Cha Sau Pork Ribs - 叉燒排骨

Have you ever wondered how Chinese BBQ Pork or spare ribs get that nice sticky texture? Growing up, I always thought the natural color of the Chines BBQ is bright red. Actually - that's food coloring! The natural color is a brownish color with slight charr. Feeling intinidated by Chinese BBQ? No need anymore! It is actually VERY easy!

Since I've been trying to use the InstantPot more, I decided to use the InstantPot to make my Cha Sau Pork Ribs!

Cha Sau Sauce: (I tripled this recipe so I have extra sauce to brush on the ribs when it was in the oven and left overs for chicken legs, etc)

3 TBS Soy Sauce
1.5 TBS Oyster Sauce
1.5 TBS Hoisin Sauce
2 TBS Chinese cooking wine
4.5 TBS Sugar (I used coconut palm sugar)
4 TBS Honey (I used local honey but any would be okay)
1.5 TBS Garlic Powder
1 TSP Salt
1 TSP Five Spice Powder
2 pieces Fermented Tofu

Cooking Instructions:

1. Mix all of the above ingredients together to create your homemade Chinese BBQ sauce.
2. Cover and marinate the pork (pork butt, ribs, etc) for at least 2 hours in the fridge.
3. With Ribs, I used the InstantPot to initially steam and used the steamer basket. Slater the sauce all over the ribs before you steam, that will ensure extra tastiness!
4. Cooktime - 18 min High Pressure on Steam, 12 min Natural Release (At 18 min, the mean was already fall off the bone, I think maybe 12-15 min would have been better)
5. Once the ribs have been finished steaming, place ribs on a foil tray for the oven. Brush additional sauce and broil. Watch carefully as you broil so the ribs do not over cook. As it finished up, you'll find yourself with beautifully glazed pork ribs!

Happy Year of the Rooster!

Goodbye to the Monkey and hello Rooster!

For those that dont know, Chinese New Year (also known as Lunar New Year) is a huge holiday filled with festivities and lots of superstitions!

Growing up in NY, we were lucky enough that we were able to celebrate with other Chinese and Asian folks. We had access to all the decorations and the parades, lion dances, red envelopes, and more! Our family follows the basic rituals and traiditons but we don't follow them all. If we did, we probably would need the two weeks off that the Asian countries have! This was and still is always a time where my sister and I looked forward to. Nowadays, we really enjoy meal planning and throwing the party!

This year, my sister decided to host and about two weeks before the CNY dinner, we began to furiously plan. We knew we needed an entire chicken, a whole fish, noodles, meat, and dessert. We ended up with Hainanese chicken, whole steamed fish, Turnip cakes, Taiwanese mee fun, sweet and sour pork ribs, salt and pepper fried head on shrimp, fish cake soup, pan fried bottarga from Taiwan, and Taro tapioca dessert. Believe it or not, we made all of this from scratch!

Few days before the dinner, we were debating on where to order the Turnip cakes from. At the end of our debate... we just decided to make our own!

Let me just preface and say... turnips do not smell the best! My apartment smelled like turnip for a few hours... but it was so worth it!

I knew that getting the consistency of the turnip cakes was the most important part so I had to very careful in all my measurements. Another pro to this recipe is that I used the Instantpot to steam the turnip cakes. Here is my recipe and ingredient list:

Ingredients:
2lbs coarsely shredded Daikon/Turnip, about 2.5- 3C (always buy a bit more because of water weight and you wont want to shred your fingers)
1 Chinese Sausage steamed and finely diced
Handful of Dried Shrimp
5 dried Shiitake Musrooms, finely diced
2.5 C Rice Flour (do not use glutionous rice flour)
2 C water (split into 2 1 cups)
Salt to taste
White Pepper to taste
Oil

