Short Pork Ribs Braised in Soy Sauce

中文菜谱： 不用油的红烧排骨，一样软糯鲜香

Recently I have been more enthusiastic about pork ribs than before. 

Asian grocery stores in Houston area are very customer-friendly.  They sell pre-cut pork ribs in the shape of long thin strips so that you don’t have to go through all the trouble to cut them yourself.  They also help to custom cut the meat of your choice.  Such a life saver! O(∩_∩)O~

I always bring back a few rib strips from my trip to Asian grocery stores.  What I am cooking today is short pork ribs braised in soy sauce. Yum!

Ingredients:

2 strips of pork ribs (baby back /spare ribs cut into long thick strips.  Two weigh about 1lb.  )
1 small piece of ginger root, sliced
1/4 low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon crushed rock sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons rice cooking wine
2 to 3 star anises
3 to 4 cloves
2 bay leaves
boiling water
salt to taste

Directions：

star anises are really amazingly beautiful.

With a sharp kitchen knife, cut the ribs into one by one inch pieces.  Soak in cold water for 4 to 5 hours.  Change the water a few times in between.  

Heat a cast iron wok over medium heat.  Add ribs, with the fatty side down.  Flip over when they are golden brown. 

Add crushed rock sugar.  Sauté the sugar with ribs together.  The sugar will melt quickly and coat the ribs with amber color syrup.

Rock sugar is an essential ingredient in Asian cooking.  It is always available in Asian grocery store.  When unavailable, it can be substituted with regular cane sugar.

Add boiling water, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice cooking wine, sliced ginger root, star anises, cloves and bay leaves. 

Cook over high heat until the broth boils.  Cover with lid and reduce the heat to simmer for about 40 minutes. 

Turn the heat back to high.  Add salt to taste. 

As the broth evaporates, the ribs are getting more and more beautifully golden brown.

Remove from the heat when there is no extra liquid in the wok. 

Serve hot immediately.

The ribs have been simmered and braised for almost an hour.  So they are tender and juicy; sweet and savory all at the same time.  It is full of comfort food flavors. 

Steamed Blue Crabs

中文菜谱： 秋风起，吃螃蟹：清蒸蓝蟹

We love blue crabs too, as much as people in Louisiana and Maryland if no more.  The most popular way to cook blue crabs in United States is to boil them with spices, potatoes, and other seafood.  When done, buckets of crabs and seafood are unloaded onto a table in front of customers.  All you have to do is to crack them open and eat!

But the way we eat them is slightly different from American people.  We value and enjoy the crab roe more than crab meat itself.  Most of time, only female crabs are among best sellers when it comes to seafood.

I bring back 4 to 5 pounds of female blue crabs from Asian grocery store.  The female ones are not as easy to find as the male ones.  I always stick to female ones because of their better taste and flavors, especially the ones with crab roe inside.  

Use a small brush to thoroughly clean the crabs under running water.

Set aside the cleaned crabs.

Fill a large pot with water.  Heat over high heat until water boils.  Add a steamer basket.  And then add crabs to the pot, belly side up.

Remember to pick energetic crabs like these.  They have the best taste.

Cover with lid and continue to cook over high heat for 10 minutes.

Now it is done!

Crack one open. You can see the beautifully golden crab roe.

The crab roe has a mild and delicate taste. It is sweet and slightly savory, fatty and flavorful.  The texture is mildly grainy and tastes a lot like across caviar and hardboiled egg yolk.

The most traditional dipping sauce for crabs in China is made with rice vinegar and finely shredded ginger roots. 

Smoked Sausage with Pork, Beef and Cheese

中文菜谱： 奶酪熏肠

After smoking ducks, chickens, ribs and beef briskets, I finally move on to sausages!  The electric smoker is truly a great addition to my kitchen O(∩_∩)O~

Ingredients：

2 pounds pork belly
1 pound beef chuckeye
2 tablespoons paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon of your favorite grill seasoning （ I use McCormick Montreal steak seasoning ）
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon freshly grinded black pepper
1 to 2 teablespoons brown sugar
1/3 to 1/2 cup of shredded parmesan cheese
1 to 2 teaspoons corn starch
salt to taste
chicken stock/ water（about 1cup）
sausage casing

Directions:

Dice up pork belly and beef chuckeye.  Finely grind them together with a meat grinder

Add paprika, ground ginger, onion powder, garlic powder, grill seasoning, black pepper, brown sugar, parmesan cheese, corn starch and salt.

With a pair of chopsticks or wooden spoon, whisk clockwise until the meat mixture becomes sticky and elastic.  Add chicken stock / water in between little by little.  Make sure all the liquid is absorbed before adding more stock. 

Switch meat grinder attachment to sausage stuffing attachment.

Prepare sausage casing

Start stuffing sausage

Use a thin bamboo stick to aerate the sausage.  By doing so, we can get rid of extra air bubbles inside the sausage to make sure even cooking and they will not explore during cooking process.

Preheat the smoker to 225F/107C

Add sausage.

3 to 4 hours later.  Aren’t they pretty?

The sausages are golden brown, smoky, a bit crunchy and crispy on the outside, but very tender and juicy on the inside.  All the spices in there and parmesan cheese are the reason how the sausages get so flavorful. O(∩_∩)O~

"味道Yankitchen“ now is an Wechat Official Account!

“味道Yankitchen”公众号开通啦，欢迎大家关注

Wechat is a widely popular social network apps in China and some other Asian countries, all due to its super powerful influences in messages texting, social media and mobile payment all combined together. That is right, try to imagine what it is like when Instagrm, facebook, tweeter, and paypal all merge into one single apps. Now get the idea?

Yankitchen now is on Wechat too! Search “味道Yankitchen“, or simply extract QR code from the following photos, and follow us on Wechat!

Boiled Young Peanuts

中文菜谱： 盐水煮嫩花生

It is September already.  Fall and cool air have not arrived at Houston yet.  It is still very hot and humid outside, like we are still in the middle of a super long summer.

However, fresh produces sold on the market are beginning to show the signs of fall.  New crop of peanuts are in season now.  Oh gee, I can’t describe how much I love these young peanuts recently dug up from underground.

A lot of people love boiled peanuts.  But not so many have tried young peanuts.  They are a bit less crunchy than the regular ones, but they are packed with such a sweet, refreshing, nutty, and earthy flavor. 

Ingredients：

1 lb young peanuts
2 to 3 star anises
1 to 2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns
3 to 4 cloves
2 bay leaves
5 to 6 dried chili peppers
sea salt to taste
water for boiling

Directions：

Thoroughly rinse the peanuts under running water.  Add to a small stock pot, along with spices and seasonings and water.

Heat over high heat until the water boils.  Cover with lid.  Reduce the heat to simmer for 15 minutes.

I keep the boiling time so short to preserve the crunchy texture from young peanuts.  If you prefer softer and tender texture, extend the cooking time to 30 to 40 minutes or more if needed.  

Boiled peanuts and a cold beer, what a pleasant treat! O(∩_∩)O~