Chinese Style Black Bean Pork Rib Soup with wolfberries

Wanting to break out of my comfort zone, I decided to google the net and see what sort of "new" healthy chinese soup I could make for myself and my man, yet still easy enough without the complicated hassle. 

So....I tried making Black bean Pork rib soup for the first time and it actually turned out splendid, not to mention how easy it was...

Black Bean Pork Rib Soup, with wolfberries.

Featuring - Black Bean or Turtle bean.
Not the prettiest of the lot but it sure is cheap and choke full of goodness with benefits such as 
-  Digestive Tract Benefits
- Benefits for Blood Sugar Regulation (esp for diabetic Type 2 people I suppose)
- Cardiovascular Benefits
- impressive array of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients

Dont take my word for it, check out the details from link below.
(source: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=2)

Ingredients 

- 150grams of whole black beans
- 300-400gram of soup pork ribs and pork shank combined
(I personally like pork shank so that its so soft and edible after the soup is done)
- Rinsed 8 deseeded red dates (Not suitable for diabetic people: Benefits : Read Link)
- Rinsed 2 tbsp (or more) of wolf berries
- Rinsed 5 slices of Chinese yam (optional. Benefits : Read Link )
- 2 inch smashed ginger without skin (Smashed allows the flavor to leak out faster)
- 2 presoaked small scallops. (presoaked for 10 mins to reduce the overwhelmingly strong taste)

Cooking Steps

1. Rinse the black beans. Remove the cracked ones, or those that looked just looked spoiled.

2. Boil a pot of water (depending on your pot size, guide is to use enough water to cover all beans. I figured 600ml or more will suffice. You wont need the water later so the actual amount doesnt matter. I would measure the amount in advance first after you have rinsed the beans. )

3. Once the water is boiling, add in black beans and boil for about 2 mins.
This step is to shorten the cooking time required later.

4. Soak the beans for at least another 1-2 hours. 
Soaking step is VERY important. Please do not skip this. You can always presoak the beans overnight if you are in rush for time.

5. After the soaked beans are ready, rinsed pork. Use hot boiling water and pour over bones and meat and leave it to soak for couple of mins. For me, its more for hygiene purpose to kill any surface germs. If you use lean meat then you wont get much scum.

6. In a separate pot, fill with 2L water and boil. Add in all the pork bones and meat and soaked black beans, ginger, red dates. Cover lid.

7.Stay on high heat for another 30mins. Remove any scum. Turn down heat to medium-low. Cook for another 50mins or until the rich flavor of the soup is attained.  
 (Tip: Do not stay on high heat or the bean will absorb the soup and u will be left with nothing)

8. Towards the last 50mins, add in wolfberries into soup.
Wolfberries cook quickly esp with closed lid, so give it 10-15mins will suffice.

Done. Served with rice.

Personally, I dont normally add salt to soup unless I really have to. So leave salt for final tasting up to the individual. It is important NOT to ADD salt during the cooking process as it will affect the bean.

Chinese Style Apple Pork Rib Soup

Tried a new pork soup recipe today. It's a super light refreshing soup that is a nice change from all the heavy flavour soup. I dont think I have "perfected" it the way I imagined yet but it's still ok.

Ingredients

- 300-400grams Soup pork bones (西施骨）and pork shank (the more you have, the sweeter the soup is and lesser time to boil)
- 2-3 red large ripe apples
- 6-8 deseeded red dates
- 1 white onion cut in slices
- 2 Honey dates
- 1-2 Carrots (optional)
- 2 inch ginger smashed (optional)

Cooking Steps

1. Rinse and deseed the apples. I left the skin on.
2. Rinse pork. You can choose to boil the raw bones until the scum is out and scope out, before starting your soup pork or you can rinse the pork with boiling water.
(If u bought the fresh pork from wet market or butcher, you can do the former but if you bought the meat from supermarket, I would just rinse with boiling water else I noticed my final soup is always very bland and less sweet if I cook the bones first time round)
3. Heat the water, 3/4 full and add the smashed ginger, pork bones and shank and honey dates.
4. High heat for half hour and turn to medium heat.
5. Cook for an hour and when the scum and "filth" appears, scoop and remove.
6. Add in the red apples and red dates. Cook for another 50mins on medium - medium low heat depending on the type of pot you use. I use the stainless WMF steel mid-size, so I stuck to just under medium heat.

Cooking: Tangy Chinese Spare Ribs [糖醋排骨]

Finally after multi-levels of procrastination, I decided to try cooking the pork ribs that had been on my "to try" list for months now. 

