This eggplant appetizer is absurdly easy to make yet surprisingly satisfying. Try to use straight thin purple skinned eggplants, known as Japanese or Asian eggplant – they have thin delicate skins and the flesh is sweeter.

Serves 2-4,

• 3-4         (500g)                                  Asian eggplant 紫皮长茄子
• 1/2 tablespoon                          Garlic cloves, minced蒜末
• 1 tablespoon         Ginger, minced姜末
• 1 tablespoon         Spring onion,葱末, green parts only
• 2 tablespoons                        Cooking oil

Seasonings

• 2 tablespoons      light soy sauce生抽
• 1 teaspoon          Chinkiang vinegar
• 1 teaspoon          caster sugar

 Method

1. Cut the eggplant into 8cm-long strips. Pile the eggplant strips in a bowl that would fit inside your steamer basket.
   

   
2. Place the bowl in your basket and steam over high heat for about 20 minutes after water in the pot is boiled. In the meantime, combine the soy sauce, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl.
   

   
3. Remove the eggplants from the steamer basket and file them in a serving dish and top them with ginger, garlic and half of the spring onions.
4. Heat the oil in a pan until it is very hot. Carefully pour the hot oil over the garlic, ginger and spring onions. Pour the soy sauce mixture over the eggplant. Gently stir in the seasonings. You may cover the dish with clingy film and let it cool off in the fridge for about 20 minutes before serve – this is optional.
   

   

   
5. For garnish, sprinkle the rest of the spring onions.

One of my favorite easy dinners has always been this easy baked pork loin – its hearty, rich and delicious, super easy to make, and so delicious. Since pork loin has little fat, it can become tough very quickly when overcooked. Marinating or brining pork loin before cooking will always help to soften the pork tenderloin and keep it from drying out. Searing the pork before baking not only helps to lock in the pork’s juices, but also makes it taste great and give you a perfect crunchy texture. And you can top it with any of your favorite sauces you like.

Serving 3-4

• 500g                             pork loin
• ¼ cup + 1 tablespoons                   olive oil
• 1/3 teaspoon                             sea salt
• 1/3 teaspoon                              ground pepper corn

Thai Inspired sauce

• 1 tablespoon                            olive oil
• 100g                                          French Beans or asparagus, minced
• A half of the Red Bell Pepper, minced
• 2 tablespoons                          light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons                            Lime juice
• 1 tablespoon                             palm sugar or brown sugar
• ½ tablespoon                            corn starch (optional, it helps thicken the sauce)

Method

1. Rinse the pork loin under running water, pat dry with kitchen towel. Mix 1 teaspoon of freshly ground sea salt and black peppercorn, ¼ cup of olive oil in a bowl. Mix well. Place the pork in and have it marinated it for 4 to 12 hours.
   

   
2. Now let’s sear the pork loin. Place one tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Once the oil is hot, place into the pork loin over medium heat. Fry till both sides golden. This takes about 6-8 minutes.
   

   

   
3. Pre-heat the oven to 175℃ .  Place the seared pork loin on a baking tray and bake for 25-30 minutes. Once done, remove the pork loin out and let it rest for 8-10 minutes before cutting. The resting part is important as it allows residual heat keeps cooking and helps lock the juice in the meat.  The perfect cooked meat looks a little bit pink in the middle, but that’s perfectly all right.
4. 
5. In the meantime, let’s make the sauce. Heat the oil in another frying pan, fry ¾ of the minced beans or asparagus and pepper for 2 minutes over low heat. Add light soy sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. Stir and cook for 1 minute. Pour the sauce into a bowl.

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6. Cut the pork loin into thick serving pieces and place them into a serving plate. Pour the sauce over the pork loin. Ready to serve.

 

 

The satisfying spicy ribs just crumbled off the bone, and with all of those savory seasonings as an added bonus. It is inspired by a trademark dish from Three Guizhou Men, my all-time favorite restaurant in Beijing that offers authentic Guizhou Cuisine. Guizhou Province borders Sichuan thus is similar in that the food is spicy. Unlike Sichuan food though, it does not prominently feature those numbing peppercorns. The food tends to be mildly sour instead.

