Dim Sum Ribs - How to Make Authentic Steamed Spare Ribs with Black Bean (豉汁蒸排骨)
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- Dim Sum-style spare ribs are always a favorite. The big question though: how do the restaurants achieve that texture with that white color?
The answer's a process of soaking and rinsing with alkaline water that actually takes place in a washing machine at the restaurants. We're mimicking that authentic Cantonese recipe here using baked baking soda and the tap.
If you're interested in supporting the channel, check out our Patreon here :)
www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified
And the detailed written recipe's over here on reddit (note that this's the /r/China post til I upload to /r/cooking ~8AM EST):
/ recipe_dim_sum_spareri...
And a huge thank you to Alex the French Guy Cooking for introducing us to the baked baking soda technique. Awesome channel, here's his ramen video if you're curious:
• I Made FRESH Ramen Noo...
Outro Music: "Add And" by Broke For Free
/ broke-for-free
ABOUT US
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Learn how to cook real deal, authentic Chinese food! We post recipes every Tuesday (unless we happen to be travelling) :)
We're Steph and Chris - a food-obsessed couple that lives in Shenzhen, China. Steph is from Guangzhou and loves cooking food from throughout China - you'll usually be watching her behind the wok. Chris is a long-term expat from America that's been living in China and loving it for the last nine years - you'll be listening to his explanations and recipe details, and doing some cooking at times as well.
This channel is all about learning how to cook the same taste that you'd get in China. Our goal for each video is to give you a recipe that would at least get you close to what's made by some of our favorite restaurants here. Because of that, our recipes are no-holds-barred Chinese when it comes to style and ingredients - but feel free to ask for tips about adaptations and sourcing too!
Going to say it again. BEST Chinese instructional cooking channel. Keep it up guys!
Cheers, thanks for the kind words!
Made them yesterday...they were
UNBELIEVABLE! Just like the dim sum I used to go to! Thank you soooo much for helping me recreate that!
I made these a few weeks a go & it worked perfectly! I didn’t have taro but used small cubes of turnip cake in the bottom of the bowl instead. It’s more mushy but tasted great together because you get that extra umami kick from the shrimp in the turnip cake. So delicious!
Hey, so a few notes:
1. First off, I'm gunna be annoying an link the Patreon real quick here til RUclips lets us do it in the endscreen lol: www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified
2. We didn't have any Jianshui Alkaline water on hand, so that bottle at 0:38 was... something else. Ten imaginary meaningless internet points awarded to whoever can guess what that bottle was.
3. That baked baking soda technique's awesome. I know it's kinda circled around the internet, but we learned it from Alex the French Guy Cooking and ended up using his exact temp/timing. His Ramen video's here (love that channel by the way): ruclips.net/video/fnrW4oan_Mo/видео.html
4. So we'll definitely be using this stuff again when we wanna use Jianshui, but just FYI in the future for the sake of pacing we won't credit him in-video but rather in these notes.
5. You can absolutely use a small bowl in a steaming tray here too. Just make sure that you cover the bowl with a saucer or something when steaming to ensure that no condensed moisture drips into the bowl.
6. I'm not a chemist, so the calculation of 'how much baking soda = how much baked baking soda' is prolly way off because I wasn't accounting for dilution. Still, it gives a general idea. If anyone feels like calculating this proper, totally feel free to correct me. What we CAN say is that the baked baking soda worked way better than just baking soda (we tried both).
7. Apologies for my aggressively atrocious pronunciation of 'nangu' at 0:21. Even though I muff up English words in these narrations all the time, for some reason I feel a bit worse when I muff up the Chinese.
8. If you can source alkaline water, use 10g in place of the teaspoon of baked baking soda.
That's all I can think of for now. :)
The baked baking soda method was great, I followed and got the most resemble to restaurant dimsum ribs that I've done. Thanks a lot. Gonna prepare a big batch and keep frozen for later use.
As a chemistry graduate, you had me at that pH testing strip : )
EDIT: whoa, did I just see the definition of pH in a cooking video????
Flashback to gen chem 2 as a bio major
Fellow chemistry graduate here. Bringing (bio)chemistry into cooking is definitely a better, scientific way to understand food. I rly hope more cooks do that!
you guys need to make a T-shirt saying, "Before cooking, Long Yau" =)
lol maybe an apron?
