Cut the lemongrass ingredients and fry it in a pot for 2-3 minutes. If you can get galangal use that instead of ginger. Simmer for an hour and strain out the solids.
Cut the chicken into cubes and mince the garlic. Cook the chicken with the garlic until i turns white. Add the broth, water and 1/2 tsp salt. Bring it to a boil and then add the mushrooms. Simmer on medium low for 5 minutes and then add the coconut milk. Taste and more salt if needed. Add the cherry tomato and bring it back up to a boil and then turn off the heat. Add the lime juice right before serving.
I don't like sweets, but a few weeks back I decided to make hamentaschen with my family. I looked at quite a few recipes and came up with my own that is less sweet. Most cookie recipes are too sweet for my taste.
1 stick butter 1/2 cup sugar 2 cups flour 1 large egg 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla
Start by combining the butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Next add the egg and vanilla to the butter sugar mixture. When it's thoroughly mixed, add the dry mix. When the dough comes together to form a ball, set it aside for 15min to rest.
Roll the dough out to 1/4-1/8 inch thick. Cut circles with a jar lid or cup and make your cookies
My son wanted to have tacos for his birthday dinner, so I asked him if he would like Korean tacos. He said yes and I went back to look at the chef show. I also bought Roy Choi's book to look at his salsa verde recipe. I didn't have the exact ingredients, so I made an approximation.
Boy does it taste good.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup mirin vinegar
1 lime juiced
1 medium sweet onion
2 jalapeño
8 cloves garlic
1 dried ancho chili
1 dried pasilla chili
1/4 cup min leaves
1/4 cup cilantro
1 tsp salt
2 Tb avocado oil or canola oil
3 plum tomato / heirloom tomato
2 Tb toasted sesame seeds
Start by preparing the dried chili. Remove the seed the dried chili and bring it to a boil with 1 cup of water. Turn off the heat and let it steep for 15-20 minutes. Drain the water after it's steeped.
Cut the onion and tomato in half. Remove the seeds from the jalapeño pepper. Roast the onions, tomato, jalapeno and 3 cloves of garlic at 375F for 25 minutes or until the onion starts to char a little.
Put everything in a blender and puree for a few minutes on high.
For 15 years, I've been trying to make pho. Over the years, I've tried at least 50 times. They generally taste good, but they didn't taste like pho. Making Pho is an art and I've watched enough youtube recipes to loose count. From food bloggers in vietnam to home cooks, I've tried all sorts of variations. There was always something missing, but I finally got a recipe that works for me.
1 lb beef bones
1 lb ox tail
1 lb chicken bones
1 large cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp cumin seed
5 star anis
5 bay leaves
3 inch piece of ginger
1 large onion
1/2 cup Nuoc mom fish sauce
1 tsp sichuan peppercorn (optional)
5 cloves
1 piece of rock sugar
2 tsp sea salt
Roasting the bones
Preheat the oven to 350F
Put the ox tail, chicken bones, ginger, onion and cinnamon stick on a baking sheet and roast it until the oxtail browns. Take it and let it rest for 15min and then rinse. Wash off the scum to get a clear broth.
Cooking the broth
Put the beef bones, ox tail, chicken bones, spices and rock sugar in a large stock pot and fill it 3/4 full. Slowly bring it up to a boil on medium and then turn it down to simmer. The reason for going slow is to keep the broth clear. If you bring it to a boil too quickly, the broth will become cloudy. Let it simmer on medium/low 12-18 hours.
Once the broth is done, carefully strain it through a fine sieve. Discard the bones and spices. At this point, you can store it in the frig or use it immediately to make pho.
I used thinly sliced lamb, onions, scallions and thinly sliced pork belly for my toppings.
My wife's been growing heirloom tomato this summer and a couple of them were ripe. Last night I was watching liziqi and got a craving for hand pulled noodles. Tonight, I made stir-fry hand pulled noodles with heirloom tomato and doubanjan pork.
Ingredients
1/2 cup diced heirloom tomato
1/2 lb ground pork
2 Tsp doubanjan
2 Tb soy sauce
1 Tb shaoxing rice wine
1 Tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
4 stalks scallion
4-5 servings of hand pulled noodles
1 Tb corn starch
4 Tb water
1/2 Tsp chili powder or gochugaru korean chili powder
Get the wok or frying pan ripping hot, add 2 Tb cooking oil and 2 Tsp doubanjan. Fry it for 15 seconds, and add the garlic. When the garlic starts to brown, add the ground pork and stir fry for 1-2 minutes. Add 1 Tb soy sauce, 1 Tsp salt, chili powder and rice wine. Stir fry until the pork is cooked. Add the chopped scallion and tomato. Turn the heat down to medium and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. In the mean time, combine the corn starch and water.
Add the hand-pulled noodles and stir fry for 3-4 minutes. Add 1 Tb soy sauce, the corn starch mixture and cook until the sauce thickens.
The flavor was inspired by two videos. The first is hand pulled video by liziqi
The second video is life of tomato
My goal for tonight's dish was to high light the flavor of the heirloom tomato and avoid over powering it. I love spicy food and usually get a little heavy handed with lots of spice. Normally, I use an entire bulb of garlic for dinner and many of my dishes have 8-12 spices.
For this dish, I only used two garlic cloves and scallions to highlight the freshness of the tomato. For the pork, I would normally add 1-2 Tb of doubanjan with sichuan peppercorn, white peppercorn and gochugaru. From experience, I know that many spices would over power the tomato. Reducing the doubanjan to 2 Tsp and only adding a sprinkle of gochugaru helped round out the flavor with a little bit of heat. The other ingredients supported the fresh tomato as if they were lifting it up to the sky.
Last december I watched Angel Wong's daikon cake video and decided to make some. Here is my recipe inspired by angel.
My recipe is a little different. Taiwanese sausage is a bit too oily for my taste, so I substitute it with a small amount of pork belly or bacon.
4" piece of pork belly or 5 strips of uncured bacon
3 Tb dried shrimp
2 Tb fried shallots
1/4 cup chopped shitake mushrooms
1 clove garlic minced
1/2" ginger minced
1 Tsp chinese white pepper powder
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp sugar
1 bag of rice flour
4 cups water
2 lbs Daikon turnip
1 Tb soy sauce
1 Tb sesame oil
1/2 Tsp five spice
1 fresh shallot
2 hour before you start, soak 3Tb dried shrimp in water. If you use dried shitake, soak them in water too.
In a large mixing bowl combine rice flour, salt, white pepper and sugar. Stir to mix the ingredients and add 2 cups of cold water. Follow Angel's video for this step and prep the batter before you start the other steps.
Peel and grate the daikon. Cook the daikon with 2 cups of water in a pot for 15-20 minutes. While the daikon is cooking, you can start on the meet mixture.
Mince the ginger and garlic. Julienne the pork belly or bacon. Chop the dried shrimp and shitake mushroom. Get a wok or frying pat hot and fry the garlic and ginger for 15-20 seconds until fragrant. Add the pork and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the fat starts to render out. Add the chopped shallots, five spice and shitake mushrooms. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked and turn off the heat.
When the daikon is cooked, add the meat, fried shaoots and mix thoroughly before adding the rice batter. Next add the rice batter following Angel's directions. Steam for 30-35minutes and let it cool. When you're ready to eat, cut slice and fry them in a pan.
