Loads of contrasting flavors would explode in your mouth…”The big four seasonings” gives the zest and distinguishing aroma of the dish. It was inspired by my cool sister-in-law Rhonda, a big fan of Thai food, who lives in Tampa, FL.

I made up my mind to cook real Thai food whenever visiting my Tampa home after having had a ‘traumatizing’ experience with my visiting Chinese family in 2015 in a neighborhood Thai joint over by my previous Tampa Bay apartment. It happened that Rhonda, my sister-in-law, is a big fan of Thai food. I wanted to impress her when she was over for dinner one night – it seemed that I had succeeded. Credit also goes to Su-Mei Yu, who introduced authentic Thai food to America 20 years ago.  I got a hang of pounding exquisite and balanced Thai spices and ingredients from her book “Cracking the Coconut”.

Serves 4-6,  

• 1500g   pork spareribs 整条猪肋排

For seasonings – The Big Four Seasonings, makes 3/4 cup (12 tablespoons)

• 1 tablespoon          coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon          Thai white peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon             sea salt
• 12-15 cloves          garlic, minced (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup                      Cilantro (or called ‘fresh coriander’) stems and roots,  minced

and

• 2 tablespoon          olive oil
• 2                              Lemon

For toppings

• 1 cup                         Fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• 10-12                         Green and Red Thai bird chili. minced (or any type of chilis you can possibly find)
• 2 tablespoon             The Big Four Seasonings
• 2                                  Lime
• 1 teaspoon                 fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon                 sea salt
• 1 tablespoon              palm sugar or light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoon              unsalted roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Method

For the Big Four Seasonings

1. Dry-roast the coriander seeds over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes till the seeds are fragrant. Transfer the seed to a small bowl to cool. Repeat with the peppercorns. Grind the seeds and peppercorns separately in an electric blender.
2. Add the set salt and garlic in a mortar and pound them together by moving the pestle up and down in the center of the mortar till a paste forms. Add the coriander stems and roots and pound to a small paste. Add the ground coriander and peppercorns and pound and blend till the past is smooth.
3. OR you can use electric blender for the step 2. You will need roast and grind the coriander seeds and peppercorns as above. Add the seat salt, garlic, coriander roots and stems and pulse until finely minced. Add the ground spices and process to a paste. This will result in the coarser paste than the one made using mortar and pestle

Grill the Ribs

4. Preheat the oven to 180C°.
5. Coat the ribs with olive oil and the juice of lemon; rub generously with 2 tablespoons of the Big Four Seasonings. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
6. Place aluminum foil in a baking tray, arrange the ribs in the tray and cover the ribs with aluminum foil to protect them from drying out. And bake for 2.5 hours.
7. Remove the aluminum foil on the top of the tray. Bake the ribs for another 0.5 to 1 hour. The ribs are ready to serve when it is nearly falling off the bone.
8. Combine all the ingredients of topping together except the peanuts.
9. Place the ribs on a serving plate. Arrange the peanuts then rest of the combined ingredients of toppings.

Cook’s notes

1. The Big Four Seasonings is made of key four ingredients of garlic, salt, coriander （fresh and dry）and white peppercorns. Hence the name. The basic seasonings gives Thai cuisine its distinct flavors. Root of Cilantro, or fresh coriander, is cooked by Thai for its aroma. It is strong, and a little goes a long way. Since it it is usually a matter of sheer luck to find cilantro with roots intact in American supermarkets. So the ingredients of the Big Four Seasonings was adapted by using cilantro stems in combination with roasted coriander seeds.
2. The Big Four Seasonings can be made ahead and refrigerated for a month.

I managed to wrap these fluffy and chewy Paos while still finding my way in a new kitchen. Results? – I washed down five of them with a bottle of Budweiser. My fussy 4-year-old eater asked for more after having three of them.I guess it should be an easy affair for you in your familiar home kitchen, right?