YES!!!. that's perfect
Not gonna lie... I'd prolly buy that.
Hahaha, guess we won't be selling these any time soon, but I'm already looking into making two for me and Chris, lol.
How about "good enough for government work" or "liaojiu, aka shaoxing wine"?
This is so over the top from what I expected...And so complex...It's just...It's just...Genius. I love you. I remember subscribing a year or two ago, and feeling like I found a diamond in the RUclips rough. I know this video is two years old, but still. Just...Thanks.
alright...BEST cooking video ive ever seen, whippin out the litmus paper...homemade sodium carbonate...math!!! that's some dedication right there
haha kinda following Alex's lead there with the test strip and the sodium carbonate, though I do think I get some bonus points for the math ;)
Made this tonight and it was surprisingly close to the restaurant version. The silky/springy texture was great, and the steamed pumpkin was almost better than the pork itself after soaking up all the juices. I was lazy and skipped the stirring and spinning steps, but besides the ribs not being so white, I didn't notice any negative effects (though who knows, maybe it would've tasted even better if I hadn't skipped those steps).
This recipe is more than I bargain for...it sounds like rocket science !
I love it when the cooks really understand the science behind their dishes
Cool Thing giving the shotout to Alex!happy to see his great work is pleased.Loving These chinese cooking Videos. TY for sharing
Love that channel, one of the best cooking channels on RUclips in my opinion. I'm also eternally jealous of his insanely good editing skills lol
Yeah, I was so happy seeing the mention of Alex.
I can barely believe that you whipped out the pH calculation formula! Awesome! Subscribed!
You know Alex the french guy. You are GOOD!!!. i love his channel and yours. KEEP GOING
I like the scientific bits in ur video. Just reminds me how cooking feels like a chemistry experiment at times. Ur channel subscribed! Keep on making more videos. 加油！
4 years later, wonderful video. The shape of the pepper in the thumbnail drew me in..
so many great tips and tricks. the best cooking channel on RUclips!
Cheers and thanks!
This is defo my favourite dim sum spare ribs recipe
Best channel on RUclips
came for a cooking video, left with masters in chemistry
Whenever I use fermented black beans, I give them a quick rinse and then roughly chop them. The first step reduces their saltiness, and the second step boosts (releases) their flavor.
Logarithmic equation for the win. That's why I follow your recipes :)
How long will baked soda last? Do you need to refrigerate?
these are truly gorgeous ribs, i will try this method next time
that's a lot of work! great job!
How much lye water do I substitute for the baked bicarb?
Thank you - will try this ❤
Love your videos and the accompanying painstakingly thorough explanations - wonderful effort from you guys. Was searching at the local Chinese market recently for the Lye Water but just could not see it even though I had done previously. Luckily I had a photo of it on my phone & showed it to an assistant; he looked querulously at me possibly thinking "Why does this gwailo want this?". Anyhow he retrieved a bottle from beneath the cashier's counter after asking "Do you know how to use this?"! Apparently, there is now some regulation from having it on the shelves.
Where do you live, the USA? Just curious, because I was assuming it'd be tough to source but down here in the comments we ended up with a bunch of people saying "oh, Jianshui? No problem".
Brisbane, Australia - nowadays Brisbane has many wonderful Chinese restaurants and provision stores. There are also many other Asian restaurants here. Much different to what it was in the late 70s when I went to Hong Kong to work for some 20+ years.
Yeah I'm continuously blown away by how good the supply chain for stuff is in the US too. To be honest, there's like zero way that we could do this channel the way we want to if they weren't so prevalent.
Well, you are both doing an amazing job of informing your viewers about some wonderful Chinese dishes. Keep up the great work. Some HK in-laws are visiting in a couple of weeks and I'll be endeavouring to reproduce probably three of the dishes that you have aired on your channel.
“Gum ma fon!” Referring to the chemistry part lol
Anyone who can work out how to use a washing machine to cook food is a genius imo
This is a favorite of mine, and your recipe looks awesome. I also already have sodium carbonate, so i'm good to go.
I'll probably skip the taro ... i usually pour the jus over rice after finishing.