Cooking Instructions:
- Rehydrate the mushrooms and dried shrimp in lukewarm water. You can do this in the same or separate bowls.
- Peel and shred daikon. I used a scale to measure grams to pound which is 453.5g to 1 pound
- Mix the rice flour with  1 cup water and make sure the mix is smooth and not lumpy
- Heat oil in a pan/wok/skillet, and stir fry the sausage, mushrooms, shrimp for a few minutes. Add the daikon, 1 c water, salt, white pepper.
- Once the daikon starts to cook down and the liquid is bubbling/boiling, turn off the heat.
- Since my pan wasnt big enough, I moved my daikon mix into a bowl and began to add the rice flour mixture. Stir thoroughly.
- Grease lightly an aluminum loaf pan and pour the mixture in the pan.
- Add two cups water to the Instantpot, make sure the steam rack is in the pot and place the loaf pan on top of the steam rack. I was able to fit two loaf pans criss crossed.
- I steamed in the Instantpot for 40 minutes with a natural release (10 min)
- After I took them out, I let it cool down and harden a bit.

The best would be to prepare this in advance and let the turnip cakes harden so it would be easier to pan fry. I found that the results two days after it was made  was the best!

Once pan fried, garnish with cilantro and enjoy with soy paste!

Of course, photos below!

Blast the AC!

If I didnt know better this summer, I would have thought we were in the south or SE Asia! The heat, humidity, and random thunderstorms in the last few weeks have been very un-NY like. July has always been hot and humid but we've never experienced flash thunderstorms as often as we have this year.

So, I thought... What is better than having Taiwanese style piping hot beef noodle soup (紅燒牛肉麵) in the middle of this disgusting heat? But at least I'll have the AC on, right?

I used to slave over the stove for HOURS on end trying to braise the perfect soup base and cook the meats down to the perfect texture. This time, the Instant Pot saved me again!

Growing up, Mom would seldom make this because it would take so long but we craved for it all the time. Back in Taiwan, Ah-Ma (my maternal grandmother) actually sold beef noodle soup out of the small porch of the house that I remember visiting when I was a kid. By the time I was born, she was no longer selling it but I would hear so many stories. On top of that, my dad even got involved with the business when him and Mom were courting/dating/or even beginning of their marriage. Dad was definitely a keeper ;)

So here is my authentic version of Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup!

Ingredients:

2 lbs Beef (this can be shank, beef stew, oxtail, beef tendon, tripe, etc)

*Beef shank is what is traditionally used as that is the cut that gives the noodle soup the rice collagen-filled soup base. This time around, I used Oxtail and Beef Tendon

2 small/med carrots - cut up in one inch pieces

1 small/med Onion - halved

3 Scallions - cut in halves

2 Tomato - cut in quarters

3-4 Garlic - peeled and smashed

1 Marinade packet

1/2 cup Soy sauce 

1/3 Chinese cooking wine

1 stick Rock/Brown sugar

Water

1 TBS oil 

Toppings:

Chopped cilantro

Sauteed sour cabbage

- 1 bag pickled mustard green (thai branded)

- 2 cloves garlic minced

- sugar to taste

- 1 TBS Oil

Noodles: I used Japanese Udon Noodles which is what I had in the pantry but hand pulled noodles or any other types of Chinese noodles would work too

(tips on some of the ingredients)

Marinating packet option 1

Marinating Packet Option 2

 

Brown/Rock Sugar 

First, I put on a pot of boiling water so I can blanch my meat. This will clean the meat and rid it of any dirty blood and things. I prefer a clearer broth so this step helps me in getting there. 

The pot will start to boil and there is a pinkish/brownish foam that will be created from the boil. I strain the meat and rinse it real quick with some clean water and leave it to the side. 

Instant pot is amazing in that you can do everything in one pot! Add the oil, then sautee the scallion, onion and garlic (all the fragrant ingredients) until brown.

I then added tomato and carrots, and the beef or choice of meat. 

Add soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar (I prefer this on the sweeter side so this can be adjusted to taste). Add water until it just covers the top of the all the ingredients. 

Finally, add in the marinade packet. 

Close the lid to the pressure cooker, make sure the vent is closed.

Press the manual function and adjust the timer to 75 minutes. I thought 75 minutes was a bit long so maybe 65-70 minutes would be slightly better. 

Final Product!