Braised Baby Back Ribs with Dates and Red Wine 紅酒蜜棗燉肋排

Here I'd like to recommend a Chinese food blog that inspires me a lot: 慵懶生活‧好好生活 by 貓兒. 
I learned many dishes, including this one I'm gonna write about, from her blog and her book. 她的部落格很溫馨, 她的文字輕快易懂, 平實 舒服~ I started following her blog before she became famous, had a cookbook published and began giving occasional lessons and demo.

A lot of bloggers become very commercialized and fake after gaining fame. 貓兒 (Lazy Cat) remains the same. She is as friendly and down to earth as ever. Her blog style is still heartwarming and unpretentious~ :)

Now back to this Braised Baby Back Ribs with Dates. The picture I took really doesn't do its justice. This is a delightful meat dish of which I have been missing the flavor ever since I first made it last month. It is adapted from French bistro cuisine, so bread such as baguette would be a great compliment to this main dish. I actually served it with brown rice the first night and with bread the next day. I enjoyed the dish both ways, but maybe because I am Asian. If you're used to having Western/ European dishes with bread, then you'd better stick to that option.

Braised Baby Back Ribs with Dates and Red Wine 紅酒蜜棗燉肋排
(Serves 2- 3 people)
adapted from Lazy Cat's 法式蜜棗燉肋排


Ingredients:

8-10 pieces of Baby Back Ribs (long strips of the meaty pork short ribs)
22 pitted dates, julienned, then soaked in red wine till just submerged for 30 minutes. Reserve the red wine for cooking.
60g bacon, julienned
1 onion, sliced
salt and pepper
vegetable oil

Sauce:

1 1/2 Cups red wine
1 Cup water
4- 6 Tbsp tomato paste
3 tsp Dijion mustard
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
salt and pepper

Directions:

- Heat up some vegetable oil in a pan over medium heat. Pan fry the pork ribs on both sides to brown them. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Cook bacon in the pan til some oil comes out, and add sliced onion. Stir fry until onion softens and turns translucent. Transfer into a deeper soup pot.
- Place the pork ribs in the pot with cooked bacon and onion. Add dates, red wine and water. Bring to boil, then simmer over low heat with lid covering 80% of the pot.
- Cook for about an hour til liquid dries out a bit and meat becomes tender.
- Stir in the rest of the sauce ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Simmer for another 20 minutes or so til the sauce thickens.
- Serve on plate with some fresh herbs as garnishment.

 Enjoy!! It's so Good that you won't get enough of it~