Thank you... This is so helpful. Great job on cooking instructions, as well as mathematical calculation :-) ... I very much enjoy your videos.. :-)
Cheers, I'm a high school math teacher by trade, so I just couldn't help myself ;)
I have been using your method to prepare my spare ribs, using alkaline water and spinning them in my cake mixer using the paddle attachment. I have tried using my veggy spinner too 😁
The meat turns out really pale, and smooth after cooking. Thks!
in malaysian dim sum places we don't even add taro underneath the spare ribs, instead we just have the sauce in the thing as well
One of my favorite dish~~~~thanks for the recipe.
I made it a few days ago. It turned out great very soft and tasty after all those washings. Thank you for the recipe
Cheers, awesome to hear it came out well.
Yay Alex!.
Tried these just the other day. Couldn't quite get the rid of all the color from ribs. Ended up using about 300ml of jianshui and extending the soak and massaging the ribs. Probably what sucked out a cook amount of flavor from them. Also found the amount of cornstarch a little high but perhaps you are going for a slightly different texture. At most dim sum places the ribs sit in a clear colorless pool of liquid and have very little slick to them. Had a pool of liquid, but was a thick saucy brownish hue. Not sure if the color was due to the myoglobin in the ribs or the douczi, but the viscosity was certainly due to the amount of cornstarch. Will keep experimenting.
Huh. Did you use running water? That always seems to make a big difference with the color.
As for the douchi/consistency, not sure what's going on there but just want to make sure... you did use the whole douchi and not the sauce, right? Feels strange that 10g of douchi would have that large of an impact. But if it was on the viscous side, next time you can cut the batter at 4:05 with a bit more water. For reference we added about a tablespoon of water there.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Yeah, rinsed whole douchi. Didn't come out bad, but a little different from what I get here in NYC Chinatown at least.
Will adjust and let you know, here's another reference recipe I found but not sure if its the same since it doesn't use jianshui but looks a little closer to what i'm looking for. www.bilibili.com/video/av29328108/?spm_id_from=333.788.videocard.5.
I THOT THIS WAS A COOKING VIDEO IM GETTING CHEMISTRY CLASS PTSD GAHHHHHHHH HELP.
MrFlopp Cooking is just applied chemistry
Really authentic, the part about using the machine machine is true
Spike Spiegel teaching me to cook ribs
Thank you so much for the recipe. It was so good especially to a dim sum-deprived Asian.
Dim sum deprived Asian...
I'm a cheese deprived Frenchman ... I feel your pain.
But dim sum has to be my favourite food outside of my country... I absolutely abuse my tummy when I go to Hong Kong lol
Please make some potato stir fry (酸辣土豆丝). One of the coolest Chinese dishes ever.
Can you freeze the marinated ribs?
This is more like a science project
Is the initial rinsing with baking soda effective in reducing the gaminess/unpleasant taste of the pork ribs/meat?
I feel like using a stand mixer with the dough hook or paddle attachment to stir the ribs would be a lot easier than stirring for 12 minutes haha
Maaaaan! Been wanting this recipe forever!!!
Will try it this week
Awesome, take pics and let us know how it goes!
Would the bottled alkaline water, sold along side with bottled drinking water at store be the same?
Highly doubt it
i've never seen it sitting on taro. usually, it's just sitting in its liquid if there is any. i never knew there was a machine dedicated to cleaning the ribs. that's kind of neat.
daveheel ive seen it sitting on taro or kabocha. Mostly kabocha though. It is much cheaper afterall.
Alkaline water is readily available where I live. If you were to use it, how much would you use?
If you have that handy, use 10 grams of alkaline water for this portion. :)
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified Thank you Steph! Can't wait to try this recipe :)
Fantastic cooking channel...Thank you for all the insightful instructions. Best ever!
can i substitute potato starch for the cornstarch?
If i can get alkaline water aka lye water, how many tablespoon do i need for this recipe?
Another amazing recipe you guys! While I did go thru the baking soda step, I ditched the drying process with the salad spinner cuz I didn’t want to get one just for this but it was still somewhat clearer than before. The recipes I’ve tried so far has been either better or exactly the same as restaurant versions. They may be longer than other recipes but the final result is always worth the effort!! Can’t wait for more recipes n vids!
Ok, getting ready to make this dish.
Questions:
1) Is there a more specific pH for the alkalai bath that is considered standard/ideal for this dish, or just something as close as possible to 11 ? How high or below 11 is acceptable ?
