This Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs dish is a mouth-watering appetizer and goes-great-with-cold-beer type of dish from China. Normally, the ribs are deep fried, but I wanted to cook a version that didn’t require me to waste 3 cups of cooking oil. If you do want to deep fry the ribs, Curiously Ravenous has a recipe from Ye Ye (Grandfather).

And I found the perfect recipe in Fushia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province. When I first heard about Fushia Dunlop and how authentic and thorough her recipes were, I immediately bought this book and the Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. If you’re a fan of Chinese cooking, I definitely recommend both books. Ms. Dunlop has another book out which is a memior, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

About Dark Soy Sauce

Dark Soy Sauce is not regular soy sauce. it’s labeled Thick or Dark Soy Sauce and it’s more intense, sweeter and less salty than regular soy sauce as it contain molasses. Dark Soy Sauce is used in many Chinese braised dishes.

About Chinese Black Vinegar

Chinese Black Vinegar is an essential ingredient that adds the “sour” to the Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs recipe. The best black vinegar is from the Chinkiang Province of China. My family loves to dribble the tiniest spoonful into my Mom’s Famous Crispy Egg Rolls (take a bite from one end of the egg roll, spoon a few drops inside.) You can substitute with balsamic vinegar.

About the ribs

Traditionally, this recipe is made from spare ribs cut into small, 1 1/2″ pieces. Sometimes these are called “rib tips” at American grocery stores. At Chinese markets, these ribs are pre-cut, and packaged like this.

Just use kitchen shears or a knife to cut between the bones to get rib tips.

If you are not near an Asian market, you’ll either have to ask your butcher to cut them for you (don’t try to do this yourself at home….you’ll just ruin your nice knives), or you can use baby back ribs, and leave them whole, which is what I did.