Those popular Chinese steamed ribs are flavored by the magic of black beans, you will love either in hot or cold days. It is quite easy to prepare and requires no cooking skills comparing with other Chinese rib dishes like sweet and sour ribs and ribs and sticky rice wrapped in lotus loot leaf. Fermented black beans also known as black Dou-chi is a famous seasonings in many Chinese cuisines. You may find it is required in lots of famous Szechuan dishes including twice cooked pork belly, mapo tofu and water boiled pork .
Steaming dishes is a quite popular technique in Chinese cooking year around, but I especially love this method on summer days. Honestly, I do very little stir frying in front of high fire because it is so hot. Steaming might be a more tolerable method. My first choice of steaming technique in summer is a high pressure or a rice cooker. Steamer over a wok seems like a less popular choice because more heats escapes. So I would suggestion you trying to make steamed dishes with your rice cooker or high pressure cooker, you can use a rack stand.
You may have already tried a very similar Cantonese style in dim sum halls. This is my personal favorite version, slightly differ from Dim Sum style in the marinating sauce.
Cook’s Note
- Marinating is the key step for a good flavor result.
- Pour hot oil over garlic and fermented black bean can motivate the aroma.
- Adding your favorite vegetable at the bottom have two purposes. The first one is to support the ribs and make sure they are evenly cooked. And the second is to absorb the juicy and make itself something really delicious.
Steps
Wash the ribs and then soak in clean water for half hour. Replace the water with clean water once again. Then drain completely.
Add white pepper, sugar, ginger, fermented black beans, oyster sauce, light soy sauce and cooking wine. Combine well, covered and set aside for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and mix well. Then place in garlic and fermented black beans. Pour around 2 tablespoons of hot oil on surface.
Place mushrooms at bottom and then lay the ribs on top. Try to avoid overlaying.
Steam the ribs for 30 minutes after the water boils. Serve hot.
- 500 g ribs
- 1 tbsp. Chinese Shaoxing wine
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp. oyster sauce
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
- 1/4 tsp. white pepper powder
- 2 spring onions
- 1 thumb ginger , shredded
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch
- 4 garlic cloves , finely chopped
- 1 tbsp. fermented black beans
- 2 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil
- beech mushooms , root removed
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Wash the ribs and then soak in clean water for half hour. Replace the water with clean water once again. Then drain completely.
-
Add white pepper, sugar, ginger, fermented black beans, oyster sauce, light soy sauce and cooking wine. Combine well, covered and set aside for at least 3 hours or overnight.
-
Add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and mix well. Then place in garlic and fermented black beans. Pour around 2 tablespoons of hot oil on surface.
-
Steam the ribs for 30 minutes after the water boils. Serve hot.
This recipe works well — I used a pressure cooker. Perhaps a bit more salt or a little soy sauce next time?
Hi Elaine,
You wrote:
“Set up your steamer and steam the fish for 20 minutes after water boils”
I’m quite sure that “fish” slipped in by accident there 🙂
None the less this is something I’m going to try out, as I love the taste of dou-chi.
Do you chop up the Ribs by yourself (I imagine it takes a rather heavy knife for that)?
It is a typo. Thanks for the correctness. I have already updated the recipe.
Hi Elaine, this recipe uses pork ribs or beef ribs?
With which I can substitute the Chinese wine?
Noemi,
Use pork ribs. If there is no Chinese wine by hand, you can replace it with dry sherry or skip it.
Hi Elaine! I have a question (probably a dumb one) about the ingredient. Is fermented black bean the same as the black bean sauce that is sold in a jar? The ribs look delicious and I want to try it, however fermented black bean isn’t an ingredient I’m familiar with. Thank you!
Hi Sophie,
Fermented black bean is different from black bean sauce. Although the sauce is developed on the fermented black beans but the original taste and aroma can be changed along with other ingredients added. If you are in US, you can try this one.
Hi Elaine,
I just made this, and it tastes great! My first attempt wasn’t quite perfect, as I chopped the black beans a bit to small which I realized when I tried to scoop them out of the marinade.
I was (pleasantly) surprised as the steaming preserves much more of the “meat” taste than many other Chinese recipes do.
Thank you again for the – as usual – detailed and easy to follow description. Cooking your recipes is really fun!
Thanks Andreas for trying and the great feedback. I am quite satisfied with the result too. Besides, it is quite easy. I love simple preparation dishes.
Delicious. Are you. sure starch water used two tablespoons of corn starch. I was left. with steamed cornstarch in bottom of bowl.
Alan,
I use a large amount of water starch to make sure each piece is coated. But I transfer them to a new bowl so there are so starch lumps at the bottom of the bowl.
That’s amazing.
Thanks!
I did not have pork ribs so I used porkbelly. The only thing wrong I found was the black beans I
used were far to salty for my taste. I think I will souk them for awhile next time. Thanks for all the lovely recipes you put on your site. Peter in New Zealand
Thanks Peter for the feedback. Yes, fermented black beans are quite salty. If you do not like its strong flavor, soaking in water can make it much milder.
Every other recipe I’ve found has said to steam between 10 to 20 minutes – is there any reason your recipe calls for steaming a lot longer? Does the meat become more tender the longer you steam it?
Recipe is updated. 20 minutes is enough.
I have already eaten this at a chinese restaurant and was sure to succeed, so I made it without prototyping first. After steaming for maybe 40 minutes the meat was still not tender, so I transfered it to a pot and boiled them in the sauce.
That does not make sense. The ribs should be ready in 20 minutes.