Let's Cook Thai - Southern Style Pork Ribs

Some of you might have noticed that I love pork ribs and most of the time i will choose to braise them, easy peasy.   I am lazy like that, easy preparation methods are always my way to go. Braising (if done well) results in very tender and succulent ribs, i love how the ribs end up with a taste that commingles with the braising liquid. Besides, it also provides a nice stew that goes very well with rice, our staple.   

With Asian Food Fest (AFF) blogging event, i have been curious if people from the featured country like pork ribs and how they make (preferably braise) them.  I have been looking out for their recipes and have been successful thus far.  I have done the Japanese style for last month's AFF here and moving on to Thailand for this month.  Hopefully my interest won't die out and will continue along with the AFF journey.  Looking forward to a collection of Asian Pork Ribs recipes!

The name of this dish is Gar Doog Mu Hung Le (Southern Thai Pork Ribs) which like in its name a typical Southern Thailand pork ribs dish.   Not much of a background on the dish?  That's about all i manage to find, my apologies if it is not enough to satisfy :)

So, how did this taste?  In one word, delicious! Very flavorful, just a hint of spiciness (which probably  would have been a lot more if not because i had to tone it down to suit my son), very fragrant from the herbs and a lot of sweetness from the onions.   We loved it although i didn't follow the recipe to a T.  I guess we have to play by ear (a little not too much lest the original flavors disappear with the playing) when trying out recipes from a different culture, some tuning maybe in need to make it to more acceptable for our taste buds.

Like i said earlier on, easy peasy, a 5 steps recipe!

Recipe

Reference: Appon's Thai Food

Ingredients 1 

• 60 gms Big Dried Red Chillies (1 tbsp prepared dried chili paste)
• 60 gms Small Red Onion
• 60 gms Garlic
• 60 gms Lemon Grass
• 60 gms Coriander Root (Roots from 2 plants)
• 1 Teaspoon Salt

Ingredients 2 

• 600-800 gms Pork Ribs
• 2 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 400 ml Water
• 4 Tablespoons Oil (omitted)
• 4 Tablespoons Sugar (2 tbsp)

Steps

1. Chop all the ingredients from the first list, pound together to form a paste. (I used a blender)
2. Mix into the second lot of ingredients and leave for 30 minutes. (100ml water of water and left it for 1 hour) 
3. Put pork into a medium size pot.  Add in remaining water and stir to mix well. Water should be just enough to cover ribs.
4. Bring the pork and sauce to boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 1-2 hours. Add a little water if it dries out. (Ribs were tender within 1 hour)
5. For best results, leave it overnight and recook it the following day. (Was good enough for us after 3 hours or so)

Note: 

1. The recipe above is doubled of the original recipe for my easy reference.  I normally make around 600-650g of pork ribs for 1 meal.
2. My variations are noted in blue.  
3. The biggest variation would be the amount of chili which i had to reduce to suit my son's accepted level of spiciness.  If  you have readily prepared chili paste on hand, it would be easier to control the spiciness by starting of with a smaller amount and increasing it to preference at a later stage.

I leave you with some sights around the iconic floating markets of Thailand.  This particular one here is in Bangkok at the Taling Chan District and on the Khlong Chak Phra canal.  One that is much smaller, popular with the locals (i.e. less touristy), personally it is one that is good enough for me to sample a flavor of the floating market.

Scenes along the canal taken during a long tail boat ride

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest (Thailand) - November Month hosted by Lena of Frozen Wings