PRICE: £1.99 per pack in Sainsburys

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION (per ribsteak, after cooking):

Calories: 168
Kj: 802
Protein: 12.9g
Carbohydrate: 6.2g
- of which sugars: 6.2g
Fat: 10.2g
- of which saturates: 4.3g
Fibre: 0.3g
Sodium: 0.4g
Salt equivalent: 1.0g

INGREDIENTS:

Pork (84%), sugar, maltodextrin, tomato powder, salt, flavourings, wheat starch, yeast extract, onion powder, garlic powder, spices, roasted barley malt extract, cochineal, vegetable oil, citric acid, wheat rusk, wheat gluten, pea fibre, wheat protein, pork fat

DIETARY/ALLERGY ADVICE:

Contains gluten, wheat, yeast & barley
Although care has been taken to remove all bone pieces, some may remain

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Dalepak Chinese Style Ribsteaks are to be found in the frozen food section of most supermarkets. They come in a flattish box, which bears images of a Chinese-style meal on the front incorporating the ribs, and the Dalepak standard logo. The rear of the box shows nutritional information, ingredients, dietary/allergy advice, storage/freezing instructions, cooking instructions, and Dalepak's quality claim together with their contact details.

Inside the pack, the ribs are enclosed in a cellophane wrapper. Each rib has ridges on the top to give the impression of rib-shaping (which isn't really authentic), and measure approximately 6" long by about 2cms thick. The ribs are made of densely packed minced pork, with various flavourings, and the coating is a dark orange/pink colour. Prior to cooking, the ribs are fairly easy to separate from one another, even in their frozen state.

I personally find the best way to cook these ribs is the oven bake method, although they can be grilled - I'd certainly not recommend frying them, and the reasons why will no doubt become clear below.

During the cooking time, a slightly meaty, slightly sweet smell emanates from the oven - and, I'd recommend cooking for about 5mins longer than the manufacturer recommends, so as to slightly crisp up the edges of the ribs before eating. On taking the baking tray from the oven when the cooking time is up, the ribs will be swimming in grease which of course it's better to discard than to consume!

Whenever I eat these ribs, I like to make up a Chinese-style savoury rice as an accompaniment (made with Basmati rice, mushrooms, onions, peas and beaten egg), and for most adults' appetites, I'd say that 2 or 3 ribs is a reasonable serving. A child could probably easily get by with half a rib, or one, depending on age.

The ribs look quite attractive on the plate, and a colourful accompaniment enhances the appearance even more.

The densely packed minced pork which makes up each rib is quite tender, and easy to cut into, and the flavour is quite good - slightly sweet, and not dissimilar to Chinese style roast pork from your local takeaway, but the resemblance between them and actual Chinese spare ribs is almost nil. The consistency is more like a beefburger, although the taste is very different. Most of the flavour I find is in the pinkish/orange coating, which looks as though it's made from red food colouring and various spices. Garlic is in the ingredients list, but I personally can't detect the taste, and I've been told that after I've eaten the ribs, my breath doesn't smell of garlic - so I can assume that only a tiny amount is used.

Now we come to the bad news. I have been eating and enjoying Dalepak Chinese Style Ribs for quite a few years, but it's my feeling that in recent times the quality of the meat has deterioriated. Whereas the ribs used to emerge from the oven quite dry and leaking only minimal fat, they now seem to be fat-laden and the taste of the coating isn't as piquant as it used to be. It seems to me that fattier pork is now used, and even when draining all excess fat off when the product is removed from the oven, the whole experience of eating the ribs has become one whereby my mouth feels horribly greasy, and I can later feel then lying heavy in my stomach.

As the quality gradually gets worse, the less likely I am to want to buy these again, and the last pack I bought has pretty much tipped me over the edge into writing Dalepak Chinese Style Ribs off altogether. The serving of them which I ate about a week ago wasn't a pleasant experience - far too cloying, far too greasy/fatty, and little grains of bone inside the meat. OK the pack warns that tiny pieces of bone still may be present in the product, but it's only recently I've found this to be the case.

Two years ago I'd have given Dalepak four stars for these Chinese Ribs, but due to the deterioration in quality, I'm afraid I now only give them two stars - and that's for the quite nice flavour, nothing else. Each rib is colossally high in fat, and though I could be wrong, I feel certain that the fat content used to be much lower than it now is.

So....I'm going to chuck these ribs where they now belong...in a dim, dark, dusty corner of the food section of Room 101.

Thanks for reading!