What's the best way to cook ribs if I'm trying to save time and money?

I love answering questions like that because that is the kind of cook I am.

This is my cheap and easy way to cook spare ribs which I shared on Quora.

I boil soup on a daily basis with soup bones or chicken. On days I want to cook with spare ribs, I will add about 6 to 8 pieces of them to the pork or chicken soup I am boiling for the day as this will help me save time. I like it that the additional spare ribs added will also enhanced the flavour of my soup.

You will be surprised to know that the ingredients I use in one of my regular soups is similar to what you would use in making Western soup stock. Check out the recipe I shared at the following link if you would like to do the same.

What is the recipe for Chinese soup stock?

If you do not plan on making soup or soup stock, you can just boil the spare ribs in a pot of water. You want to boil them till they are soft enough to bite into but not falling apart, which is about 30 minutes on high heat or about 45 to 60 minutes on low heat.

Once they are ready, you can remove them from the soup or stock and stir fry them in a wok with:

-8 to 10 table spoons of water (or soup/stock)
-1 Tbsp of white or brown sugar (or honey)
-1 Tbsp of garlic oil.
-1/2 Tbsp soya sauce.
-1/2 Tbsp oyster sauce
-Dash of black or white pepper or
-1 Tbsp BBQ Sauce

Stir fry till the liquid is reduced and the sauce thickens to glaze the ribs. If you have been too heavy with the sauce, just add more water. You can then thicken the sauce by whisking together 1 tablespoon of corn starch with 2 tablespoons of water to create a slurry. Once the sauce starts to boil again, add the slurry in bit by bit while stirring till it thickens.

This dish can be eaten with rice.

Spare ribs tend to be more expensive. Here is another way to reduce cost to purchase a larger quantity if you plan on cooking for more people to eat. Boiled spare ribs can be kept in the freezer. Each them you use them to make your soup stock, you can store them in an airtight container. Once you have accumulated enough in your freezer, you can thaw them to marinate for a day before you airfry them to serve as shown in this video.

 

You can watch the video from the beginning if you would like to know how the Char Siu Sauce (BBQ Sauce) is prepared and how it can be used to cook other dishes.

These are the ingredients used in the video to make the Char Siu Sauce (BBQ Sauce) for 1kg of spare ribs:

You can omit the following ingredients suggested if you do not have them:

2 Tbsp Onion Powder

1 Tbsp Five-spice powder

2 Tbsp Cooking Wine

1 Tbsp Sesame Oil

3 Tbsp Shallot Oil

Your other alternative if you do not have all the ingredients is to use ready-made Oriental BBQ sauce. My go to brand is Lee Kum Kee.

This is how you prepare the spare ribs to airfry with the homemade or ready-made sauce:

Other than spare ribs, this sauce can also be used to make char sui with the following parts of the pig:

-pork butt or shoulder

-pork collar

-pork belly (very fatty)

-pork loin (leaner option can turn out dryer when cooked)

If you like the way I cook my spare ribs, you should also like the way I cook pulled pork.

Broccoli

 There are two methods to prepare broccoli to cook.  This is the Western way.

I prefer the Chinese way to prepare it. Chef Lau, who used to run a Chinese restaurant, shared in this video how broccoli should be selected and cooked.

I read from Woks of Life that chefs in Chinese restaurants blanch the broccoli first because it cooks faster and speeds up the stir frying process.  This dish can be cooked with meat added.  

These are the ingredients you need to cook the dish:

This is a dish that I cook with pork on a weekly basis because my daughter loves it.  I do not blanch my broccoli to cook it. To wash it, I cut each florets out and soak them in water with coarse salt added.  As the florets will float up, I will place a plate over them so they stay beneath the salted water.

I do not use baking soda as I use a meat mallet to tenderise the pork.

Frozen in this size, I can use them to fry pork cutlets.  I usually cut one to two pieces into strips if I need them in vegetable dishes like this.  This is my simplified method to cook it.

I have been cooking broccoli this way for years.  Maybe it is time to change how I cook and serve it.

Braised or Pulled Pork to the Rescue

As I boil soup almost on a daily basis, now and then, there are meat on leftover soup bone that no one wants to eat.  I will use them to make a braised pork dish with the following ingredients:

I discovered that it is alright to even use the soup bone from boiling Lotus Root soup.  Do not discard the sauce from braising this dish.  You can add the soup bone from the soup that you will be boiling the following day to continue braising it.  Just add additional sauces to taste if you have to add more water to cover the meat to braise.

Here is another way I made use of the meat from the soup bone. I remove the meat from the bone and break it up with a fork.

