For the love of all things food!: Lauren

Allegra McEvedy - Brought, Borrowed and Stolen

Szechuan Crispy Pork Ribs with Deep-Fried Garlic

...and...

Chings Fast Food Pak Choi with Carrot and Garlic

Okay, so with Henri back from her adventures in China this week's post is all about Chinese food. Nothing says Chinese to me like crispy duck and pancakes thus we decided that when our rotas and schedules would allow we would do a joint post on just that. So, what else says Chinese? Spare ribs and my favourite vegetable "pak choi".

Firstly, I should admit here that other than ribs I tend not to eat meat on the bone so were it not for my local butchers there would have been no ribs to eat. Also, who knew they were so hard to source in big supermarkets? At this point I fell in love with my butcher, and as he chopped them up into "party sized ribs" it saved me both time and definitely a few injuries.

I have a lot of kitchen gadgets but I do not have a deep fat fryer so I have to admit I was nervous about deep frying the ribs, especially as the recipe called for 1 litre of oil (a whole bottle!). So, I deviated a little from the recipe and added about a beaker of oil to the wok and cooked my ribs in small batches, keeping the cooked ribs warm in the oven. I also fried whole garlic since I did not have a basket and waited until I had cooked all the ribs to start on our side dish. The ribs were marinated for three hours, but had I been organised I would have left them to marinate over night.

We enjoyed this on a Saturday night with a cold bottle of white wine and a new carrot cake recipe.

For the ribs:

1.25 kg pork ribs separated and chopped into bite size pieces

2 tsp Chinese five spice

1 tbs szechuan peppercorns, pulverised with a pestle and mortar

2 tsp chilli flakes

100ml soy sauce

3 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp honey

1 litre of groundnut oil

6-10 cloves of garlic cut into shards

2 spring onions thinly sliced

Put the pork pieces into a large bowl, sprinkle with the five spice, peppercorns and chilli flakes. Then pour over the soy sauce, fish sauce and honey, tossing well with your hands until everything is coated. Leave to marinate at room temperature or put in the fridge overnight.

In a large pan heat the oil until it's hot but not smoking. Chuck a nugget in and check that it fizzles fast but doesn't blacken too quickly - we need them to cook right through to the bone but the honey will cause them to darken quickly (you may have to sacrifice a couple this way, but its worth it rather than burn a batch).

Once you've got your temperature sorted out, cook the riblets in 2-3 batches, carefully lowering the pork pieces separately into the oil. Move them around a bit during cooking, and after around 7 minutes when they are a deep golden brown, take them out with a slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper and get the next lot going.

Once all the pork nuggets are done, put the garlic pieces into a metal sieve or colander, lower into the hot oil and cook for a few minutes until light brown and crispy, stirring to ensure even colouration.

Serve sprinkled with the garlic shards and spring onions.

For the pak choi with carrot and garlic

1 tbsp groundnut oil

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 small carrot, thinly sliced on the diagonal

200g baby pak choi, leaves separated

2 pinches of coarse sea salt

Heat a wok over high heat until it starts to smoke, than add the groundnut oil and garlic, cooking for a few seconds. Add the carrot slices and stir-fry for 2 minutes, then tip in the pak choi leaves and toss. Add a small dash of water and cook for a further minute. Sprinkle over the sea salt and serve immediately.