 Serves 4-6,  

• 1500g   pork spareribs 整条猪肋排

Seasoning paste

• 1 tablespoon                           coriander seeds香菜籽
• 1 tablespoon                           white peppercorns (or use the same amount of white peppercorn powder)白胡椒粒或者白胡椒粉
• 1 teaspoon                               salt
• 1 tablespoon                           light soy sauce生抽
• ½ tablespoon                          dark soy sauce老抽
• 10 – 12 cloves                         garlic, peeled
• 1 cup                                       fresh coriander stems and roots, minced香菜梗
• 2 tablespoons                         Chinese cooking wine
• 1 tablespoon                           cooking oil

Toppings

• 1 tablespoon                           Cooking Oil
• 8-10                                           mix of green and red chili, cut into small pieces
• 3 tablespoons                         Fermented Black Beans干豆豉
• 2 tablespoon                           Seasonings made as indicated above
• 1 tablespoon                           light soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon                         sugar
• ½ cup                                        water
• 3 tablespoon                           unsalted peanuts, toasted and roughly chopped
• 1 cup                                         Coriander leaves, roughly chopped, for garnishing

Method

Make the seasoning paste

1. Wash the ribs and pat dry with paper kitchen towel. To make the meat absorb the seasonings better, you can use a sharp knife to remove the membrane from the back side of the ribs. Line up a baking try with aluminum foil. Place the ribs on top of the tray.
2. Let’s make the seasoning paste. Place the peeled garlic, coriander seeds, peppercorn seeds, fresh coriander stems and roots, soy sauce, salt and Chinese cooking wine in an electric blender. Pulse until finely minced.
   

   

Marinate the ribs

4. Now let’s coat the ribs with the two tablespoons of the seasoning paste, then drizzle 1 tablespoon of  cooking oil on top of the ribs. The oil helps lock the moisture of the meat when it is cooking in the oven. Cover the ribs completely with another layer of the aluminum foil. Place the baking tray in the middle rack of the oven. Set aside for about 60 minutes.
   

   

Grill the Ribs

5. Turn the oven on and bring it up to 180C°. And bake for 2 – 2.5 hours till the bones are exposed. The slow cook time ensures the seasoning flavours are to be very absorbed by the ribs.
6. Remove the aluminum foil on the top of the tray. Bake the ribs for another 30 minutes (no need to cover the ribs). The ribs are ready to serve when it is nearly falling off the bone.

Cook the toppings

7. Place a sauce pan on the stove. Add one tablespoon of cooking oil over low medium heat, add chopped chili peppers and stir fry for a few minutes, add into 3 tablespoons of fermented black bean, stir fry for another 2-3 minutes, add into 2 tablespoons of seasoning paste, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, ½ tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce and ½ cup of water. Once it starts boiling, turn off the heat. The toppings is done.
   

   

   
8. Place the ribs on a serving plate. Arrange toppings and peanuts. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
   

   

Cook notes

1. The seasoning paste can be made ahead and refrigerated for two weeks.
2. You can always make large quantity of the slow cooked ribs ahead of time (until step 5) and store it in the fridge or freezer. When ready to use, just place the desired amount of ribs and bake another 30 minutes then add freshly cooked toppings.

 

The dish is insanely simple to make yet out of this world satisfying! The ever so popular kimchi, the national pickle of Korea, is also praised as a probiotic food. It makes the dish more digestible, nutritious and flavourful, as well as breaking down toxins. If you don’t like pork belly, then by all means switch to pork tenderloin or a lean pork of your choice. However, added oil will be necessary when using a lean cut.

Serve 2-4

• 1-2 tablespoons    cooking oil
• 200g  pork belly, very thinly sliced, 五花肉肉片
• 100g                         golden mushroom金针菇
• 100g                        bamboo shoots (optional)
• 2 to 3 cloves          garlic, peeled and sliced (optional)
• 200g kimchi (available at most of the Asian markets or click here for home-made kimchi) 韩国泡菜
• 2 to 2.5 tablespoons light soy sauce生抽
• 1 tablespoon         caster sugar白糖
• 1 tablespoon          corn starch (mix it with 2 tablespoons of water to make water starch)           玉米淀粉
• 3-4 sprigs              green chives韭菜, cut into pieces of 5cm in length

Method

1. Slice the pork belly as thin as possible or buy pre-cut ones from the store.
2. Heat a frying pan or wok over high heat. While the pan is very hot, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and pork belly – adjust the amount of cooking oil depending on the fattiness of your pork belly. Stir fry until turned pale, for approximately 5 to 6 minutes.  You should see some fat being cooked out of the pork belly at this point.
   

   
3. Add the bamboo shoots, garlic, golden mushroom and cook for 2 minutes, then add kimchi into the pan, stir fry for another 2-3 minutes. Mix well. Add 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of sugar and continue to cook for another 1 minutes. Stir into the water starch (by mixing 1 tablespoon of corn flour and 2 tablespoons of water in a bowl). Fry for another 2-3 minutes till the sauce thickened.
   

   

   

   
4. Turn off the heat. Add sliced green chives. Mix well.
5. Ready to serve.

Notes

1. If you use a store-bought kimchi, make sure to check the ingredients. I use home-made fermented kimchi that’s free of MSG and excessive sugar. Click here for recipe.