I used that to cook my own version of pulled pork:

I can serve it by topping it over my Baby Zhong Cheng, which I buy from Lotus on a weekly basis.  I usually receive them in the condition as shown on their website.

I prepare it by cutting each bunch in half after washing them.  I then cook it in one of the following methods:

-in a pot of boiling water (my preferred choice). 

-placed on a plate with 1 to 2 tablespoons of water to microwave for 1-2 minutes.

-steam over a pot of soup I am boiling for the day.

You know they are ready when the leaves are limp and have turned dark green. Removed them from the receptable and drain as much of the water as you can before mixing them with the above Asian flavour sauce mixture.  As the vegetable is already wet from steaming or boiling, I do not have to add water or soup to the sauce: 

1/2 Tbsp Sugar

1 Tbsp Soya Sauce
1/2 Tsp Oyster Sauce

Dash of White Pepper

However, if you have been too heavy handed with the sauces, you can dilute it by adding a tablespoon of hot water/ABC soup. 

From the following article I read, I discovered other ways I can serve my pulled pork:

36 Ways With Leftover Pulled Pork

I also learn from it other ways to flavour and cook pulled pork.  These are some that I would like to try making one day:

I found this recipe for pulled pork that I can cook with a slow cooker a day ahead.  It is great for days when I have to leave the house earlier than usual.

I like eating Banh Mi so I am glad to find Lemongrass Pulled Meat recipe to go with it.

I actually have a shortcut for preparing the pork to go with it.  I will prepare and marinate the meat the way I have shared earlier for making my sweet and sour pork. Once they are pan fried, I will cut them into strips to eat with the bread.

Do you have a breadmaker?  If you look at your manual, you will discover that you can make meat floss with it.   This is the instructions for making meat floss with my breadmaker.

Meat floss being a dried product can be stored in an airtight jar. You can read how you can store and make use of it by reading Chinese Pork Floss is the Salty-Sweet Addition Your Pantry Needs shared on Foodnetwork.  But I think Beryl Shereshewsky taste test of dishes made with pork floss will help you to decide if this is something that you would like to try.

Braised Pig's Small Intestines & Braised Pork Bell

I love eating braised pork.  The idea for braising is to cook till the meat falls off the bones and the sauce has been reduced and thickened.  You can see how it is done from this video for braising intestine with pork belly.  

I would prefer to use pork ribs or pork butt or pork shoulder for braising.  If I plan on cooking this dish, I will use pork ribs to boil in my Bak Kut Teh.  I can remove the pork ribs and intestine before they become too tender.  It is alright if I want to add extra pork ribs when boiling my soup as it will enhance its flavour.  I like it that I will require less time to braise the meat if they are already boiled in the soup I cooked for the day.  

This dish will taste just as flavourful braised without the rice wine. I only need a few bits broken off the star anis and the required sauces.  I do not fry the star anis either. I prefer to use a pot to braise as I will not require more liquid to cover the ingredients.  When braising, always check the sauce level.  It is ready to be served once the meat and intestine in the dish is tender enough and the sauce is flavourful. If the ingredients braised are not tender enough I can add water to boil further. If the sauce is not flavourful enough, I will simmer it further to reduce the liquid.

Do you have an easier way to braise a dish?

Deep Frying Chicken with Cream Crackers

Would you like to cut down visits to KFC with your children?  Stock some cream crackers at home.  I used to buy them when my children were younger.  I can crushed them up to coat marinated sliced meat to deep fry.

I was taught by a former colleague to marinate the chicken with MSG but I think this recipe from Heavenly Rice is better.  

Check out how I make it for my children.  For a start, I do not use wine in my dishes as it can cause my skin to itch.  You can replace chicken with thinly sliced pork.  I usually cook with pork loin.

You can save on oil when the meat is sliced thinly because you can just pan fry it.

I was taught to marinate the meat with MSG only but you can skip the marinating process because the cream crackers will make the meat taste salty enough after deep frying.  I often add this pan fried meat to my sweet and sour dish.

I usually marinate my pork in advance with the following ingredients:

1) Garlic Oil

2) Soya Sauce and/or Oyster Sauce

3) Sugar

4) Cornstarch

If you like your meat crispier, you can dip the meat in egg, then cornflour (as I was taught), egg again before coating it with the crushed cream crackers.  Since I have already marinated my meat with cornflour, I just dip it in egg followed by cream crackers.  The deep fried chicken or pork will taste just as good, in the way I was taught, without shaoxing wine or sesame oil.  If you run out of cream crackers you can dip the meat in egg, then cornflour and repeat with egg then cornflour before you deep frying it.  

