I’ve finally stopped procrastinating and start updating this blog (Has it really been 6 months since my last post?!). I hope everyone’s doing ok, considering the scary situation we are in now, fighting the Covid-19 as a Pandemic.

Here in Malaysia, we are in the third week of our Movement Control Order. We have been ordered to stay at home since 18th March and this has also been further extended to 14th April as there are still many people defying the MCO and there are still significant numbers of newly infected patients daily. No matter what your country’s strategy is, I hope you are practising social distancing and taking care of yourself.

Anyway I’m not here to talk about the Pandemic. Though because of the MCO, many of us have been cooking daily and here I’ve been building up quite a repertoire! To start off the MCO Keto meals series, I’d like to introduce you to this delicious stew: Tomato Braised Pork Ribs.

Since we’ve been living the keto lifestyle, our meat choices shifted from the extremely fatty, to the more meaty spectrum overtime. I can live daily eating just a lovely piece of Rib Eye steak, while Pork Belly cooked in certain ways can make me feel a bit sick. Currently pork ribs are the family favourite pork part. It has a nice balance of fat and meat and even some soft bones to add some textural contrast. I’ve experimented with many recipes and today’s recipe has been a clear favourite so far.

Pairing tomato and pork together might an obvious choice, but it’s not commonly done with pork ribs. As compared to those doused in sickly sweet sauce, I’d pick this any day. The combination of savoury and piquant flavours will have you reaching for more!

Tomato Braised Pork Ribs (recipe adapted from Wendyinkk)

1kg Pork Ribs (I used a mixture of spare Ribs and soft bones)
4 tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 cloves Garlic, chopped
Thumb size Ginger, sliced
1 tbsp Tamari
1 generous splash Shao Xing Wine
Salt
Pepper
Good handful of Spring Onions cut into 1 inch chunks

First, marinate pork Ribs with Tamari, rice wine, salt and pepper and let it sit for at least 30mins.

Melt lard (or your oil of choice) in pan, brown the Ribs slightly and set aside.

In the pressure cooker, add ginger and garlic to stir fry with some lard. Then add half the tomatoes and stir fry til soft. Add Ribs and small amount of water. Cook under pressure for 20minutes.

Once the pressure cooking is done, wait 10 minutes or more for the pin to go down or manual release pressure. Add the rest of tomatoes and half the spring onion (especially the white part) in. Let it simmer together for 5 minutes or until the tomatoes starts to go soft.

I also threw in a handful of kailan towards the end as we had just a little bit leftover. Once everything is cooked its time to serve. I added in final splash of Shao Xing for aroma.

However, if you don’t have a pressure cooker, the stove top method is just as easy. You just need to simmer for just a little longer, I’d suggest around 45minutes.

We sure polished the entire pot clean that day and I can’t wait to get my hands on more pork ribs to make this again. I hope you give this recipe a try too and let me know how it goes.

Let’s also hope the next post will be up soon enough. Thanks for reading!