Asian Style Honey Baked Spare Ribs

I didn't cook this recently. Since school studio started, I don't even have sufficient time to sleep, let alone cook. But I can't possibly let this blog freeze until my vacation, so here's something I made during my exchange in Paris. This dish is not too hard to conjure, and you don't need to use the stove, i.e no reason not to try it for those who fear burning your kitchen down!

What you need to do is to prepare the marinate sauce and let the pork ribs sit inside overnight. When it's time to cook them the next day, preheat the microwave and bake them for abt an hour. That's it!

Since I last made this over a year ago, I don't remember the proportion of the marinate exactly, but it goes something like this:

2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup finely minced garlic



So what you do is prepare 1kg of pork spareribs, coat them evenly and generously with the marinate and leave them for at least 6 hrs (overnight is even better). The next day, preheat your oven at 180 degrees. Drain the sauce and set aside. Then place the ribs on a shallow pan, cover them with foil and bake them for 45-60 minutes until they are cooked.

Remove the foil, pour the remaining marinate over the ribs and continue baking for about 30 minutes, until they turn golden dark brown. Some of the meat near the bone around should be slightly charred for a nicer flavour.

To serve, place cut slices of lemon and/or orange between the ribs and some salad on the side.




What is Hoisin Sauce?


Some of you may wonder what exactly is Hoisin Sauce? In bottle, it looks like this:
From Wikipedia, "Hoisin sauce, also called suckling pig sauce, is a Chinese dipping sauce. The word Hoisin is a romanization of the Chinese word "??" as pronounced in Cantonese. Mandarin-style Hoisin sauce ingredients include water, sugar, soybeans, white distilled vinegar, rice, salt, wheat flour, garlic, and red chili peppers, and several preservatives and coloring agents. Traditionally, Hoisin sauce is made using sweet potato. Despite the literal meaning of "seafood," Hoisin sauce does not contain fish. It is similar to the sweet noodle sauce made from fermented soybeans, but has the added ingredients of garlic, vinegar, and chili peppers. Additionally, it tastes less pungent than sweet noodle sauce.

For a number of Chinese cuisine dishes, it is used for Peking duck, spring rolls, mu shu pork, popiah and barbecued pork. In Vietnam, Hoisin sauce is also a popular condiment for ph?, and for glazing broiled chicken."