Super Tender Sweet and Sour Ribs

This is my 5th attempt in making this ribs. The main objective of this trial is to check on the repeatability of my recipe and method! Is it important? I guess it is important for some people or at least myself to repeat this dish as I want to really that I am mastering this dish before uploading this recipe in my blog. This is to ensure my kids can produce similar results as mine even by reading this blog. 

I must admit that I did a lot of mistake along the way. One should not give up and must persistently trying until you will master it one day. In my 1st attempt, my ribs were only 80% cooked. During that attempt, I was spending most of my time learning to control the oven temperature and baking time. In my 2nd attempt, I was trying to play around with temperature, while in 3rd and 4th attempt were to play around with different flavour.

I am trying to recall all the details along the way and I do really hope that this detail method can help anyone who read this recipe and produce the same ribs as mine.

Ingredients

2 kg of pork ribs (It is better to use a less meaty ribs)

Sauce

1 lemon juice (keep the skin)

300 g ketchup

300 g plum sauce

8 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp Italian herbs

1tbsp soya sauce

1. To prepare the ribs, start by removing the membrane from the inside of the ribs. This is a tough skin like material that blocks flavours from getting into the meat. (you may refer to this website: How to remove the BBQ Pork Ribs Membrane). , Then, make a small cut on the meaty surface, in between the 2 main bones.

2. Combine all the sauces and apply evenly on the ribs. Add in the lemon skin as well and let the ribs to marinate for at least 12 hours. The color of the meat becomes 'white' after marinated for 16 hours.

3.Cover with aluminum foil (remember to remove all the lemon skin) and put the whole dish into a preheated 150'C oven and let it cook for 2-3 hours depending on the rib's thickness. You may want to turn the ribs once a while (every hour) when you want to check the ribs readiness. This is a good time to baste the ribs so that the baste can remain on top of the ribs. 

4. The ribs are ready when the meat begins to peel apart from the bone.

5. Once the ribs are ready, remove all gravy and let the gravy boil till thicken. Then, brush the thick sauce on top of the ribs and grill in the oven at 200'C for around 2-3 minutes to allow the sauce to caramelize a little and cook into the ribs. You may brush several layers if you wish to have a thicker sauce.

The meat is so tender and falling apart from the bone!!! 

Braised Radish with Ribs

Radish has a lot of benefit in the view of Chinese Medicine (Ping Ming Health). Unfortunately, the taste of radish is really strong when it is taken raw. Due to its benefit, I have tried to make juice with radish by hoping that my kids will like it. To make the drink more attractive while minimizing the taste and odour of radish, I have blended radish juice with apple and orange juice. Even though I can 'cheat' my kids over the attractive color of the juice, the taste of radish is still strong to accept. They spit the drink immediately when their taste buds touches the juice. I am totally understand as I also find that the drink is too 'spicy' for me. I left with no choice but to braise radish for them and it turns out they love it so much.

Ingredients
1 medium radish
300g of ribs
1 tbsp. oil
1/2 tbsp. of bean paste
2 cm of ginger
5 pieces of cloves
3cm of cinnamon stick
2 pieces of star anise
500ml water
Soya sauce to taste
Brown sugar to taste

1. Boil a small pot of water to scald the ribs. This is to remove all the blood traces. Set aside.

2. Clean the radish and cut the radish into big pieces.

3. In a separate pot, heat up the oil and then, put in ginger and bean paste. When it is fragrant, put in the rib and stir fry for a few minutes until outside later of meat is cooked.

4. Add in cloves, cinnamon stick and star anise and water.

5. When the water is boiling, put in all the radish and simmer with small fire till all the radish is soft.

6. You may serve with rice.