Ingredients

• 2 – 2 1/4 lbs lean, meaty spare ribs, cut into 1-2″ nuggets (your butcher will do this for you)
• 2 tbsp corn oil
• 1 dried facing heaven chili, seeds removed, crushed
• 4 tbsp thinly sliced scallions
• 3 1/2 tbsp fermented black beans, lightly rinsed and coarsely chopped
• 6 large cloves of garlic, stem end (and any inner green bits) removed, peeled and lightly smashed
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 C water

Directions

1. Divide the rack into individual ribs by slicing the meat between the bones. You want separate ribs, small.

2. Heat up your wok until it is just starting to steam, then swirl enough oil in to coat the bottom and partially up the sides.

3. Add the scallions and crushed chili and stir-fry for just a moment, until fragrant.

4. Add the ribs and just brown them on all sides before removing them to a bowl to set a side. Work in batches if necessary (with a typical home kitchen sized wok, it will be).

5. Pour a bit of the water into the wok and scrape up any tasty browned bits that have stuck to the bottom, then mix that in with the ribs and all the other seasonings.

6. Put everything in a good braising pot. I’ve used anything from a clay sand pot to the instant pot, whatevs.

7. Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until the ribs are tender and done. This should take about 3-5 hours. (Tropp says 45 minutes. This is bullshit - braising to true tenderness takes hours. Cookbooks always lie about how long it takes for onions to brown or meat to braise.)

Notes

Adapted, with only tiny changes, from The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking by Barbara Tropp.

Ingredients

• 800g (1.75 lbs) firm tofu
• Corn starch, to dust the tofu
• 454g (1 lb) ground pork
• 3 tbsp sweet soy sauce / kecap manis
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 4 tsp dark soy sauce
• Safflower [or some other neutral] oil, for frying
• 65g (~4.5 tbsp) butter
• 12 small shallots (~350g), peeled and thinly sliced
• 12 garlic cloves, crushed and then minced
• 3 tbsp minced ginger
• 5 tbsp crushed (or very coarsely ground) black peppercorns
• 16 small, thin scallions, cut into segments 3cm (~1″) long
• Optional garnish: sliced pickled chilies

Directions

1. Stir the pork in with the soy sauces and set aside.

2. Cut the tofu into cubes (3cm x 2cm, or about 1″ x 1/2″) and toss them in corn starch, shaking off the excess.

3. Heat your wok until it starts to smoke and feels like a radiator with your hand held a few inches above the bottom, then pour in enough oil to really coat the bottom in a thin pool. Fry the tofu in batches in the oil, turning the pieces as you go so that they’re golden and crispy on all sides. Once they are golden all around, and have a thin crust, transfer to a paper towel. It’s important to do this in batches, because if you overcrowd your pan the tofu will steam instead of frying and will never develop that wonderful crisp, dried texture.

4. Clean the oil and tofu bits out of your wok, then throw in the butter. Once the butter melts, add the shallots, garlic and ginger, and stir-fry until it’s all shiny and soft (should take about 15 minutes, but of course your mileage may vary).

5. Stir in pork once the shallots are soft.

6. Stir in the black pepper once the pork is pretty much cooked.

7. Stir in the tofu and keep going for just a minute until it’s thoroughly warmed up and coated in the sauce, then stir in the scallions and remove from heat.

8. Optionally, serve with sliced pickled chilies and a bit of their pickling liquid (recipe below). I really like the flavor and extra heat these offer. Though seriously, even without the extra pickled chili garnish, it was ridiculously spicy considering that all the heat came from just the black pepper, not chilies of any sort. Really tastily so. Serve with lots of rice.

Notes

adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi, mostly by adding way more meat

Ingredients

1 cabbage (the typical green thick-leafed kind you find in the US)

for the filling

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 lb. rice, rinsed
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp édes paprika
• A little olive oil, just to help bind it together
• Salt and black pepper to taste

for the sauce

• 15 oz. sauerkraut (this is 1 jar, usually)
• Water
• Oil
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp édes paprika
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• Salt to taste
• 12 oz. tomato paste (this is 2 cans, usually)

Directions

1. Take off the most wretched outer leaves of the cabbage, and rinse the whole thing off. Steam the cabbage for 5-10 minutes, or until the leaves are pliable enough to bend easily. I find that after removing all the pliable leaves I can, I end up having to re-steam the still hard inner leaves. If I steam it so long that even they are pliable from the start, the outer leaves are easier to accidentally rip.

2. Peel off the leaves. Hold each leaf rib-side up, and pare the thick rib down to get rid of that tough vein and make it about as flat as the rest of the leaf.

3. Prepare the filling by mixing all the filling ingredients together by hand. The rice:meat ratio varies, though I have suggested using a 1:2 ratio here. Ima initially told me to use 1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts meat by weight, but when I tried it that way, there was way more rice than I’m used to when she cooks it. It may be that the type of rice used affects this – I don’t know what sort of rice Ima uses (Uncle Ben’s would be my guess), but I use basmati. Szaz Anna also uses 1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts meat by weight.

4. To fill each cabbage leaf, set the leaf on the table rib-side down, so that it naturally curves into a sort of cup waiting to be filled. Roll small handfulls of meat into oblong patties that fit the size of the leaves, and place the filling on the cabbage leaf, near the bottom of the leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf over the filling, and roll the cabbage around the meat, being sure to tuck the bottom end of the rib around the filling to keep it all snugly wrapped.

5. Cut the center out of the cabbage that remains, and discard. Chop up the rest of the cabbage into small pieces.

6. To fill the pot, start with a layer of that chopped up cabbage mixed with sauerkraut. Then place the stuffed cabbage in a flat layer on top of that, starting by lining them up around the circumference of pot and then filling in the middle. Add another layer of chopped cabbage and sauerkraut on top of that, then another layer of stuffed cabbage. Keep going like this until you run out of stuffed cabbage, and add a final layer of chopped cabbage and sauerkraut on top. Add water to just cover the contents of the pot.

7. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes.

8. A few minutes before your kitchen timer goes off, make a roux by browning the flour in a bit of oil in a separate pan. Stir in the paprika, then remove from heat. Add the sugar, salt, and tomato paste, and mix well. Ladle some of the water out of the cooking cabbage pot and mix in with the paste, just to thin it out. Add the thinned paste back into the pot with the cabbage, and carefully stir it in to dissolve it in the water. My grandmother instructed me to the shake the pot to get the paste mixed in, but my pot was too full for me to risk that.

9. Simmer for another 10-20 minutes, or until done.

Notes

1. The rice:meat ratio varies depending on who you ask, though I have suggested using a 1:2 ratio here. Ima initially told me to use 1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts meat by weight, but when I tried it that way, there was way more rice than I’m used to when she cooks it. It may be that the type of rice used affects this – I don’t know what sort of rice Ima uses (Uncle Ben’s would be my guess), but I use basmati. Szaz Anna also uses 1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts meat by weight. When I called Ima to ask her to clear this up for me, she explained that it is really based on what you can afford – if you can afford more meat, use less rice. If you want to stretch the meat further, use more rice. The rice also serves the purpose of keeping the meat from binding into nothing more than a tough patty; like the bread in meatballs, the rice here keeps the meat tender and good.

2. You can skip the roux if this needs to be gluten-free. The sauce’ll be a bit thinner but the world won’t end.

3. When I’m lazy I sometimes just make this as meatballs and chopped up cabbage. It all tends to fall apart into mush, gotta tweak it somehow to bind together better without the wrappers but I haven’t bothered because I don’t really mind eating bowls of delicious mush.