till about 1/2 hour before serving time.

# – When you’re ready to cook, heat up a pot with some cooking oil.

# – Throw in the marinaded pork ribs and brown them. No need to cook through. Remove them from the pan as soon as the pork changed colours from pink to patches of white.

# – Lay the pork out on the plate that you want to steam them in. Set aside. In my case, I used aluminium foil because I do not have plates that could fit into my steamer -_-

# – In the same pot, heat up a little bit of oil. Throw in the garlic, chillies and shallots. Fry till fragrant.

# – Next, throw in the ginger and fry it till you can smell the fragrance.

# – Put the salted soyabean paste and stir.

# – Add 5 tablespoons of water and stir. Let it simmer for a bit.

# – Remove the mixture from heat and pour it all over the pork ribs.

# – Steam for 20 minutes. If you don’t have a steamer, put a wire rack in a wok or very deep pan and fill it up with water. Make sure the wire rack is not submerged in water. When water starts boiling, put the plate of pork ribs onto the rack and cover with lid for 20 minutes. And if you’re using this makeshift steamer, remember to always check for water level and top up when it’s low.

After 20 minutes….

# – Garnish with spring onions. Delicious and very appetising chinese steamed pork ribs with salted soyabeans. DONE!

Be warned as it will makes you wolf down rice like a teenager!