Boozy pork ribs - you need this recipe

Just a quick note to my lovely readers before we get going on this week's recipe:
- There is a quick story by me on the program called "The World" on Public Radio International.
- The summer grilling issue of Saveur features a big article on the Uyghur cuisine of Xinjiang with my recipes and features some friends of ours in Ürümqi. It's not online yet, but is on newsstands as we speak...
- The new Ghostbusters reboot by Paul Feig features a Chinatown design my husband and I helped with as cultural advisors, including the GB headquarters and surrounding buildings. 

Now, back to eating!

This is heavenly stuff. Easy to make, these ribs are downright aromatic just about every step of the way. 

First you marinate the pork in nothing but soy sauce, but when you fry it, the soy sauce caramelizes and turns your kitchen into a sweet-smelling chamber. 

I would cheerfully wear this scent instead of Chanel No. 5 because everyone would love me for it and I could forego any attempts at a fashioning some sort of personality. I am not proud of this fact, but want to be honest here.

The sauce is just as delicious-smelling. Wafts of fermented wine mix with ginger and green onions to form an alcoholic cloud, and when the pork is added, the perfumes seem to magnify.

Caramelization is the best

And when the meat has been cooked to absolute perfection, it transforms into tender pillows held together by those terribly convenient bones, which allow for relaxed snacking. The caramelized pork juices will have married perfectly with the wine and sugar, giving you a lovely balance of sweet and savory.

Boozy Pork Ribs is a great dish for any time of year. It’s also insanely easy to master the first time around. I’d serve this with either warm Shaoxing rice wine or a really cold stout.

Boozy pork ribs

Xiāngzāo lăozĭpái 香糟老子排

Zhejiang

Serves 4 as an appetizer, bar snack, or entree 

1 pound / 450g pork ribs, cut in half by your butcher

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce (see Tips)

1 cup frying oil

2 green onions, trimmed and finely chopped (keep most of the green leaves separate for the final step)

¼ cup / 30g finely chopped ginger

Stir-fry the aromatics

¾ cup / 180ml fermented rice (homemade or store-bought), both solids and liquid

1 tablespoon rock sugar, or more as needed (see Tips)

¾ cup / 180ml boiling water

1. Cut between the bones of the ribs so that each bone is surrounded by meat. Toss the ribs in a work bowl with the soy sauce and marinate for a couple of hours (or even a couple of days) so that the meat absorbs the soy sauce. Drain the ribs and discard any leftover marinade.

2. Pour the frying oil in the wok and set it over medium-high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add a handful of the ribs and fry them until they are lightly caramelized on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove to a work bowl. Repeat with the rest of the ribs. Pour out all but about a tablespoon of oil.

Add the green onions leaves

3. Set the wok back over high heat. Add the whiter parts of the green onions as well as the ginger, and then stir-fry them to release their fragrance. (The soy sauce will have caramelized at the bottom of the wok, so take care that the aromatics don’t burn – do this by stirring constantly and removing the wok from the heat once they are golden.) Add the fermented rice, sugar, and water, bring this to a boil, and then slide in the ribs. 

4. Stir these around a bit and then reduce the heat to medium-low, or to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook the ribs for about 30 minutes, or until tender. Toss in the reserved green onions. Arrange the ribs on a serving plate. Reduce the sauce until thick and pour over the ribs. Serve hot or warm.

Tips

Every soy sauce and fermented rice is different, respectively, in terms of saltiness and sweetness. So, err on the side of less when you toss in condiments and seasonings like these, as you can easily add more. 

In this case, the fermented rice in particular can be everything from sour to highly alcoholic to saccharine – it all depends on what you have. Take a taste of it before you use it (a good idea with any seasoning, to be honest), and then adjust the sugar accordingly.

As is true for so many Chinese braises, try to hunt down rock sugar, preferably yellow rock sugar, which has not been bleached. This sort of sugar will make a world of difference in your dishes, for sauces and sweet soups will not have the slightly sour that white sugar can impart, and it lends an amazing sheen to porky or chicken creations like this. I mean look at these ribs. They shine like a rock diva. 

Sweet stuffed pineapple from Yunnan

Located as it is in the southern reaches of China, just across the border from Myanmar (Burma), with a toe in Laos and a more ample thigh resting against Vietnam, Yunnan can be forgiven if its cuisine is even more exotic than might be expected. 

Lush, tropical flavors spark just about every dish, and the many ethnic tribes that have made their homes in this province's abundant rain forests have contributed spices and sensibilities that are a long way from Beijing.