Yields about 20 Paos,

Wrappers

• 300g                      all purpose or plain flour 中筋面粉
• 1 tablespoon        yeast
• 1 teaspoon            baking soda泡打粉
• 150g                       water

Fillings

• 250g                     ground pork
• 125g                     ginger and sprint onions water (this calls for 2 spring onions and 8g  gingers and 200g water)
• 1 tablespoon        cooking oil
• 1/2 tablespoon     salt
• 1 tablespoon        light soy sauce 生抽
• 2 teaspoon           sugar
• 1 teaspoon           sesame oil 香油
• 125g                      leek or any equivalent veggies (Napa cabbages etc.), minced

Method

1. Resolve the yeast in a ¼ cup of warm water in 40℃.
2. Place the flour, baking soda and yeast in a mixing bowl and gradually add in 150g water
3. Bring the mixture together with your hands and make a dough. Knead the dough for about 6 minutes till it is smooth. Cover the bowl in a plastic bag. Rest for 30 minutes.
4. Cut the spring onions into small pieces and slice the ginger. Rub them in the 200g water so flavors of the ingredients are absorbed in the water. Drain and discard the spring onions and ginger by keeping the water only.
5. Place the minced pork in a bowl. Gradually add ginger and spring onions water and stir in the same direction for 100 times. Add the cooking oil and stir in the same direction. Combine with the rest of the ingredients and stir all in one direction till all ingredients are well mixed.
6. To make the wrapper, cut the dough into 2 equal pieces. Roll one piece into a long snake of about 2cm diameter and cut in 1.5cm, cover the dough pieces; roll one on the floured surface into a ball shape and press it down as a dish and roll it out in a circle about a diameter of 8cm, about 0.5cm thin in the center – edges are thinner than the center as this has to hold the filling.
7. Place a tablespoon of the fillings in the center of the wrapper. Fold the edges to the center while twisting so the Pao is completed sealed.
8. Bring the water of the steamer to a boil, place parchment paper into the steam basket, place the Paos in the steam basket, cover it with a lid and steam over high heat for 10 minutes.
9. Let cooked Paos rest in the basket for another 5 minutes while the lid remains tightly on – this is very important as it will help make good-looking bulging Paos. Early removal of the lid would result in ‘collapsed’ Paos.

Happily found that the mini sweet peppers are locally produced here in Florida. They are much cheaper than the same I found at the Tiong Bahru market and Cold Storage in Singapore (of course). I like to cook it with an Asian touch by coating the grilled peppers with gently caramelized light soy sauce. The umami taste is obvious and just so satisfying.

Serves 4-6

• 400g                 Mini Sweet Peppers
• 3-4 cloves        Garlic, roughly cut
• 2 tablespoon   light soy sauce 生抽
• 1 tablespoon    cooking oil

 Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200℃.
2. Wash the peppers, remove the stems and place them in a baking tray
3. Place the tray in the oven and grill for 10 minutes till the peppers turn soft.
4. Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan, add garlic and fry for 1-2 minutes, then add light soy sauce and cook for 30 seconds. Immediately turn off the heat once the soy sauce becomes bubbly. Quickly add sweet peppers and coat them with the soy sauce and garlic mix.
5. Done

It is an essential to make the Xiao Long Bao 小笼包 and Shanghai Potsticker Buns 生煎馒头. Prepare the pork jelly one day before.

• 1L              water
• 100g           pork skin 猪肉皮
• 200g           chicken bones 鸡架子
• 50g            Ham
• 10g           ginger, crushed
• 5             spring onions, halved
• 1 tablespoon    Chinese cooking wine 料酒

Method

1. Wash the pork skin and cook it for 2 minutes, drain and cool it down with water
2. Remove the fat and scrap the skin side. Use tweezers 猪毛钳子to remove the hair if necessary.
3. Cut the pork skin in strips of 2cm. Place the strips, chicken bones, ham, ginger, spring onions and cooking wine with 1L water in a pot and bring it boil. Remove the foam if needed.
4. Turn to low medium heat and cook for 1.5 hours.
5. Remove all the ingredients in the stock except the pork skin.
6. Put the pork skin in a blender and grind it a tablespoon of stock.
7. Put the ground pork skin back to the stock and mix well.
8. Pour the stock in a plastic box, cool it off and put the box in the fridge overnight.
9. Cut the jelly into small cubes of 1cm.
10. Ready to use for the filling of  the Xiao Long Bao and Shanghai Potsticker Buns

Tips

You can always make much larger quantity of the pork jelly. You can leave the cubes in the freezer for up to 3 months. Whenever you’d like to make the Xiao Long Bao and Shanghai Potsticker Buns, just take the desired quantity out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge the previous night.