New dish - Pork Ribs with Bitter Gourd

I always cook on Sundays, when my in-laws not staying over my place. Yesterday, I decided to try my mum’s yet another yummy dish. Pork Ribs with Bitter gourd.

Yesterday morning, we went to Tiong Bahru Market for brunch, as well as to get the ingredients for last night’s dinner. While Bob was queuing for the infamous Lor Mee, I called Mum for some quick instructions on how to cook the dish; in fact, I only learnt it in 5 mins! Smart can?

It’s pretty easy to cook but as usual, my mum always say “agar lah” when I ask her how much ingredients I should use. So it’s also “agar-agar”, trial and error, when I cook. The amount of ingredients I use are usually based on the amount of the main ingredient, in this case the pork ribs. But I never cooked with ‘tau see’ (salted black bean) before, hence I really don’t know how to gauge. I’m supposed to fry the tau see with the garlic and small onions before I fry the ribs and bitter gourd. Then I’m supposed to simmer the stuff for an hour or so. During the simmering part, I realized that the tau see was not enough, I had to keep adding and eventually, I added one whole packet!

Fortunately, the taste was pretty good. Almost mum’s taste. I’m very happy! I love to eat this dish and now I can cook it myself whenever I have cravings. Bob was very happy too. He loves to eat, and he loves it that I love cooking as well, and he’s extremely happy to see me learning new dishes (sad for him, I refused to learn those Kelantan dishes). While I was cooking yesterday, he walked into the kitchen, with a wide grin on his face and commented on the nice aroma. His verdict on the dish? Good! And my verdict on the dish? Good! (I’m trying to be humble here).