Chinese Pork Ribs with Plum Preserves + Giveaway

This winter has been super busy here at my Brooklyn studio. Since launching Plate & Pencil, and being busy teaching a ton of post-holiday classes, I've been pretty much sticking to simple nightly cooking routines. Roast chicken and salads. Spaghetti. Takeout. A Sunday of dumpling-making followed by 5 days of dumplings for dinner. I kept meaning to get back into the kitchen to develop a new recipe. And luckily, a few weeks ago, I got asked by Bonne Maman, one of my favorite jam companies, to develop a recipe with the National Pork Board to use one of their delicious jams and preserves with St. Louis-style pork ribs.

How could I say no to developing a recipe for sweet and savory ribs?

When I make Chinese-style roasted meats, there is usually a sweet element involved, whether in the form of honey, sugar, and/or hoisin sauce. So it wasn't a big departure to use plum preserves instead. The thick texture makes the preserves perfect for a marinade, and they whisk easily with other ingredients I have on hand.

For this recipe, I used St. Louis-style pork ribs, which are basically just pork ribs with the sternum  bone, cartilage, and rib tips removed. Any good butcher can easily square off the rack of ribs for you. Though the name of the cut comes from St. Louis-style barbecue, it's also the cut most typically served in Chinese restaurants in the US. 

So...have these photos enticed you enough to try them yet? They are super easy with a great complex flavor of sweetness from the preserves, tartness from the vinegar, earthiness from the hoisin sauce, and lip-smacking savoriness from the soy sauce and pork itself. Not to mention roasted garlic aroma and flavor.  You simply cut the ribs apart before roasting, whisk together the marinade, wait a few hours, then roast in the for 45 to 50 minutes. St. Louis-style ribs are so incredibly versatile and easy to prepare that it's surprising more home cooks don't use them for more than barbecue.

Giveaway:

So, dear readers, now you have a chance to win some cool prizes: a $40 Visa gift card courtesy of the National Board Pork, and 12 jars of Bonne Maman jams ($60 value).

• Simply visit porkbeinspired.com/PORKLUV or http://facebook.com/PorkBeInspired and post a message sharing why you love pork with the hastag #PORKLUV.
• You can get an additional entry by using Twitter to tweet about this recipe with hashtag #PORKLUV.
• Then just post a comment here at the bottom of this post with your name and email address so we can contact you.
• Giveaway will end March 7th, 2014. 

Plus! By sharing your #PORKLUV you'll also be helping those in need. Each Facebook share will turn up the heat on the #PORKLUV map, an interactive map that measures how much #PORKLUV there is in each state. The state with the most shares will receive a 30,000-meal fresh pork donation to the food bank in their state. 

Hope you enjoy the recipe and follow the simple steps above for a chance to win and help your state's food bank!

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Chinese Pork Ribs with Plum Preserves

Serves 4

• 4 pounds St. Louis-style pork ribs
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup Bonne Maman plum jam
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce

1. Prepare the marinade: in a large bowl, combine the minced garlic, plum jam, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and hoisin sauce. Whisky until smooth. Place the ribs in a gallon-size freezer bag and pour the marinade over the ribs. Close the bag and shake so that all the ribs get covered with marinade. Place the freezer bag in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or ideally overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with tin foil or parchment paper. Place the ribs on the lined baking sheets bone-side-down. Reserve the remaining marinade and brush some of it on top with a pastry brush. Roast for 45 to 50 minutes, brushing more marinade over the top of the ribs about halfway through. The ribs are done when they are golden brown on top and cooked through.
3. Transfer the ribs to a large platter and serve. Enjoy!

Chinese New Year Dumplings & Wontons Class - Feb. 5th

This doesn't happen very often, but my next Dumplings & Wontons class in Brooklyn falls right in the middle of Chinese New Year! OnFeb 5th, come join us at West Elm Market in DUMBO to celebrate the New Year,dumpling-style. You'll learn a variety of ways to fold both dumplings and wontons as well as sure-fire methods of cooking them perfectly. Plus, there will be plenty of eating at the end.

Also, readers of Appetite for China can get $10 off with the discount code NEWYEAR.  Sign up and join us!

Rumaki - Mad Men-Era Chinese Cooking

First off, thank you so much for all your support surrounding the launch of Plate & Pencil last week. It's always a little scary (in addition to exciting) starting a new business venture. But I'm over the moon after receiving so many positive responses here and on Facebook about the shop. Not to mention orders for products from the shop, like the Dumplings Around the World tote bag. As it happens, the tote bag is going in for a 2nd printing! (And since we have about a week to go before Christmas, you can use code MERRYDUMPLINGS now through Thursday for free First Class shipping within the U.S.)