Other than the cream crakers, I have also tried coating the meat with:

-breadcrumbs (my son bought a pack and used it only once)
-potato chips (I like onion flavored chips)
-cornflakes (because what we have in stock have gone soft)

You can discover other coating ingredients you can use from this article:

The Best 30 Breadcrumbs Substitutes 

You can use the measurements provided for ingredients by Heavenly Rice as follows: 

Cooking with frozen ingredients

I usually cook frozen food, meat or fish without defrosting them. It is because I can defrost and cook the frozen ingredients at the same time by steaming it over the soup I am boiling for the day.

I can put my frozen ingredients for soup, directly into the pot of water to boil. I do that for frozen chicken feet I used to enhance the flavour of the soup.

However, I prefer to place the frozen soup bone, pork or chicken in a round metal container and steam it over the soup. You can see from this photo that while I am boiling my soup, I can also steam enough rice for the day and frozen dumplings (dimsum). From my experience, I know that some soups can affect the flavour of the dishes I am steaming up. So I do not do that if I am boiling herbal soup or Lotus root soup.

I steam the meat till it is no longer red with blood before putting it in the soup to boil till tender. I then sieve the liquid in the metal container into the pot of soup to remove the scums. This is how the meat should look like before I put it in the soup.

It is easier for me to remove the scum from the meat in the metal bowl then while it is boiling in the soup.

If I plan on using my airfryer to cook a pork or chicken dish, I will marinate the ingredients first in a round metal container before storing it in the freezer. When it is time to cook it, I will remove the cover and pop the metal container in the airfryer to cook for about 10 to 15 minutes on one side and turn the meat over to cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. I then pour it into a pot, add about half a cup of water to boil it over low fire till the meat is tender enough. After tasting it, I can then decide if I need to add salt or soya sauce or oyster sauce to the dish.

My favourite dishes to cook this way are Oyster Sauce Chicken and Ayam Percik. You can see how I am supposed to cook the Ayam Percik from its packaging.

This is how I cook my Ayam Percik dish with frozen chicken.

I noticed that I am able to speed up the cooking process by not thawing the frozen ingredients I used.

Love this Pot cum Steamer

I have lots of stainless steel cooking pots in my home. Some were handed down to me and some were received as gifts. I bought one last year that I have been using everyday. That is because my family loves drinking soup everyday and it can also be used as a steamer. I think that it is an energy saving idea to be able to steam dishes in the same pot that you are boiling your soup in. 

Another reason why I bought it is because I think that the supplier is very thoughtful. They supplied the pot with stainless steel bowls and a hot plate gripper that you will need when you are steaming food. Check out the gifts that came with it which makes using it as a steamer easier. And, yes. I received that stainless steel pot with handle too. We often use it to boil instant noodles.

Instead of scalding the soup bones with hot water to clean it, I prefer to place them on a bowl to steam them over the soup. This is because I usually marinate all my soup bones with salt before I freeze them for later use. So the stainless steel bowl that came with the steamer is useful. I will steam the soup bones till it is no longer red. Then I will sieve the liquid in the bowl into the pot of soup and discard the scum. 

I also like to use the bowls to steam a dish like this minced pork dish or boil eggs or heat up cooked rice or leftover dishes.

Are you curious to know why the cover for this pot is so high? Other than a steaming rack, it is also supplied with two extra trays for steaming additional dishes.  This photo will give you an idea of where the extra trays can be placed in order for you to steam additional dishes. 

You can see the slot inside the pot at Level A, where tray 1 can be placed to sit on in this photo.

Tray 1 should be placed in the pot before the water is boiling. You will find this gripper more useful once the water is boiling or when you need to make some adjustment to place the tray to sit properly on the slot. It is also easier to use it to remove the tray from the pot while it is still hot.

Tray 2 can be placed on top of the steaming rack but if you do not have extra item to steam in it, you  don't have to use it. I often place Tray 2 on top of the pot itself, if I only have two dishes to steam or heat up.  Due to its tall cover, you should not have any problem steaming anything on top of tray 2.

However, you may have issue using the tall cover if you are cooking something near a wall mounted hood, like the one I have in my kitchen. I solved this problem by using a cover of the same diameter from another pot that I have.

You can check out some of the soups I made with this pot cum steamer at the following link:

Convert Your Vegetable Dish Into A Soup

Yes, I do hope to win something from Igozo for sharing about this pot cum steamer that I bought from them last year. Wish me luck @iGOZO #igozocookandwin

Update:

Check out what I won from iGOZO for this post.

iGOZO BEAUTE STAINLESS STEEL MIXING BOWL (18/20/22/24/26/28/30CM)

Roast your pork to boil soup

I usually remove the pork ribs from my soup to create another dish.  Learn from Chef John that you can make your soup more aromatic if you roast the pork ribs first. Check out the second dish he cooked with the pork ribs.

