Szechuan Sweet and Sour Pork Spare Ribs (Tangsu Paigu)

This recipe is an adaptation of a recipe from my favorite Szechwan cookbook (Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook: Szechwan Home Cooking). The cookbook was the very first Chinese cookbook I bought. It includes many of the dishes I grew up with and its purchase was my first attempt as an adult to recreate some of them. The cookbook has been long out of print but you can find a few of the recipes here. The Dry-Fried Green Beans is a wonderful dish and is very similar to the one that Little Village Noodle House serves (a favorite restaurant of ours in Honolulu's China Town).

I love most Chinese spare ribs dishes but I particularly like this one because of the different texture that the deep frying gives the ribs (slightly crispy on the outside and tender on the inside) and the hint of sweet and sour. Not like those gloppy, red gooey ribs you get at some Chinese take-out joints. (Try a more traditional Chinese restaurant style sweet and sour spare ribs recipe without the red goop here.) I think the simplicity of the ingredients is what makes it so good. The recipe feeds about 2-3 people, maybe 4 if adding other dishes. It can easily be doubled. Some of the adjustments I made from the original recipe is slightly less salt and slightly more sugar. I found I couldn't taste the sweetness in the original recipe and it was just a tad too salty for me. I like a good balance between sweet, sour and salty in the ribs. I also like to marinade it for about an hour or so, instead of the 30 minutes that the original recipe calls for. The other major adjustment is that I minced the ginger instead of slicing it. If you prefer a milder taste of ginger, you can sliced a 1" piece of ginger into 1/4" matchsticks instead.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb pork spare ribs (~ 1 slab)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon rice vinegar (I used Mirin)
1 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
2 scallions (green onions)
Peanut oil for deep frying

Instructions:
Cut the ribs into individual ribs. Slash each rib meat approximately every 1/4" and remove excess fat. The slashes will help thicker ribs soak up the marinade. Put the ribs in a bowl and sprinkle ribs with salt, sugar, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and ginger.

Smash the scallions (green and white part) with a cleaver or another tool such as a meat tenderizer. Don't pulverize the scallions, just enough to bruise the scallions. The purpose is to release the flavors of the scallion. Cut smashed scallions into 2" lengths. Add to ribs, mix well and marinade for 30-60 minutes.

In a wok or other large heavy duty pan (e.g., Dutch oven), heat peanut oil to 375 degrees F. If you don't have a thermometer, heat the oil until almost the smoking point. In my wok, I need about 3 cups of oil for a double batch. Fry the ribs in small batches, don't overcrowd or put in too many or else the temperature of the oil will drop too low. I usually fry 3-4 ribs at a time, depending on the size of the ribs. Fry the ribs for 5 minutes until dark brown, then drain for 1 minute. Serve hot.


We've eaten these cold as leftovers the next day. Yummmmm.

On a side note, the Mister loves to quote movies and didn't miss a beat by quoting a Bruce Lee movie when I said I was going to make some Chinese spare ribs. Perhaps you've seen the movie. Enjoy, now go and eat well.

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Chicken Adobo

The chicken adobo recipe that I use includes a step to brown the chicken. Being lazy, I have skipped this part and the dish still comes out pretty good. A couple of friends who make this dish a lot told me they sometimes skip browning step too. I particularly like this recipe because the chicken adobo doesn't come out as vinegary as some that I've had. I like the taste of vinegar but not to where it overwhelms the dish. I also like the addition of onions since I think it adds a nice flavor to the overall gravy.

Ingredients:
3 lbs chicken, cut to serving pieces*
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup vinegar
2 cups of water
1 teaspoon paprika
5 bay leaves
4 Tablespoons of cooking oil or olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Slurry Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons cornstarch

* Note: I like to remove the majority of the skin.

Instructions:
In a big sauce pan, heat 2 tablespoons of oil on medium heat and sauté the onions until soft (about 6 minutes). Add garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. Be careful not to burn the garlic.

Add the chicken to the pan. Add water, soy sauce, vinegar, paprika and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

Heat 2 tablespoon cooking oil in another pan. Add the chicken from the sauce pan and brown the chicken for a few minutes on all sides. Transfer the browned chicken back to the sauce pan.

Make the slurry by dissolving the cornstarch in water. Add the slurry to the sauce pan, stir thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste (I like to add fresh ground pepper but find no need for additional salt). Bring to a boil then simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves before serving. Serve hot on plain rice.

As you can see in the picture, the chicken is very light in color, lighter than most adobo dishes I've gotten from take out restaurants. A few sprinkles of parsley or cilantro would have improved the presentation but it still tasted great. One of the variations of this recipe is to add half pork and half chicken. I have not tried it but it's simple to adjust. Just substitute half the chicken with pork and follow the recipe. I would think browning the pork would really add a whole new dimension in taste.

BTW, I've added pictures to the Dr. Pepper Pineapple Spare Ribs post. Instead of over rice, I served it over macaroni this last time. I enjoyed it even more with mac.

Have a good week. Now go and eat well.

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Angel Food Cake

This weekend, I decided to make Alton Brown's Angel Food Cake. I think I've only had Angel Food Cake maybe a couple of times in my like and they were the store bought kind, not impressive enough for me to remember more than I had a slice. Angel Food Cake (or Angel Cake) is a true foam cake. Just sugar, (lots) egg white, extract, and maybe a little water. That's it. As far as being healthy? For a cake, it fairs much better in the calories and definitely in the fat department than most cakes. No fat and around 120-160 calories per serving. I would even call it a "healthier" kind of cake. (Wonder how it holds up with Splenda?)

I highly recommend watching Alton's Good Eats episode on Angel Food Cake first for those who've never whipped egg whites. He talks about the difference between soft and medium peaks. A visual here is much more helpful and it's something you can't get from reading the recipe. He also provides several other good tips that will come in handy (aside from all the scientific mumbo-jumbo, which I find interesting--yeah, yeah, I know, I'm such a geek). If you don't get the Food Network, you can watch the episode on YouTube.

In the episode, Alton had to loosen the cake away from the pan to remove it. Uh, yeah, I didn't have that problem. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time keeping the darn cake in the pan while I inverted it. Darn thing decided to just flop on one side. Overall appearance was not too bad but lopsided enough where I decided not to take a picture of it. Besides, it looked similar to the final product in the episode, so there.

Overall taste? Not what I remembered Angel Food Cake to be. It was incredibly "fluffy" and tender but dense. It almost melts in your mouth. I used 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract but would have liked a little more next time, maybe even scrapings from a vanilla bean. But in all, a very nice delicate cake that I can have without feeling too guilty. And it's a good way to get protein with minimal fat!

Now if I can only figure out what to do with those 12 egg yolks that doesn't include lots of calories. Think the dogs will be getting these as a snack tonight.

Have a wonderful week. Now go and eat well.

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