2) I cant fing douchi in whole bean form ... all ive found in local asian markets in my area are either a coarse paste of fermented blackbeans in garlic, or plain salted blackbeans (not fermented). The former seems preferable, but I assume I should reduce the garlic and sugar in the dish slightly to compensate ?
Ok, the ribs came out quite good (B+), although I have some minor tweaks to suggest.
1) 1 tbsp sugar seemed a little sweeter than I prefer. I'll probably cut that by a third to 2 tsp per 500gr ribs.
2) 15 mins in the steamer didnt get the ribs as tender as I prefer ... I found 20-25 worked better for me. And yes, i didnt start my timer until steam re-emerged thru the lid of the top tray (figure an extra 3-4 mins up front).
3) 1/4 cup of corn starch seemed slightly too much (a bit gloppy) ... i'll probably cut that to 3 tbsp.
4) Tip: for those lacking a bandsaw or a butcher, you can use a cleaver to cut individual ribs to 1" lengths. To protect your cutting board, refrain from the urge to swing your cleaver forcefully ... you can get better control by placing a rib bone-side-down on your cutting board, place the cleaver where you want to cut, then use a 2lb rubber mallet to hammer the cleaver's spine to cut the rib, using just enough force as needed. Remember to remove any loose bone splinters prior to cooking.
Made the recipe again this morning for lunch. I definitely agree with my earlier tweaks to halve the sugar and cut the corn starch by 1/4th (too gloppy ... i prefer it thick and glossy, but not completely congealed). I also upped the steaming time from 15 to 25 mins (15 was definitely too tough, and was hard to release from the bones, whereas 25 it held on enough to retain structure and some resistance, but also let go from the bones gracefully). I also added thinly sliced green jalapeno during the final 2 mins (1 pepper per batch, 1 batch per steamer tray). I served it over jasmine rice ... the rice absorbs the rich jus nicely.
BTW, one 500gr batch seems to be enough for 1 1/2 entree portions, and 3 appetizer portions.
What if I don’t have a salad spinner is there anything else I can use or do
just dry it with paper towel
Have you guys tried using flour or other types of starch to wash your ribs? I just learnt this technique and don't know the science behind it, but it turns the meat pale and tender, although I can't say how it compares to the sodium carbonate method as I've yet to try that.
I’d like to make this but don’t have an oven at the moment. Could I blanch the rib pieces then marinate, then steam them? Could you please do a recipe for bean curd rolls😃
If you don't have that, you can try to soak it with water (add some baking soda, 'cuz why not?), change water a couple times during the soaking. And massage the ribs during the rinsing under running water process, and maybe extend the rinsing process to 15-20 minutes till you can see the ribs are very pale. That should also do the job.
By bean curd rolls, do you mean the one with stuff wrapped in tofu skin and steamed?
Yes! Thanks Steph :)
Great video. My method is 40g baking soda for 1kg meat for 1 1/2 hour. And i rinse it until pale and squeezed dry. Gonna try your method. With the ph strip
Nice shout-out. Alex is the dude!
Wow! Just wonder do the restaurants use that washing machine to wash the floor rag too!
Yeah. They invented washing machines in China hundreds of years ago. They just kept this secret from America for decades and only now revealed this ancient secret to how they have been making this old traditional dim-sum dish.
I had no idea Ph has a logarithmic scale. Cool beans
Can we actually put food in a washing machine?
Sure! Just uh... have something dedicated and don't ever use detergent in it.
Ok
Thank you much for this vid ^_^
You're welcome~
I tried the recipe and the ribs/meat where not as soft. Is there a way of tenderizing the meat or do I need to put in steamer more?
Hmm... I assume you've had this at Dim Sum yeah? Just in case you haven't, this dish's never gunna be like melt-in-your-mouth-tender or anything: the primary goal's that the ribs can come cleanly off the bone. You did use either alkaline water or baked baking soda, yeah?
If you happen to have a pic it makes it easier for us to troubleshoot.
Steph's idea: wash it for longer. Chris's idea: after steaming for 15 minutes, shut off the heat and leave it there for ~10 minutes. (Steph didn't like my idea because she thinks it'd make it mushy).
