Fried Spare Ribs with Garlic

This is our tenth year living in Asia and we’re always asked what our favorite Asian cuisine is. That’s a tough question as we like Chinese, Singaporean, Thai, Indian, Malaysian, Japanese, Indonesian etc. Having said that, for me, I always come back to Chinese food and in particular, dim sum. Dim sum is a Cantonese phrase which means “touch the heart” or “order to your heart’s content“. Dim Sum is usually served in the morning and right up until mid afternoon. The dim sum server (usually a lady) pushes a food cart and comes to your table. From there you can see small plates and small bamboo steamers. She lifts the lid off the bamboo steamer and you can decide if you want that or not. What’s really neat about this whole process is that you don’t need to know Cantonese or Mandarin, just point to the food you want or look around at other tables and point if you see something you’d like to eat. Dim Sum restaurants are large where there are many round tables (banquet style) and each hold 10 people per table. The atmosphere is noisy but a lot of fun. Even though it may seem chaotic in a dim sum restaurant, the servers all have an organized way of delivering the food to you. Lighter, steamed dishes come first, followed by exotic items such as chicken’s feet, then deep-fried dishes and finally dessert. Oh yes, copious amounts of Chinese tea is also consumed. I had been cooking Chinese food before but wanted to learn more on the technique side. I took a couple of cooking classes from Hong Kong Towngas Cooking Centre and it was here that I learned to make one of my favorite dim sum meat dishes (recipe to follow). Click here for more dim sum dishes and when in Hong Kong, click here for the top 5 places to eat dim sum. It’s an experience not to be missed!

Serves 4 people

480g pork spare ribs
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
a good grind of black pepper
cooking oil

Cut spare ribs into 5cm x 2cm pieces. Mix all other ingredients together to make the marinade. Combine marinade with ribs and set aside for 1 hour. Deep fry spare ribs in hot oil until golden brown; drain on paper towel.

The Culinary Chase’s Note: The garlicky flavor comes through brilliantly and the meat is tender. The ribs also taste good at room temperature.