I like tangy spare-ribs ［糖醋排骨］and been meaning to make them for ages now. One of the reason it took so long was because I was hoping to find a small bottle of Black vinegar as required ingredients. I think it turned out well:)

Sauce Ingredients:
1. Zhejiang Vinegar （浙江醋）- 2 tablespoon
2. Black Glutinous Vinegar （烏醋）- 2 tablespoon (required! It gives the dish the nice rounded sweet taste like 排骨王)
3. 2 teaspoon heaps of white sugar, or use cubes of icing sugar (冰糖）(personally I prefer the latter)
4. Tomato sauce - 1.5- 2 tablespoon (i just gauge when I cook)
5. Dash of cornflour - 1/2 - 1 teaspoon for those precision cookers.
6. Dark soysauce - 1 tablespoon
7. Plum sauce (梅漿）- 1 teaspoon

Marinade A:
1. Sugar - 1/2 tablespoon
2. Lemon Juice - 1 teaspoon
3. Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
4. water - 1 tablespoon (I kinda omit this because the ribs were already wet after rinsing)

Marinade B:
1. Plain Flour （面粉）- 1 tablespoon
2. Potato （太白粉）or Corn flour - 1 tablespoon
3. water - 1 tablespoon ( to combine the flour)

Cooking steps
1. Marinate the ribs prior to cooking. First marinate the ribs with Marinade A for at least an hour. Stick it in the fridge.

2. Combine the marinated ribs with Marinade B and set aside for at least 30mins.

3. Heat (peanut/coconut) oil over medium flame and deep fry the marinated ribs.
Remove ribs when it is golden brown. Cook longer if ur ribs are very cold or very thick. Hard to burn ribs if u are watching it as u deep fry. Note, do not over heat the oil too much at the start or u will burnt the meat rather than cook it through.

4. While your fried ribs are draining oil on the side, use a different pot, put in a tablespoon of the used oil and then pour in the Sauce mix into the pot and stir over low flame. This is the time you get to adjust the taste. If you think its too sour, add more (2-3) icing cubes (or sugar). Dont overdo it. moderate bit by bit. Do not make it too sweet as the flavor will change again when combined with the ribs. Note: Do not stir over heat too long or you will lose the vinegar aroma.

5. Add a little corn flour if the sauce is still too watery but not too thick else its hard to coat the ribs later. (optional step)

6. Reheat the pot of frying oil and do a quick refry 10-15seconds before serving. (optional if the time lag between sauce preparation and serving is not long)

7. Pour the sauce over the ribs and mix well. Let the fried layer of the ribs soaked in the flavor of the sauce before serving (that's about a min or two. The taste will differ slightly when ribs are very hot and when cooled)

PS: I didnt have plain flour so I had only used the corn flour. This wont affect the taste but will affect the layer of batter on your ribs.

Grilled Babyback Ribs with Honey Hoisin Sauce

Tried a new recipe last nite - Barbeque Hoisin Sauce Pork ribs. Was simple and easy and turned out quite well on each and every time attempt.

I have tried various meat cuts and frankly, only babyback works the best. Something to do with the fatty oil and tender meat proportion. The usual pork ribs are too flimsy and by the time I grilled it...not left with much meat.

Serving: 2-3 Pax

Ingredients
1. 4 big tbsp of hoisin sauce (abt 125ml)
2. 2 tablespoon of dark soysauce
3. 2 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine
4. 3 tablespoon of tomato sauce (ketchup)
5. 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
6. a rack of baby back ribs (about 12 bones within)

7. 4 tablespoon for marinate and another 1 tablespoon for blasting sauce.

8. Dash of salt and black pepper


Steps
1. Rinse the pork ribs. You can choose to leave it as a rack to cook, OR, you can split/cut the rack into parts of 2-3 ribs a set. (with a rack of 12, you can get 4 or 6 sets). I will not cut it indivually because the juice will seeped out too much. The reason I cut it is so that more ribs get the crispy sides marinated with sauce, and easily for the people to eat and less cutting.

2. Marinate the ribs with the dark soysauce, chinese rice wine, 4 tbsp of honey, minced garlic and hoisin sauce. Mix well. Leave in fridge to marinate for at least 3 hours.

3. When ready to cook, turn up oven heat to about 250degree or 300 degree on GRILL with fanforced setting.

4. Line the baking tray with a layer of baking paper, and the on top line with aluminum foil. The baking paper prevents any sauce that might seeped over and cause the foil to stick to pan later.

5. Lay the ribs, BONES facing up. Stick into oven when heat is ready. I stuck mine on the uppermost shelf for fast cooking but that means you need to watch your meat..the bone side up also prevent you from over drying your meat or burning them..

*((WHile Waiting, mix the tomato sauce and 1 tbsp of honey with a dash of seasalt into a small bowl. You may add 1 tablespoon of water. Put aside for blasting)

6. Depending on your oven heat, you will only turn the ribs over to the Meat side after your see the the sauce starts to brown nicely and alittle glazy cripsy..Normally this happens after 10-15mins depending on your oven heat

7. After your turn your ribs to the meat side up, you can brush all the leftover marinate over the meat and pour whatever excess u have. Make sure you dont miss the sides.

8. I would at this point also grate some black pepper randomly across the meat.

9. Stick the tray back into oven for another 5 mins. 

10. After 5 mins, Open the oven and spread evenly the tomato mix sauce over the meat surface. This will give your meat a nice sweet and BBQ tinge.) At this point, if you see the meat juice, use a spoon to scoop them out into a small bowl

11. Stick the meat back into the over for another 5-10mins until your meat starts to brown.

12. When you meat is done, take it out and pour all the sauces from tray and the scooped out to drizzle over the meat. You are done!