Chinese Cooking Demystified hi. Yes I have. I tried the baked baking soda. I will make another batch and will send picture. When you say wash it longer do you mean soak it longer with the baking soda? Will this help make it tender?
It did not come off the bone cleanly.
Got it. Just making sure, during the rinsing process, you were constantly jostling it for that 12-15 minutes, yeah? The motion's also quite important. Assuming you were, up the time soaking (let's say... 45 min) and up the time rinsing (let's say 20 min). Hope that works for you, always sucks to hear about replication issues :/
@@ChineseCookingDemystified The taste is good, it's just the meat not separating from the bone part. Maybe I steamed it too long? I will keep on trying until I get this right hahaha
Great video as always, would really enjoy a beef cheungfan dim sum style recipe
We'd love to! Question though... how easy/difficult is it for you to source year-old rice? Year old rice is really important for Cheung fun
Chinese Cooking Demystified Never heard of year-old rice before, might explain why my attempts haven't captured the authentic taste. Plenty of Chinese markets in the SF Bay area, Is there any brand particular I can look for?
Unfortunately being China-based we can't be much help on that front :/ We just kinda go to a rice vendor in our local market, straight up ask for 'year old rice' and they'll have a bag of it. Feels like something that might be available at a good Chinese supermarket in the States, dunno. Next time if you could ask them and let us know that'd be awesome!
Year old rice's less sticky than recently harvested rice. I do wonder if it might simply be possible to find a strain of rice that's lower in amylopectin (e.g. a long grain) and use that instead. Feels like that'd be a lot of research and testing though, so I really hope year old rice's just... available lol
Chinese Cooking Demystified thanks the information! I'll do some research, I envy your access to all these ingredients
Cheers! And yeah, we'll totally spoiled. Though in the USA you got those nice cheeses and Mexican chilis :)
How much jinshui do i need to put into my spareribs? Cause I actually have that ingredient, so i don't want to have to bake baking soda.
10g :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified how much is that in spoons? i just put a 1 TBSP to try it just now. It's in the fridge, i hope i didn't overdo it.
i probably overdid it just a little. I hope its still edible.
unknown sender a teaspoon is close to 5 mL, a mL is about 1 g water, so, 10g, is 2 tsp!
Hi! Great video as always! What diameter does your bamboo steamer have?
Was blanking, so just went and measured it. 28cm :)
Thank you!
I actually have lye water. How much would I use when following your recipe?
Oops! I just read through the comments and 5-10 g is recommended. Sorry!
Can we not just use alkaline water with that technique? We dont have an oven.
Is there something wrong with the alkaline water they originally use? Because I can get that at my local asian market
Nope, just use that if you can get it. 10g of alkaline water :) I've just edited the notes to reflect that!
Perhaps I can use some lye water instead of baking the baking soda? Have you tried that?
Lye water is basically the same thing as Chinese alkaline water :) Use 5-10g
Wow! Alright, thank you! Will be making this later :)
Steph and Chris~what does taro (sp?) taste like? I'm imagining it's quite neutral? This looks-interesting, 😂 I'm not a huge meat lover, at all tbh, so pale meat? Not sure.
Is taro used often? Also what is the texture? (sorry for all the ?'s.) I'm asking because I'm always looking for new flavours and textures and this intrigued me. Thx for these great videos!
Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁
PS: I too love Alex's channel! Great minds think alike! 😂
Haha I know it might seem counter-intuitive, but yeah it's pretty common to see some pork dishes here do at least a similar sorta process (usually soaking) to draw out the 'blood' (i.e. the myoglobin) of the meat.
As for taro, taste's pretty neutral. Similar to potato but the texture's firmer and it has much less moisture. It's got a pretty distinct fragrance to it to it too.
Finally made these, they have been on my list for a while. Way too much sugar and cornstarch. They were sweet and the sauce was literally solid after steaming.
مبنبمبنزيزي
You can always adjust to your tastes. Hopefully you should make another batch and not give up. Cantonese dishes usually has a fair amount of sugar and salt balanced out in their dishes. The cornstarch is for velveting the meats to make it a bit slippery, you can back off some of it and not affect the taste too much, but subtracting too much, the texture will suffer a bit.
How come nobody has called them out on "turning it up to 11" yet?
whats the purpose of removing the myogoblin?
