Chinese Steamed Spareribs with Black Bean 蒜蓉豆豉蒸排骨

This Cantonese dish of Steamed Spareribs with Black Bean 蒜蓉豆豉蒸排骨 is pretty darn good.  A taste of home, a real classic.  It's a staple of the Chinese dim sum lunch and tea time, usually served in dainty bamboo steamers in small but utterly yummilicious portions of tender pork and delicious fat, all marinated through and through with the umami that is properly prepared fermented black bean sauce.  

When we have it for dinner at home we like to make it in a much larger portion, being the carnivores that we are, and we finish it all in one a whoosh or two.  It's hard to think of a dish that is easier to prepare and more rewarding in terms of effort vs results!

Moroccan Mint Tea

This is my latest obsession!  We always have a pot of tea (usually pu-erh tea 普洱茶) in the morning to wake up and get us going.  But recently, having some extra mint leaves after making the fabulously yummy Vietnamese Beef Vermicelli Noodle Salad,  I thought of making a pot of mint tea with it.  

Well, one thing led to another and I ended up making Moroccan Mint Tea, which turned out to be the most amazing pot of tea: golden, sweet, the subtle flavors of Chinese tea transformed by the uplifting aromatics of mint!  This is so good even a lazy girl like me will spend a bit of effort of effort to brew it up.  This fragrant tea truly makes my day!