Called Diancai in Chinese, the local cuisine is truly exotic, and this even extends to the ingredients, for along with Daliang in Guangdong and the lovely yogurts in various Muslim cuisines in the Chinese north, this is one of the few places where milk is a solid part of the dining scene, but you wouldn't know it from appearances. 

Edged (L) & hollowed (R) pineapples

That is because the most famous dairy dish here is made out milk that it is boiled with a coagulant, and then the proteins are stretched out and dried. A specialty of the Bai minority in the area around Dali in the western hill country of Yunnan, these are fried, braised, or even stuffed, and they have a gentle cheesy flavor. They look much like the soy skins enjoyed in the rest of China, but instead of being turned into flat sheets, these are often pleated, hence their name, rushan or "milk fans."

Chicken is prized here, perhaps because it is such a mountainous area, and chickens will live just about anywhere. The most well known of the local chicken dishes is Steampot Chicken, which uses an ingenious pot for steaming and trapping every drop of juice and flavor. Fish, too, is a favorite ingredient, as we see in another recipe, Crispy Bean Sauce over Steamed Cod. 

Most of Yunnan's beloved dishes, though, are very spicy. We'll be looking at some of the most delicious ones in the months ahead, especially during the summer when these vibrant flavors seem especially welcoming. Today, though, we are going to enjoy the sweeter side of this beautiful place.

Carve out the flesh in wedges

Refreshing, sweet, tart, soft, crunchy, and juicy, this is one amazing dessert from the Dai people who live in the mountains of Yunnan.  It looks as extraordinary as it tastes, too, and is a spectacular way to end a meal. 

Traditionally, the Dai people use white glutinous rice here, but I’ve come to love the color and enticing aroma of Thai black glutinous rice in this dish, where the velvety black rice looks gorgeous against the yellows of the pineapple and the tan longans, or "dragon eye" fruits.  It has a depth of flavor that turns this already wonderful dish into something utterly glorious. Besides, this type of rice is used in many other local dishes, so it's a very natural transition.

At the risk of putting earrings on an elephant, I sprinkle toasted coconut on top just before serving. This adds yet another tropical layer, a touch of crispness against the chewy grains and soft fruit, and a bit of richness from the coconut oil in this otherwise almost fat-free dessert.

Ready to eat

Yunnan's sweet pineapple rice  
Boluo fan 菠蘿飯
Yunnan

Serves 6 to 8 as a dessert

1 cup sticky (a/k/a glutinous, sweet) rice (see Tips)

Filtered water as needed

1 fresh, ripe pineapple (see Tips)

3 pieces of rock sugar, each one about the size of a walnut, bashed into smallish pieces if at all possible, or about ⅓ cup sugar (see Tips)

½ teaspoon sea salt, optional

½ cup dried longans (see Tips) or golden raisins

Boiling water as needed

½ cup toasted pine nuts or coarsely chopped almonds (see Tips)

Honey or agave nectar, optional

½ cup flaked or shredded coconut, optional but recommended

1. Rinse the rice in a sieve under running water and then soak the rice for at least 2 hours or overnight; it is ready when you can crush a grain with your fingernail. Drain the rice thoroughly and place it in a large work bowl. 

Into the steamer we go...

2. Scrub the pineapple all over with soapy water and a brush, rinse well, and pat dry. Cut off all but about 2 inches of the leaves, or as much as will help you fit the two halves into your steamer basket(s). Trim the remaining leaves so that they look nice, and edge off the whiskers on the bottom of the pineapple.

3. Place the pineapple on a cutting board and use a sharp knife to cut the pineapple in half. Then, use a sharp 4-inch (or so) paring knife to cut out all the meat inside the pineapple, leaving the skin intact since this will serve as the container; be sure and save as much of the juice as you can. Do this by first cutting around the edge of the pineapple just inside the yellow area; slice off lengthwise wedges by cutting out about a sixth of the flesh at a time. You should end up with what looks like 2 pineapple-shaped bowls. 

4. Remove the core and cut the pineapple meat into ½-inch cubes. Place the cubes in a medium work bowl and add all of the juice, rock sugar, optional salt, longans, and nuts to the soaked and drained rice. Toss them together and let them marinate for half an hour or so to give the sugar time to melt a bit (see Tips). At the end of this time, toss the rice again, taste a piece of the pineapple, and add more sugar if needed.