Last Wednesday was also the 1st birthday of The Chinese Takeout Cookbook! Earlier in the day, I was cleaning up around the house and found a mock-up of the original proposed cover that my publisher sent, with the working title. It was fun to do a side-by-side comparison of how much changed in just a few months from editing the final draft and working on the cover design to the actual publication. 

To celebrate the book's first birthday, I wanted to revive a recipe that was cut from the final manuscript because of lack of space. (I've been doing that a lot lately. Recently I taught a Sichuan class at The Brooklyn Kitchen that had a recipe for Bon Bon Chicken, a great recipe that also had to be cut. Ah nostalgia!) So, onward to rumaki, because everyone needs a good party appetizer up their sleeves during the holiday season. 

Just what is rumaki? And what is its link to Chinese-American food?

Rumaki may be an unfamiliar appetizer these days, but it sported quite a hip reputation in the middle of last century. It first appears on the menus of tiki restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the 1940s. Trader Vic’s founder Victor Bergeron claimed it had Chinese origins, by way of Hawaii, but in actuality it was likely his own creation inspired by angels on horseback, an English pub snack of bacon-wrapped oysters.

The name’s origin is also fuzzy, but possibly a take on harumaki, Japanese for pork spring roll. Whether or not the Trader created rumaki, he no doubt deserves credit for popularizing this appetizer - skewers of chicken liver and water chestnuts wrapped in crispy bacon - with the dining public. It became such a hit as a pupu platter staple that even Chinese restaurants started serving it as an appetizer.

In the baby boomer era, rumaki became a fixture on the hor d’oeuvre platter of the suburban cocktail-swilling set. The dish’s entry into the mainstream is even captured in an episode of Mad Men, as Betty Draper serves rumaki to guests at her internationally-themed dinner party, though she does call it Japanese.

So in short, it's really an American invention created for American diners during an era of fascination with anything that seemed remotely Polynesian and Asian. But that doesn't negate the fact that it's a delicious hors d'oeuvre. After testing it for my cookbook, I even made it for a tiki-themed supper club dinner in 2011, to much success. Now, back in the 1960s, housewives like Betty Draper would have made rumaki with bacon and chicken liver, but I like to make them with bacon and pineapple plus a few key ingredients for brushing over the top: grated ginger, soy sauce, and a little oil to get 'em golden brown and crispy. 

If you're looking for a festive appetizer with a dose of '60s nostalgia thrown in, try serving up a platter of these this holiday season. I definitely will when I'm back home for Christmas!

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Rumaki

Makes 16

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon honey or agave nectar 
• 1 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
• Pineapple cut into 16 1-inch cubes
• 8 slices bacon

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
2. Soak 16 toothpicks in a small bowl of water for 10 minutes or so.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, olive oil, honey, and grated ginger. Set aside. 
4. Slice the bacon strips in half. Wrap each pineapple cube with half a bacon strip, secure with a soaked toothpick, and place on a baking sheet. Brush the outside with the soy sauce and ginger mixture.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the bacon is fully cooked and crispy golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the rumaki to a plate lined with paper towels to catch any remaining bacon drippings. Transfer to a large plate and serve warm.

Dumplings Around the World Tote Bag

It has been a little quiet around these parts lately, but I'm happy to finally announce something exciting that had been in the works for months.

For the past few holiday seasons, I've looked high and low for food-related gifts for my food-loving friends and family. It was easy to find paper products and apparel printed with fruits and vegetables, but I couldn't for the life of me find goods that celebrated favorite foods from around the world. Dumplings. Ramen. Laksa. Tacos. Borscht. Banh mi. Food that I and a ton of people I know are wildy passionate about.

So I decided to launch a new shop call Plate & Pencil with designs that were influenced by our favorite international cuisines. The first of what will be many products is this Dumplings Around the World tote bag. It was really fun to get back into doing art and design work for the first time since before culinary school, and at the same time challenging to source quality materials from good companies. I'm happy to have found a tote bag manufacturer that follows international Fair Labor and Fair Wage practices as well as great local screen printer for printing the designs. 

We just launched in time for the holiday season, so come by to check out the goods for yourself or your global food-loving friends and family members! And as a launch special for Appetite for China readers, we're doing free shipping within the U.S. on all items now through Thursday with code DUMPLINGLOVE. :)

We're adding products all week long so stop by for a peek!

Sichuan-Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

I've had a bag of raw pumpkin seeds sitting in my fridge for the last few weeks. For Tangra Fall last month, the Chinese-Indian pop-up feast I hosted with Chitra from The ABCD's of Cooking, we had experimented with a bunch of recipes before settling on our final menu. One of the dishes was Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts served with roasted delicata squash. Along with the pumpkin seeds, I had a bag of leftover seeds from the squash as well.

Today I finally decided to fire up my oven to roast these seeds. As much as I love the purist version, tossed with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, I wanted to give these seeds a little kick and add some other spices as well. 

