My husband and I are a big fan of Asian dishes, and awhile back he found this website called the Ravenous Couple that has some amazing Vietnamese recipes.  While we were looking through their website last week my husband said that we should move to LA (or them to Colorado) so we can be friends!  I don’t think that will happen, so we’ll just have to recreate their recipes!

The sweet & sour pork ribs (Suon Xao Chua Ngot) is the latest recipe to try, and they were amazing – the sauce was out of this world.  We ended up doubling the sauce and meat, but next time we’ll double the sauce and triple the meat (we had dinner, and there was a lot of sauce left over for lunch but there wasn’t a ton of meat left over).  The recipe below is for double the sauce and triple the meat.

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pounds pork spare ribs bone in, cut into 1-1.5 inch pieces
• 2 medium shallot, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce
• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 6 medium ripe tomatoes, diced into small cubes
• cornstarch mix: 2 teaspoons cornstarch 4 tablespoons water, stir into a slurry
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 2 Thai chilies (or any spicy chili), chopped (optional)
• cooking oil
• water
• jasmine rice

Directions:

Rinse and then soak the rice for 20 minutes.  Rinse the rice again.  Boil the rice in a pot or rice cooker (we always do 1.5 cups rice to 2 cups of water).

Briefly marinade the spareribs with the fish sauce, sugar, and garlic in a bowl for a few minutes.

In a large saute pan or wok heat about 2 tbs of cooking oil on medium high and add the shallots.  When fragrant, add the spare ribs and sear until the edges are golden brown (brown in batches so that each spare rib touches the pan and there is a bit of space between each spare rib).  Add enough water to just cover the spareribs, then place a lid on your pan and reduce the heat to medium-low and allow to simmer for about 25-30 minutes.  The ribs will become tender – the longer you simmer them for, the more tender they will become (you could simmer for 45-60 minutes) .

After simmering the water will be slightly reduced.  Add the diced tomatoes and continue to simmer until tomatoes are broken down and the sauce thickens.  Add the cornstarch slurry and mix well, this will thicken the sauce even more.   Finally, season the sauce with a pinch of salt or fish sauce and by adding equal parts vinegar and sugar, add more if necessary, adjusting to taste.  The sauce should be sweet and sour.  Add the Thai chilies and green onions and then cook for an additional 2 minutes.   Serve over jasmine rice.