5. Spoon the rice and pineapple mixture into the pineapple bowls and place them on plates in one or two steamer baskets. Steam the pineapple for about 30 to 45 minutes; taste a few grains of the rice to make sure they are cooked through. Black glutinous rice make take upwards of an hour to steam thoroughly, so keep an eye on the water level in your steamer; see Tips. (You can steam the pineapple for a bit longer than needed without hurting this dish. This dessert can be prepared ahead of time up to this point and then re-steamed to heat it again before serving.)

6. Toast the coconut by cooking it in a dry pan over medium heat, tossing it with a spatula so that it doesn't burn. When it is evenly browned, remove it to a dish to cool. Just before serving, sprinkle the coconut over the rice, and then serve this dish hot. Spoon out the rice into individual bowls at the table so that your guests can enjoy the beauty of this dish.

Tips

Crushed rice grain

Use any kind of glutinous (or sticky or sweet) rice you like. Called nuomi in Chinese, it generally is available as fat little grains that are white and from either California or East Asia, or long heavy grains that are a blackish brown and are from Thailand. The black variety has a rich aroma when it cooks and adds a nice, toasty element to this dish.

If you have time to let the pineapple ripen in your kitchen, by all means do so because it will sweeten the room for days as it turns sweet and golden.

Select pineapples that smell good; even when they are slightly under-ripe, they should still have a faint pineapple aroma. Check them all over for bruises or soft spots. The stem end will tell you how long it's been picked, so pass by any with shriveled bottoms. 

Cracking rock sugar

Your pineapple will be ready when it smells heavenly and has a slight "give" all over. Don't worry if the leaves have shriveled up; they are going to be trimmed off anyway. Scrub it carefully with a brush and soap to ensure than there are no bugs or debris. Wipe it dry and use a sharp, heavy knife (or even a bread knife) to slice it lengthwise, all the way through the leaves and the stem end. Cut out the flesh as directed above, slice off the tough core, and you're done.

Rock sugar can be very difficult to smash, so here's my secret: if you are not going to melt it in a liquid, place it in whatever it is supposed to sweeten (like this rice dish) and let it sit there for about half an hour. Then remove it, brush off any bits of rice or whatever, and take a look at the grain of the rock sugar: it runs in one long direction. Place the lump on your cutting board so that the grain of the rock sugar is running up and down (perpendicular to the cutting board). Take a heavy cleaver and use the blunt side to gently smack the rock sugar; pieces should break off relatively easy that way. If you have more than you need, let these pieces air dry before storing them.

Dried (L) and plumped up longans

Longans (called "dragon eyes" or longyan in Chinese) are tropical fruits that are usually found dried here in the States, although fresh ones appear on the heels of lychees at the end of summer. Find them in groceries, dry goods stores, and herbalists, and look for ones that are not super hard, as hard = stale. They taste delicious as is, sort of like very sweet, chewy raisins. But they are generally plumped up, and become quite tender and delicious. Store them dried in a closed container in a dark area.

Just about any kind of nut can be used here. Toasted nuts provide a nice contrast to the other flavors, but be careful if they are salted, as this could throw off the flavor balance here. Taste a couple, and if they are very salty, rinse them before chopping and cut out the salt in the recipe.

Caramelized eggplant

I never enjoyed eggplant much as a kid and probably didn't even bother ordering it -- much less eating it -- until I lived in Taipei. There, this rather insipid vegetable suddenly took on a new character. It was like a mousy little girl turning into a movie star. 

One of the things that turned the aubergine around for me was simply its new and (for me, at least) improved shape. No longer the enormous grease sponges that used to haunt my plate, these Asian eggplants were long and slender and cooked in a way that turned them silky and sensuous. It was a revelation.

There is another edge to eggplant, though, that is rarely tapped: its natural tendency toward caramelization. This is one of those little secrets that certain Chinese chefs keep locked under their toques, but I am here to tell you all about it.

Small Asian eggplants

I figured this out by wondering how certain Chinese restaurants could whip out an eggplant dish before I barely  had poured myself a cup of scalding tea. Prodding at the dish with inquisitive chopsticks, I came to the realization that the eggplant had been cooked ahead of time and only awaited a quick dive into whatever sauce was required before being plated up. Good, one problem solved.

It turns out that there were two ways this was accomplished: one was the more common method of steaming of eggplant batons, which allowed them to retain their white flesh and beautiful purple skins. A handful of other chefs did something else, though, that lent a richer note to their flavor, although the veggies were no longer quite so pretty cooked this way. As far as I was concerned, though, eating is mainly about the flavor, so I started obsessing over them until I figured out the secret.