I highly doubt Chinese restaurants go through all that trouble to make the ribs. You're making a simple dish more complicated than it needs to be!
Every 99 Ranch here carries jianshui. How much should I use of my lye water?
You can use 10 grams of jianshui in the soaking~
2:46 click here due to too much ribs prep time
is the peanut oil mandatory?
You allergic? Untoasted sesame oil would also be fine :)
He is correct. If you put too much baking soda will cause the pork taste soapy 😬
Can you make the beef short ribs dim sum?
... washing machine ... but I do like dimsum ..
One question ... what's the name of the dish in chinese ?
豉汁蒸排骨 :)
Chinese Cooking Demystified i cant read chinese pictograms/kanji. Was hoping for a phonetic english version, like char sui bao.
Hey so apologies no pinyin input on my computer... forgive the tone numbers: chi2zhi4 zheng1pai2gu3 (Mandarin)
Alright w/o the tones "Chizhi Zhengpaigu" in Mandarin or (our best guess, romanization of Cantonese isn't standard) "Sizup Jengpaigwug" in Cantonese.
Chinese Cooking Demystified Thanks ! Ive never heard of tone numbers before ... here in the west ive only seen them used as sound-alike shorthand in sms and leet-speak (ex: 4ever -> four+ever -> forever).
Why you put your recipe on Reddit ?
Well, we actually started these vids as things to accompany a reddit post to /r/cooking :) I know reddit's blocked in some countries, are you able to access it? I kinda feel like in this day and age it makes more sense to post a recipe on reddit and get lots of discussion... instead of on a blog where it'd just kinda languish out there in the face of all those blogs that have killer SEO lol
You should fry the garlic golden brown .
So i guess if i sub this recipe with beef ribs, the steaming time will be longer right? Btw i somewhat like the fact that we watch same channel haha. Maybe you can make la mian (hand pulled noodle) as a response to Alex's ramen series.
We never tested it with beef ribs, not sure if it'll work 'cause beef tend to have thinker fiber than pork. But sure you can try to sub it, if you're cutting it as similar size, maybe 1-2 minute longer would be enough. Oh, and maybe try to marinate it for longer too~
As for la mian, we do want to make but it involves so much skill and practice...It'll be a very challenging one. LOL.
Can you make chow fun next time?
You mean beef chow fun?
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified I was actually thinking shrimp cheung fun, but I wasn't sure of the name!
they did lots of fried rice of different version. Take a look
ohh my mistake. Sticky rice wrap
I have the exact same salad spinner, now I can try this recipe. Yuk, yuk. Really good videos.
IKEA man~ Yeah, that spinner comes in handy. Make sure to wash it real nice after using it, lol. I wiped ours using rubbing alcohol after washing~
What if I want a stronger 豆豉flavor?
If you don't mind a different color, double both the douchi and the garlic and pound em together. Then mix those in with the marinating ribs.
And if ya wanna keep the color, just add more douchi :)
Chinese Cooking Demystified yeah, shoulda specify this in the beginning: how do I have a better duo chi flavor while maintaining the clear color. One of the factor I found that will effect the ratio of color and flavor was the quality of the materials themselves such as the dou chi and porks. Last year I went back to china and I found all my clear clear steam dishes are way more flavorful than the ones I make in America, which use precisely the time process. I guess this is the very purpose of clear steam, which the quality of the materials is what we are really chasing for
At 1:20... Somebody with hairy wrists appears to do the science part.
And then he’s gone.
And then he reappears at the logarithmic segment.
What’s going on?
was the thumbnail chili cut that way on purpose?
It's chili cut into rings and it softened a bit after steaming, that's why it kinda look like an odd shape.
Hey CCD why don't you just add a bit of NaOH (caustic soda) instead XDDDDDD! That will give you a solution at same pH value but with far less amount of soda :-P
I mean... that IS what proper alkaline water is haha. It's lye, traditionally made from the ashes of burnt dried rice reeds :D
Please do take note that people might take your comment seriously. :( They might get chemical burns.
Mah french boi!!
Bit like baking seashells to make lime.
Couldn't you just buy some sodium bicarbonate instead making it save a step
Sodium bicarbonate = baking soda. Here we're turning sodium bicarbonate into sodium carbonate, which is much more basic