The most time-consuming hands-on thing you have to do with pumpkin seeds is clean them. I usually rinse them in a bowl of cold water to loosen up all the pumpkin/squash fiber, then dry them on a kitchen towel for a few hours or overnight. (Or in this case, leave them sitting in my fridge and counter for a few weeks.)

Onward to the flavoring part. I used ground Sichuan pepper and cayenne pepper for the smokiness and tongue-tingling goodness. Then I smashed a few cloves of garlic because, really, anything roasted with garlic smells and tastes amazing. And then added some ground ginger, salt, and pepper too.

Okay, so you know how some of the best snack foods on earth have are both salty and sweet? Kettle corn? Sea salt caramels? Sea salt caramel ice cream? I decided to add a bit of granulated sugar at the end right when the seeds came out of the oven (not before roasting, otherwise it melts and gets sticky.) The bit of sugar elevated these pumpkin seeds from great to YESSSS!!!

Do give these a try!

Do you roast pumpkin seeds for a snack? What do you like to add for flavoring? Let me know in the comments! Always up for new ideas.

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Sichuan-Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

• 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (you can also use seeds from fall/winter squash like butternut, acorn, and delicata squash)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
• 1/4 teaspoon ground Sichuan pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (1/4 teaspoon if you'd prefer more of a kick)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, toss the pumpkin seeds with the olive oil, garlic, Sichuan pepper, ginger, cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper. Spread the seeds and smashed garlic out on a single layer on a sheet pan. Roast for 20 minutes, then remove the sheet tray from the oven to give the seeds a good stir. Place back in the oven to roast for another 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown on top. (Smaller seeds like delicata squash seeds need only 25 minutes of roasting time total, so remove at the 10 minute mark to give them a good stir.)
3. Remove from the oven. Toss on the pan with the granulated sugar. Allow the seeds to cool for 5 to 10 minutes on the pan before transferring to a dish to serve.

Cinnamon Pear Muffins + Giveaway

November officially marks the beginning of baking season in my apartment. Most of the year, I'll occasionally make cookies, pies, and muffins, but spend the majority of my time in the kitchen on savory bites like dumplings, noodles, stir-fries. But come mid-November, the baking kicks into high gear. (So does the pinning of baked good images on Pinterest.)

Mostly I'm testing out food gifts for family and friends or goodies I can contribute to the table for Thanksgiving or Christmas week. The past few years I've been delegated with making pies for Thanksgiving, but this year I'll also add some muffins to the mix for Thanksgiving morning. After all, you can't start preparing turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pies on an empty stomach.

This month I'm doing a post for BlogHer with Del Monte to come up with a holiday recipe inspired by Del Monte® products. So I'm using some Del Monte® Bartlett Pear Halves to make batches of cinnamon-scented muffins. (So fitting for fall, right?)

You can easily have a convenient garden in your pantry with Del Monte® canned fruits and vegetables. Almost all (90%) of their produce is grown in the U.S. The fruits and vegetables are picked and packed at the height of ripeness. And 95% of their canned fruit and vegetables (including tomatoes) are preservative-free. To prepare for a holiday season full of drinking and chocolate-eating, it's good to have a pantry stocked with fruit and vegetables within reach.

I used the Bartlett Pear Halves in 100% pear juice from concentrate. After draining the pears and chopping them up to 1-inch cubes, I just mixed the cubes into the prepared batter and put them into the oven to bake. 

It was pretty easy to whip up a batch of these Cinnamon Pear Muffins just after rolling out of bed last weekend, while still in my pajamas, with just a fresh pot of coffee to get me going.  It was a nice and relaxing way to wake up and bake, without needing to run out to the grocery store. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg all morning. This is a scenario I want to recreate on Thanksgiving and Christmas day.

What are your favorite fruit and vegetables to stock in your pantry? Answer in the comments below and you could win a $100 Crate and Barrel gift card! 

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Cinnamon Pear Muffins

Makes 12

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling on top of the muffins
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on top of the muffins
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1 15-ounce can Del Monte® Pears Halves in 100% Pear Juice from Concentrate, drained and diced

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
3. In a mixer or separate mixing bowl, cream the butter with the light brown sugar and granulated sugar, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Add half the flour mixture and half of the soy milk and continue mixing. Add the remainder of the flour mixture and soy milk and mix just until the batter is smooth.
5. After draining the pears and chopping them up to 1-inch cubes, mix the cubes into the prepared batter.
6. Line a muffin tray with muffin cups and butter to top of the pan. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups (they should fill up to the top of the cups.) Sprinkle extra sugar and cinnamon on top of each muffin. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Carefully transfer the muffins to a cooling rack to cool, then enjoy!

Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b:Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: "#SweepstakesEntry"; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

 c: Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d: For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 11/18/2013-12/18/2013

Be sure to visit the Del Monte® brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers reviews and find more chances to win!