Pork Ribs

The price of pork has been relatively low over the last few weeks. Whenever I venture into a Chinese supermarket, or any supermarket for that matter, I typically scout for the specials or products that are really fresh and nice. Yesterday pork side ribs were $1.39 /lb vs the usual price of $2/lb. So I bought one slab of about 3.5 lbs and had the butcher cut it to bite size pieces ( actually they cut it through the bone into strips and I will cut them into bite size pieces) I used about 3/4 of the ribs and steamed them with black bean sauce. Depending on the amount of black bean sauce used( I used 2 table spoons of ready made paste from Lee Kum Kee) no further salting is required. The result was a dish of succulent ribs enjoyed by the whole family. I plan to use the balance of the ribs to make a soup noodle noodle dish the next day.

I also made a dish of stuffed red peppers using fish paste bought over the weekend.The peppers were pan fried ( fish side down) and then finished with a black bean seasoning.The key is to use a generous amount of corn or tapioca starch on the insides if the peppers so that the fish paste will adhere to the peppers. The peppers were sweet and succulent and this turned into a very tasty dish.