Japanese style pork spare ribs and Flavored soft boiled egg
Today’s dish will take some time but you won’t have to work too hard - you’ll just have to leave the pot on the stove for a while.
When we went grocery shopping on Monday, we were able to get meat but didn’t have many choices. I found a rack of pork ribs so decided to cook them in Japanese style. We’re going to simmer the ribs for a long time and make the meat super soft and it will fall off the bone easily. Also, I’ll show how to cook flavored soft boiled eggs that matches this ribs dish. You’ll often see this type of egg on top of ramen.
Japanese style pork spare ribs
Pork spare ribs 4lb
Ginger 5-6 thin slices (you can substitute with the skin of ginger instead)
Green part of green onion
Sake 1/2 cup
Cane sugar (If you don’t have one, substitute with whatever sugar you have) 2.5 Tablespoons
Soy sauce 5 Tablespoons
Mirin 2 Tablespoons
Red chili pepper flake 1/2 teaspoon (If you like slightly spicy taste)
Pat off ribs with a paper towel, and then cut them between the bones.
In a large pan, add small amount of oil and heat the pan on high heat.
Cook all sides of the meat until the color turns to a nice brown. Remove ribs from pan.
In a large pot, boil water and add the ribs. Once the water starts to boil again, drain out the water with a colander.(This process removes gamy smell)
Add ribs, ginger and green part of green onion, and pour in enough new water to cover the ribs.
Add 1/2 cup of sake and turn the heat to high.
Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to low, skim scum from the surface of the water with a ladle and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add cane sugar and keep simmering for 10 minutes.
Add soy sauce, mirin and red chili pepper flake(optional) and simmer another 20 minutes.
Remove the ribs from the sauce and cook down the sauce until thickened. (See the picture above for thickness)
Turn off the heat, add the ribs back to the sauce and mix.
Serve with flavored boiled egg (see the recipe below) and boiled spinach (see my blog from 2 days ago)
Flavored soft boiled egg (半熟煮玉子)
Eggs 4
Mirin 2 Tablespoons
Soy sauce 2 Tablespoons
Water or dashi stock 2 Tablespoons
Leave eggs at room temperature for around 1 hour. If you use cold eggs, you’ll crack them easily while boiling.
Prepare ice water in a medium bowl.
In a pot, boil water. Add eggs very gently into the water with a mesh skimmer/strainer.
Cook eggs for 5 minutes.
Drain water and put eggs in the ice water immediately.
After 1 minute, crack the eggs and put them back in the ice cold water for another 10 minutes.
Prepare sauce to marinate eggs. In a small bowl, combine mirin, soy sauce and water (or dashi stock) and bring to boil.
Once it starts boiling, cook for 30 seconds and turn off the heat.
Let it cool down and put the eggs and the sauce together in a zip-lock bag and remove air as much as possible.
Marinate for at least 2 hours.