China Crumpet

Hello, my name is Ingela and I am a cooking show addict.

So, after watching the whole 5 seasons of (the British please!) Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey, I can now honestly say I absolutely never want to ever own a restaurant.

However, I have learnt that chefs often cook with cheap ingredients and use recipies that actually aren’t that complicated. Otherwise, they would not ever have time to serve their customers and they would loose money. That’s what Gordon says anyway.

Baring these new revelations in mind, I embarked on a culinary adventure into the minds of some real chefs and discovered recipes they have seen fit to trust us lowly home cooks with. And believe me when I say, Gordon was right. Nothing could have been more straight forward. All the recipes were found on Food and Wine magazine’s website and a couple have been slightly adapted due to China availability issues.

On Monday, we started with Ferran Adrià’s “toasted spaghetti with clams”, a huge success.

toasted spaghetti.. who knew THAT could be good??

We then moved on to what both hubby and I agreed were the best ribs we have ever had. Sticky and fall apart tender, “Mo’s sticky ribs recipe” by Fred Donnelly are definitely worth making AND (for all of you living in China who don’t have an oven) borrowing a neighbor or friends oven for!

finger lickin'...

Today, we made Eric Ripert’s “Sautéed Spanish Mackerel with Black-Eyed Pea Salad”. Again, we were not disappointed.

delicious, and healthy!

And now, to you, I now pass on the culinary wisdom I have learnt. Go ye and make home made glaze!

1. These babies need to cook for a long time, about 3 hours. But they pretty much take care of themselves and you will only spend about 20 minutes cooking. You will probably want to eat them all yourself… but 4 people can share them too, if you feel like company!
2. Adapted from Food & Wine Magazine
3. 
   

   with sour cream and scallions

4. 1 kg baby back ribs
5. Salt and freshly ground pepper
6. 3 chopped garlic cloves, for sprinkling
7. Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
8. 1 tablespoon whole cloves
9. One 1/2 liter bottle of lager
10. 2.5 dl ketchup
11. 2.5 dl peach or apricot jam
12. 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
13. Serve with baked potatoes, sour cream and scallions or a salad, or cole slaw, or just eat ‘em as they are!
14. Preheat the oven to 150°C. On a rimmed baking sheet, season the ribs with salt, pepper and garlic. Drizzle with oil and scatter the cloves over the ribs and in the pan. Pour the beer over the ribs, cover with foil and bake for 2 hours, until the meat is tender.
15. Strain the pan juices into a saucepan. Whisk in the ketchup, jam and lemon juice and boil over high heat until reduced to about 4 dl, about 25 minutes.
16. Preheat the broiler. Set the ribs meaty side down on the baking sheet, brush with glaze and broil 10 cm from the heat for 7 minutes. Turn the ribs and brush with half of the remaining glaze. Broil for 10 minutes, until starting to char. Brush with the remaining glaze and broil until browned, 10 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes and serve.

We found ourselves mentally drained this weekend, completely exhausted after a long week and unable to think straight. Add to that the fact that there was christmas shopping to do for the big trip home on Saturday and the fact that it was bitterly cold and you have a recipe for disaster. Luckily we also had a recipe for success stuck up our sleves in the form of a fatty rack of pork ribs. The Chinese make the best ribs in the world, but I wanted to make some that were a little more fusion than just your average sweet and sour.

Have I told you how much I love sweet and sticky meat? The kind that falls off bones and melts in the mouth? Well, this turned out exactly that way and I ate until I was slightly sick. We had it will a red cabbage cole slaw and fried potato cubes.

1 rack of short ribs, choose ones with plenty of meat
3 dried chili’s
A couple of plump garlic cloves (to taste), chopped
1 small handfull of good quality dried apricots, chopped
1 small handfull of good quality prunes, chopped
Plenty of salt and pepper
Olive oil

4 tbs honey
4 tbs balsamic vinager

Mix up everything except the honey and the vinager and bash it to a paste in a pestle and morter. Rub the meat with the mixture, getting it in to all the nooks and crannies. Put the meat in an oven dish and cover with foil. Bake in 200 degrees for an hour and twenty minutes. Mix up the honey and vinager and pour over the ribs and bake for another 20-30 minutes basting every now and again until the outside of the ribs are crisp and caramelized and the meat falls off the bone.

Eat and enjoy.