I usually mix a few table spoons of water with sugar (or honey), garlic oil, soya sauce (or oyster sauce) to flavour my pork ribs. The sauce will thicken once the liquid is reduced.

Don't Throw Away The Fat

When I was younger my mother used to buy pork fat without any meat on it. This she cut into cubes and fried in a wok till the lard dripped off it and the fat became crunchy bits. If you visit a hawker stall selling noodles and they taste better compared to others, it is likely that there is lard drizzled over it or in the soup. Some stalls will even serve their noodles with the fried crunchy bits and if you are a regular customer, they may even add more of it on your request.

If you would like your noodles or dishes cooked with lard, this is how you can render it from the fat. 

This is how I get my dose of lard every week. Every Saturday, we will buy a packet of Siew Yok or roasted pork from the wet market. To heat it up to eat, I air fry it in a metal container with garlic oil and sugar.  I always have a packet of instant noddles at home and I will use the lard left in the container to make Kon Loh Mee or dry-tossed noodles. These are the ingredients I add to the lard to toss with my noodles:

-garlic oil  
-soya sauce and/or oyster sauce
-sugar
-sasame oil

For those of you who eat bacon for breakfast or use it in your dishes, here is a way you can save the lard you cooked off it.

My family used to enjoy watching "How It's Made" when we subscribed to Astro. This is how bacon is made.

A Reason to Boil Extra Pork Ribs in Soups

Whenever I make ABC or Old Winter Melon soup with pork ribs, I will take some out to cook another dish. 

That will reduce your time to cook 1-2-3-4-5 Ribs dish.  

When your pork ribs are already cooked tender in the soup, you don't have to simmer them for 25 minutes. Just pan fry the pork ribs from the soup to brown them both sides. Then cook them in the sauces till the liquid thickens to coat the meat. 

You can also use the following sauces to coat the pork ribs:

1) Soya Sauce
2) Garlic Oil
3) Honey or Brown Sugar
4) Water 
5) Dark Soya Sauce (optional)

Here is a video with another variation for sauces. I like it that the cook also shared substitute sauces you can use:

Cooking with Cucumbers

I managed to grow cucumbers in our garden.

Since our harvest is good, I am able to give some to my friends and relatives. Other than eating them raw, I have to figure out how to use them in my dishes.

I discovered that the Thai are making soup out of cucumbers. I found Thai Stuffed Cucumber Soup (Gaeng Jued Taeng Kwa Yad Sai) recipe from Siam Sizzles. I modified the marinating sauces for my minced pork.

Since I prepared too much minced pork for my cucumber soup, I decided to use the leftover to cook Braised Minced Pork with Potato and Carrot.

I love the way it turned out, cooked with the finely chopped carrot mixed in the minced pork.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO COOK WITH GREEN, RED AND YELLOW PEPPERS

I cook green, red and yellow peppers almost every week, so, I need to discover different ways to serve them. 

So far, I have used them to cook:

-Sweet and Sour Pork dish
-four different stir fry dishes by changing the sauces used  
-add celery to leftover stir fry dishes to change the flavour
-use any leftovers to make Korean Street Toast or as toppings for my pizza 

This is my latest discovery. I add any leftovers from my Sweet and Sour Pork dish to leftovers from my Ayam Percik dish. They blend in very well in flavour. 

I discovered Brahim's Percik sauce from TESCO (now known as Lotus). When it was sold under TESCO, their site was very informative as it included ingredients in the paste and cooking instruction, which you can also read off its packaging as follows.  

I usually make my decision to buy prepacked paste based on the ingredients used and whether it is easy  to cook with. By looking at the table I have created based on the above packaging instruction, you can see that it takes only 3 steps and 2 ingredients to cook this dish:

If you are going to use Brahim's method, it is best to keep the remaining sauce in the fridge till it is ready to be used. 

That was how I cooked it till I discovered that I can cook it with my airfyer. I marinate my chicken tighs with the whole packet of sauce in a round metal container and keep it covered overnight in the freezer. The following day, I removed the cover and placed the container, without thawing it, in my air fryer to cook for 15 minutes. Then turn the chicken over to cook for another 15 minutes. I then pour the chicken in a pot or wok and add just enough water to make sure that there is enough liquid in it to simmer till the chicken is tender. It is ready when you see that the sauce has reduced and thickened. 