My discovery: these little guys had been deep fried. 

Roll cut for more surface area

No batter was used; instead, these were fried all by themselves until browned all over. The edges in particular have a tendency to turn into sticky ridges when they encounter hot fat and the juices actually caramelize. I don't know about you, but I never thought of an eggplant as being sweet before this, but they definitely do have enough sugar in them to turn a luscious walnut hue.

Frying them in hot oil also quickly hardens up the cut edges and skin so that the eggplant forms a seal that keeps most of the oil out and the juices in. The pieces shrink impressively as they cook, but what is left is actually quite sweet and succulent, a word I would normally never associate with eggplant. Then, they are tossed in a vibrant sauce, like the red-cooked (or hongshao) flavors used here.

The secret to perfectly fried eggplant is therefore no more than this: small amounts are quickly cooked in a generous amount of hot oil. A handful of the veggies fries up rapidly this way, in less than five minutes, and browns beautifully, while too many pieces cool down the oil, increase the steam, and turn the eggplant into a fine mess of mush. 

What I do is fry the eggplant in small batches while I'm prepping other dishes. All I need to do is flip them around now and again so that they brown evenly, scoop them out, and then toss in more. It goes quickly and can be done way ahead of time.

Just like in a restaurant.

Red cooked eggplant

Caramelized eggplant Shanghai style 
Hongshao qiezi  紅燒茄子 
Shanghai
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multicourse meal, or 2 to 3 as a main dish

1½ pounds Asian (long) eggplant

1 to 2 cups peanut or vegetable oil (used is okay here as long as it smells good)

8 thin slices fresh ginger, peeled

1 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped, optional (see Tips)

3 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon rock sugar, or to taste
Thinly chopped green onion or cilantro for garnish, optional

1. Rinse and pat dry the eggplants (see Tips). Remove the caps and trim off any bruises. Roll cut (see Tips) the eggplants into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil over high in a wok (you want about a 2-inch depth of oil) until a wooden chopstick inserted in the oil is immediately covered with bubbles. 

2. Carefully add about a quarter of the eggplant to the hot oil and stir it around. Let it fry to a nice brown, stirring the eggplant around occasionally, and then remove the veggies with a slotted spoon to a work bowl. Heat the oil up again (see Tips) and fry another quarter of the eggplant. Repeat until done. Drain off any extra oil from the work bowl. (The eggplant can be prepared ahead of time up to this point.)

3. Pour off all of the oil in the wok, leaving just a thin slick inside (see Tips). Heat the wok over high again and then add the ginger, optional garlic, and green onions. Stir-fry them until their edges start to brown, and then toss in the rice wine. Let it bubble for a second, and then add the cooked eggplant, soy sauce, and sugar (see Tips).

4. Quickly bring the wok to a boil again, tossing the eggplant so that each piece is coated with the sauce; taste and adjust seasoning. When most of the sauce has been absorbed (in just a minute or two), plate, garnish if you like, and serve.

Tips

Deep fry the eggplant first

The garlic is optional here, so feel free to use as much or little as you like. Consider the other foods you will be serving, too; if something else will have a good helping of garlic, don't use any garlic here at all so that you can counterbalance the flavors of that dish.

You can use any type of Asian eggplant you like. Be sure and wipe them dry, as water will explode in the hot oil. For the same reason, any time you deep fry foods, wipe your hands dry before approaching the stove, as droplets can backfire onto your arms or even your face.

To roll cut, slice any round, thin vegetable (like a carrot) while rolling it on the chopping block with the palm of the other hand. This gives irregular pieces with maximum surface area. They should all end up being about the same size, so cut any bigger pieces as needed.

Roll-cut eggplant

When deep frying, be sure that the oil is hot before adding more ingredients to the wok. As soon as you remove fried foods, give the oil a little time to return to its original temperature and test the oil again with your chopsticks. This will keep the oil hot enough to immediately fry the foods; otherwise, the foods will soak up the oil rather than form a fried exterior.

Since the eggplant already has some oil in it from the deep frying, don't add any more to the wok when you make the sauce. The thin layer remaining in the wok will be sufficient to quickly stir-fry the aromatics. Some of the oil will leak out from the eggplant into the sauce as the sauce is made, and this will be just the right amount in the finished dish.

Use a small amount of sugar for this recipe and taste it before adding more; I like just a tiny bit to smooth the edge of the sauce here. Also, rock sugar gives a nicer sheen and has none of the sour aftertaste of regular white sugar, so try it if you have it on hand.