Tell me more ×
Seasoned Advice is a question and answer site for professional and amateur chefs. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite

I love Chinese style ribs. They seem to have a sweet plum flavour/fragrance to them and the meat seems to be caramelised. I'd like to try this at home, how are they prepared and cooked?

share|improve this question
1  
Perhaps reword to make it less subjective? "Best" implies opinion. – Rebecca Chernoff Jul 10 '10 at 19:16
2  
A cooking site without opinion! Cooking is about opinion...the opinion of your senses! – Kev Jul 10 '10 at 19:22
1  
that's true, but there are also plenty of facts in cooking. We try to use less subjective words to indicate the preference for facts and reasons behind certain decisions. – Mike Sherov Jul 10 '10 at 20:01
As I don't cook Asian, I don't know how to handle this close vote. Is there really a limited number of ways to cook ribs Chinese style, or is this a boundless question? – rumtscho♦ Sep 9 '12 at 17:51
@rumtscho - I think there's a limited number of ways to do ribs Chinese style. I think bubu's answer nails it. – Kev Sep 9 '12 at 22:02

2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

When cooking Chinese ribs, they are usually boiled down... (I am a cook from Hong Kong) We usually cut the ribs bone-attached into small cubes before cooking, quite unlike the western cooking style.

  1. stir-frying: Usually we stir-fry the rib with a sauce of choice; black bean and chili is my favourite. One can also use the sweet-sour (sometimes with the ribs sort of diced with bone attached, fried with a flour dip), and chinese preserved vinegar (This is often an unpleasent flavour for most foreigners who aren't familiar with it IMHO)
  2. steaming: You can marinade the rib, either with black bean and chili or sometimes plum-sauce and a little bit of salt to taste. Then just throw it in there and steam it done. The resultant meat is nicely done and we mix the sauce with the rice to make it great tasting (sort of a good idea when i'm out of money and need to eat more rice, and less meat... The sauce is then quite rich in pork fat though, unhealthy, pardon me...)
  3. braising: this one is often done with five spice, sometimes red preserved-tofu (nam-yu, as we call it in cantonese).

or you can make your own homemade marinade by using different amount of (1) soy-sauce, (2) salt, (3) pepper (white) and (4) sugar. Then stir-fry it, or saute it, then optionally you can add little bit of starch-water to get the 'sauce' thickened, and serve.

Sometimes we use the oyster sauce to marinade the food as well, but mind you that the quality differs, if you want the best, I would suggest 'lee-kam-kee' premium, old-style oyster sauce for this purpose, for best result, add sugar.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

Basically you'll want to marinate the ribs in a hoison/soy sauce combo. You can find hoison sauce in most stores in the U.S. Other than that it is just cooking ribs the way you might normally cook them. That caramelization is the sugar from the hoison sauce caramelizing ont he rib's "crust" or outer layer. To get that, just make sure the ribs end their cooking with some direct heat.

If you're going for that bright red look, it's usually accomplished with simple red food dye.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.