hey everyone welcome to pai's kitchen so I love dim sum I don't know about you but I love dim sum and
as much as I love trying new things when I go to dim sum they're always like the basic staples that
I always order and I know it's so well I can order them in Cantonese so the dish I'm making today is
one of the staples that I always order and that is Thai what in Cantonese which are pork ribs pork
spare rib tips steamed in a black bean sauce it's so good and surprisingly easy to do as well if you
get the right cut of pork you'll have dim sum on your table in no time all right let's get started
so the right cut of pork that I was referring to is pork spareribs that are cut into chunks
like these okay and you can't get this at sort of western-style grocery source but Chinese butchers
usually have them they're also called spare rib tips because these are generally the tips end of
the spareribs they trim off so you get like a nice rack of spareth and then the edges they chop it up
into these dim sum ribs and then you get quite a bit of meat but also a lot of cartilage so less
of the solid hard bone if you can't find it you can just get the full rack of spirit and then
cut them into individual risks sure you get like bigger pieces but it'll it'll taste the same now
I'm going to transfer these into a ziploc bag because the marinade really gets through every
piece if I leave it in the bowl the marinade does tend to sit at the bottom right there you go so
the marinade I'm going to pound my garlic and ginger in my new mortar and pestle here which
is a smaller version perfect for little jobs like this I'm just going to pound this into a paste yes
you can mint everything as well all right so now that I've got a smoothie of ginger and garlic I'm
going to transfer this into a bowl so you guys can see better but if you're at home and you're
using a morning so like this you can just finish the pole marinate in here all right and to this
I'm going to add really simply some soy sauce this is just Thai sauce I'm using even though
this is technically a Chinese dish and I should be using Chinese soy sauce that's what the heck
I'm also going to add some Chinese cooking wine it uses a couple of times before it's really easy to
find and we will cook all the alcohol out of it so don't you worry if that's a concern for you
I'm gonna also add some toasted sesame oil but just a little - I find sesame oil can be a bit
overpowering lots of white pepper because this is not a spicy dish so I love the heat from the
white pepper very nice now we've got a lot of salty things going on and add a little bit of
sugar to balance and now the key ingredient is the Chinese fermented black beans so I know it
looks doesn't look very good right now but it tastes good so this is actually not black beans
there are soy beans that have been fermented with salt in Thailand we call dispel see I would love
to know what you call this in your language if you want to let me know in the comments now this
is really salty right now so I'm going to just rinse them and I'm doing it here just because it's
easier for you to see but at home you can just put it under the tap alright then we're just trying to
get rid of that really strong saltiness and I'm going to add it to my marinade I'm not going to
mash it up or anything because I find that you can overdo it with these black beans really easily so
keeping it whole is a good way for it to just kind of infuse its flavor into it without becoming too
strong and that is it that's the marinade now I'm going to pour this right into my ribs and
now push it around and this has to marinate for at least 30 minutes but I just like to do it the
day before so I don't have to worry about it the next day so the pork has marinated I'm going to
transfer it into a big mixing bowl here and then I'm going to toss this with some cornstarch and
the cornstarch is going to sort of keep the sauce on the pork rather than letting it cool while it's
steamed and as it cooks it'll form was like a gel like a really thin invisible coating that
helps keep the pork moist it really helps sort of the mouthfeel of the pork as well mmm very nice
so now you shouldn't have any liquid pooling at the bottom because all the sauce you want to be
on the pork right so I'm going to transfer it into a bowl that will fit into my steamer so instead of
using my big steamer today I want to show you an alternative steamer setup that you could use if
you don't have a big one like the one you usually see me use a big stockpot with one of these things
inside so this is I don't know I guess it's called a steamer rack and it's so cheap like two dollars
and you can get it at I get mine at my Chinese supermarket if you've got a cookware store it's
like an Asian cookware store they'll probably have these as well and put my pork in and you
notice that my water is not yet boiling because I don't want to burn my hand okay so I want to
put this in while it's still heating up you know there's no need for this to go in while the water
is boiling but once I close it I want to turn the heat up and I want to make sure the steams for 30
to 40 minutes it's going to depend on the size of your pork what you want is for the pork to
be tender okay so if the pieces are small I think 30 minutes is fine if they're on the big size 40
45 minutes so the park is now done it's nice and tender now to check it I just use a fork and poke
on the biggest piece make sure it goes in easily but you don't want it to come off the bone where
now I'm making poole pork here you still want the meat to be able to hold on to the bone but
not chewy you know so while you weren't looking about 5 minutes before the pork was done I put in
some bell peppers I just threw that in towards the end so it gets a chance to cook a little bit and
this just add some color if you want something spicy you can use Thai chilies you can even do
jalapenos get some green in there and look at that however see how much fat there is pulling on there
that's just the nature of ribs there's a lot of fat that comes out you can serve it like this but
if the fat bugs you you can transfer the pork onto a different plate serving plate and then
scoop off some of the fat no big deal finish it off with some green onion and as always when I
add some green onions I like to just close the lid and let the green onion steam for just a minute
or so to wilt it and it'll help distribute all that oniony flavor all right so just be really
careful with the steam okay make sure you've got nice mitts on a dim sum you will just eat this
straight up along with other things you don't need any rice or anything with it but if you
want to you can have it with rice and the way you eat this if you haven't have of this kind
of risk before there's no graceful way to do it you take a piece you basically suck the meat off
the bone and spit out the bones okay and just that's just what to do mmm the smell of dim sum
oh so tender so flavorful all that marinating time really allowed the flavors to penetrate all
the way through and this is a great thing about small pieces of ribs and the texture it's it's
tender but it's not mushy it's like the perfect dim sum ribs consistency I can taste that funk
that earthy funk from the black beans and I mean that in the best possible way if you haven't tried
it you really really have to try what black beans Chinese fermented black beans taste like and it's
super easy marinade throw it in the pot let it go now you can have dim sum at home alright
the recipe as always will be on Pais kitchen comm and when you make it send me a photo on
Facebook Twitter or Instagram and if you haven't subscribed to the show please do so so you won't
miss an episode and I will see you next time for your next delicious adventure by travelpod member