pork ribs

Sweet and sour ribs (糖醋小排, tang cu xiao pai) is a famous Shanghai dish that is intended as an appetizer and served cold. The authentic sweet and sour pork is quite difficult to replicate at home. The ribs are lightly marinated and coated with cornstarch, then deep fried quickly to get a crispy surface without cooking through. Then the sweet and sour sauce is quickly cooked and reduced in hot oil. In the end, the ribs are added back for a quick stir fry (like a few seconds) to coat the sauce and just get them cooked through. It might sounds like an easy dish, but the actual process is quite daunting.

There are three things that are very difficult to achieve at home. (1) a very powerful gas stove (2) tons of hot oil so you can fry ribs in less than 1 minute (3) moving quickly enough to do the whole cooking process in less than 5 minutes. That is why when people are cooking these ribs at home, they have to alter the cooking method to make the process easier. The difficulty is, if you cook them too quickly, the ribs will end up with an unpleasant raw smell. But if you cook them for a longer time, they will lose the crispy and spongy texture and a stir-fried dish will just turn into a braised one. When this dish is made in a restaurant, the bad smell of the pork will be removed through deep frying, which is a process we are trying to avoid.