Pork Spare Ribs with Vietnamese Flavors

I love the sweet and tangy Vietnamese grilled lemongrass pork chop. However, one caveat of pork chop is that it easily dries out. How can I make a Vietnamese lemongrass pork dish that is moist and flavorful with least efforts?

Spare ribs...!

I can simply steam the ribs in my oven, and add flavor with lemongrass marinade later. And, most of all, the ribs cannot dry out --- it is really hard to make it dry.

Lemongrass marinade will add gentle heat to the dish with garlic and ginger. I added one habañero chili to bump up the spiciness... which you can skip if you don't like spicy foods. And, the saltiess from fish sauce in the marinade works very well with pork. Not sure what it is... but I found this combination of fish and pork often in various cuisines.

Anyway, here is pork spare ribs with Vietnamese flavors recipe. You can serve this spare ribs with steamed rice or you can just enjoy the spare ribs with a glass of beer. :)

Pork Spare Ribs with Vietnamese Flavors
(Yield: 4-5 servings / Cooking time: 2.5 hours)

Ingredients:

+ 2.5 lbs pork spare ribs* + 1 small shallot + 3 garlic cloves + ginger (the same amount of garlic) + 1 small stock of lemongrass + 1 habañero chili, seeded**

+ 1 tsp fish sauce + 1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce + 3 Tbsp light brown sugar + salt/pepper + scallion and chopped roasted peanuts for garnish

* St. Louis Style ribs are the best for this recipe. Please ask your butcher to cut spare rib across the bones, so you can have two long strips of spare ribs.

** I added habañero chili to add a bit of spiciness to the dish. If you don’t like spicy food, you can skip the habañero chili.


Procedures:
1. Preheat your oven at 400°F (205°C), and also boil a kettle of water.

2. Season pork ribs with salt and pepper lightly. Place the pork rib over a rack in a roasting pan. Cover the pork rib with parchment paper and cooking foil.


3. When the oven is preheated, place the roasting pan in the oven, and pour boiling water to the roasting pan. Please be careful to make sure that the water doesn't touch pork rib.


4. Tightly cover the roasting pan with cooking foil, and steam the pork ribs in the oven for 1.5 hours.


5. While the pork rib is cooking, grate shallot, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chili pepper together in a food processor.


6. Mix #5 with fish sauce, soy sauce, light brown sugar and pepper.

7. When pork rib is cooked, take it out from the oven, and spread #6 mixture all over the ribs. Then, place the ribs over a wired rack and bake another 30 minutes without cover. Move the tray under broiler to caramelize the ribs for a few minutes.

Before being baked.


After being baked & caramelized under broiler.

8. Slice the pork ribs alongside the bones, and garnish with sliced scallions and chopped roasted peanuts. Serve with steamed rice or rice noodle.


Enjoy~