Stewed Pork Ribs in Orange Juice

I came across this interesting twist to the otherwise quite a common homey dish for Chinese families.  Instead of stewing in soy sauce, orange juice was used.  And because it was stewed instead of fried and drizzled with orange sauce, the flavor was much more intense. The meat was tender but with some crisp parts due to some slight browning and bursting with rich orange flavors. 

Dish was well received, we had this over dinner, hence the poor night lighting photo.  I don't like the shiny finishing caused by flash lights.  So most of the time I try making dishes that are blog-worthy during the day :) But I am glad that the orange tint is quite obvious and with some orange fibre bits in sight for this dish to lift up to its name.

One thing to bear in mind, make sure the oranges are sweet, apparently this is the key thing for this dish.  Not sure to what extend but I took it so seriously that I cut another after tasting that the first one wasn't exactly sweet.

Recipe

Source : Christine's Recipes

Ingredients

• 700g pork ribs
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp finely chopped garlic
• 2 tsp white cooking wine

Ingredients for sauce

• 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice, sifted
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 Tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp raw sugar
• 1/2 tsp orange zest (only the orange part) - I obmitted this, was afraid i would end up with some white parts that will make the sauce bitter and spoil the dish

Method

1. Rinse pork ribs and wipe dry with kitchen papers. Season with salt and pepper on both sides.
2. Use a claypot or a large saucepan. Pour in the sauce and bring it to a boil over medium heat.
3. While heating sauce, brown pork ribs on a frying pan until both sides are lightly golden. Push pork ribs to sides of pan, add a bit more of oil and saute grated ginger and garlic until fragrant. Sprinkle wine. Quickly stir to combine all ingredients.
4. Transfer to the boiling sauce and cover with a lid. Cook until it boils again.
5. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours, or until sauce reduced to about 1/5, thickened, and the pork is softened and caramelized. Serve hot with steamed rice.