You can read my cooking instruction more clearly from this table.

Should I use drumsticks to cook this dish, I will cut each drumstick into 3 sections. I use the middle portion for the Ayam Percik dish and the bony ends for making soup.

When I bring some Ayam Percik dish to the bike shop to eat, I usually pack it in a metal container because I can heat it up by steaming it in a mini electric pot. 

Don't throw away the sauce as you can add it to your rice to eat.  It is very flavourful. Sometimes I mixed the sauce into my rice to reheat in a mini rice cooker.

If I served Ayam Percik dish for lunch and there is some leftover for dinner, I can change its flavour by adding it to my Sweet and Sour Pork dish.  I can enhance the flavour further by adding BBQ and black pepper sauce to it. 

I was inspired to do this after checking out how chicken fajitas dish is cooked.

If I am to use pork to cook a version of it, I will most likely just be cooking the Sweet and Sour dish with strips of the meat and add the Percik sauce to taste.

So, if the peppers I bought are large enough, I will prepare all three different dishes on the same day. They are:

1) Sweet and Sour Pork
2) Stir fry dish
3) Korean style toppings for toast or pizza

The Korean style toppings can be served for breakfast while one will be served for lunch and the other for dinner or stored in the fridge to be served the following day. 

MAKEOVER WITH LEFTOVERS: SWEET AND SOUR PORK DISH

Have you ever purchase green, red and yellow peppers at the market?  It is very difficult to find them in similar sizes. So you are likely going to have more of one than the other to cook in your dish.

I used to get my source of peppers in similar sizes from TESCO till Lotus took over. For a family of small eaters, I can cook two different dishes with them. One of them will be Sweet and Sour Pork. If you cut peppers the way I do, you will notice that their curved ends are usually thicker in porpotion. These are the parts that I used to cook this dish. 

 

I tried cooking it with a ready made pack of MasFood Sour Sweet Paste but I did not like how it turned out.

I still prefer it cooked with the following liquid/sauces:

-Mahsuri Spicy Sweet & Sour
-Tomato Ketchup
-Plum Sauce
-Juice from canned Pineapple Slices 
-soya sauce to taste
-*Worcester sauce (only if the sauce is not sour enough after cooking) 

I usually buy pork tenderloin as the meat is tender. The pork used in this dish should be deep fried but I do not like the idea of using lots of oil.  So I sliced the tenderloin into 1 finger thick cutlets and pound it flat with my meat mallet. I discovered from watching how Koreans cook in their restaurants that it will be less messy if you place a plastic over the meat or add corn starch to it before pounding.

I then marinate it piece by piece in my magic sauce:

1) Garlic Oil
2) Soya Sauce and/or Oyster Sauce
3) Sugar

I add cornstarch to the meat once it is thoroughly mixed with the sauces.  The marinated meat can be stored in the freezer till it is time to be used.  

As the meat has been pounded thinly, it does not require a lot of oil or time to cook. For the sweet and sour dish, I only need 3 peices of pan fried cutlets but I usually fry more so that it can be eaten like pork chop for lunch. 

For dinner, I will use a pair of scissors to cut each cutlet into 1-2cm strips. 

When it is time to heat them up to be served, I can break an egg over the meat to fry before serving, thus changing its flavour. 

I tend to cook more sauce than is required for the dish.  

I can use it to add flavour to my:

-leftover rice and prevent it from drying out when I reheat it.
-pork cutlets
-deep fried chicken
-fried fish.

-fried rice.

If I do not have the time to prepare the pork to go with this dish, I will use stored bought chicken nuggets. I air fry a small portion of them with garlic oil in a round metal container until both sides are crispy, which is for about nine minutes. Crispy Chicken Finger is our favourite choice to go with it. 

As I do not like the idea of serving the same dish for lunch and then dinner, I sometimes use the ingredients as toppings for the Four Cheese Pizza 285g that I bought from TESCO/Lotus. I quarter it up air fry two slices at a time for seven minutes in the air fryer.

You can see 2 methods for preparing the crispy pork for the sweet and sour dish in the following table.

You can see how the cutlets are prepared and deep fried for cooking "Crispy Sweet and Sour Pork" from this video.

These are the ingredients the chef used to cook the sweet and sour sauce.

This is how the Sweet and Sour Pork dish with bell peppers, pineapple and onion should be cooked.  The deep fried pork should be the last ingredient to be added to the sauce to prevent it from becoming soggy.

Other ingredients I have added to cook it are:

-1 cucumber deseeded and cubed
-1 tomato deseeded and cubed