Winning Weeknight Char Siu Ribs + Pork Steak
made with grocery store ingredients, these pork recipes are remarkably easy and delicious
Hello everyone,
I must confess an eating quirk that you may be able to identify with and today, hopefully benefit from! I sometimes eat out for entertainment purposes (someone else does the dishes!) but mostly, I eat food prepared by others to learn something new, even if the food is meh or downright bad.
Here’s a case in point: Last weekend we dined at a very cheffy restaurant in Nashville and their side dish of butter beans and diced pork hock was good but bordered on being overly salty, mostly likely due to the cooks trying to push the deep umami savors. The meh beans inspired me to come home, thaw a tub of cooked Rancho Gordo beans for a pot of beans with ground pork nubbins flavored by cumin, fennel, thyme, ginger, garlic, carrot, and celery. The beans earned high compliments from Rory for days. I felt like I had rectified the so-so bean experience in Tennessee.
Similarly, a while back, I purchased a rack of char siu pork ribs from Ranch 99’s deli and barbecue department. I thought it would be treat for us. Cheery red due to food coloring that I was willing to overlook for the sake of convenience, the ribs were sadly disappointing. Argh. They were bland tasting, a contrast to their glamorous appearance.
Though I didn’t like the ribs whatsoever, they reminded me that you can char siu proteins other than boneless pork and chicken. There’s a lesson in every meal.
I’ve been stewing on those ribs ever since, and this week I tackled the recipe to rectify the situation and easily make sensational ribs. So that you know how doable this recipe is, I made the char siu ribs during a busy day of buying a new car. I’m not showing off. I simply pull certain levers in my kitchen and you should too!
At the dinner table, Rory’s eyebrows rose in amazement after his first bite. I joked that the ribs were my kind of revenge cooking but that’s incorrect. It’s more like righting a wrong done to our palates.
I don’t eat much meat so when I do, I want it to taste really good. So, this week, you’re getting the char siu pork ribs rectification recipe!
Did I come up with an easy Chinese-style barbecue ribs recipe that yields better results than at Ranch 99? Heck yes, and I made the ribs with ingredients from Safeway and Costco. They look ‘exotic’ because the hand-painted platter is from Vietnam.
What you’ll see in this three-recipe dispatch:
Scaleable char siu marinade recipe (I made a chart!). 😉 I’m planning other uses for it so hold on to the marinade formula.
Detailed char siu ribs recipe for baby backs and St. Louis-style pork ribs in text and downloable PDF formats.
Variation recipe for making char siu pork steaks!
2 bonus techniques for making tender ribs with more flavor.
Guidance on selecting ingredients.
Let’s get char siu-ing!