Category Archives: Recipe

26May / 2021

Recipe: Vietnamese Fried Rice (Cơm Chiên)

I have always loved Vietnamese or Thai fried rice, I find them to be so flavorful and always wondered how they make it. I don’t use MSG in foods (well not straight up MSG anyway) so when I found this recipe and saw how easy it was…I had to make it! How was it? BIG SUCCESS. I already want to make more to eat more but while I am Chinese, I think there should be a limitation on how much Chinese sausage I consume in a single month.

Jasmine rice ready to cook with soy sauce and chicken bouillon

I only have bouillon cubes and didn’t break them up good enough. It’s okay, it makes the rice look cool.

Here’s an interesting step. 6 egg yolks, oyster sauce, green onions and cooked chinese sausage (forgot to add it in the beginning) in a bowl…waiting for the rice…

LOL here is the Chinese sausage that I boiled and chopped

Here it is! All mixed in together in the bowl…this is precooked! See the first picture if you want to see it in wok action! Heat up some butter and garlic in your wok and then add this mixture in until the fried rice is nice and crispy. Add more oyster sauce as desired. Absolutely delicious. But I wonder if I find it so delectable because of the lup cheong (chinese sausage). Well the point is, it is good.

Vietnamese Fried Rice (Cơm Chiên)

3 C Jasmine Rice
3 T Soy Sauce
3 t Chicken Bouillon (I used 3 small cubes)
1/2 package lup cheong (Chinese sausage) – about 3-4 sausages
6 egg yolks
6 garlic cloves, minced
3 T Oyster Sauce
2 T Butter
1/2 C Green onion, chopped

Wash jasmine rice and place in rice cooker with appropriate water (fill to the 3 line), add soy sauce and chicken bouillon. Cook the rice.

Boil or steam lup cheong for about 2-3 minutes, remove from heat and chop up, set aside.

Mix egg yolks, green onions, 2 T oyster sauce and lup cheong together in a big bowl. Add cooked rice to mixture and fold in. The rice can be made ahead and cold for this step!

In a wok, heat up butter and garlic over medium high heat. Add the rice mixture in and cook until browned and nice and crispy! Add 1 T of oyster sauce (more if you want) and top with more green onions (if you want), mix and enjoy!

Recipe from: foodwithsoy

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24May / 2021

Recipe: Homemade Strawberry Boba

Reminder, I made two different boba recipes in ONE day because I am crazy. If you missed it, here is the brown sugar boba recipe. This time, I made strawberry boba from scratch and yes, it is made from fresh strawberries. Inspiration from TikTok (duh). How was it? Well, even though I had to make fresh strawberry puree for this, you can’t really taste any strawberry in the boba…it’s mainly for the color. I made fresh strawberry milk to accompany the boba. I’m not doing this again. But here goes:

Fresh Strawberry Puree

Adding tapioca starch to start forming the dough…

The beautiful pink dough ready to be rolled!

Get enough tapioca starch or what? Almost looks like mochi balls…refrain from eating…

Strawberry Boba boiling up…no forget, they expand! These balls ain’t fitting through no boba straws…

Ready for consumption!

Strawberry Boba

Strawberry Boba Ingredients:
½ Cup Fresh Strawberries, diced
2 T Sugar
2 T Water
1-2 T Honey

Strawberry Boba Instructions:

  1. Add strawberries, sugar and water to a microwave safe bowl/cup. Microwave for 1 minute (I microwaved about 1.5 minutes). 
  2. Strain strawberry mixture through a sieve to get rid of the pulp. Cool for 3 minutes.
  3. Add in 3T of tapioca starch into the mixture and mix through.
  4. Continue to microwave mixture for 1 minute (in 15 second intervals), it took me 1 min 15 sec. You are looking for a thickened and very sticky mixture. Cool for 3 minutes.
  5. Add 1 C of Tapioca Starch and knead through. 
  6. Roll into little balls, add additional tapioca starch for dusting if needed.
  7. Heat water in a pot and add the tapioca balls into the pot. Immediately stir the balls in the pot to prevent them from sticking to each other and to the bottom of the pan. It will take about 30 seconds for the balls to free float to the top of the surface on its own. 
  8. Boil on medium-high for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, keep lid on pot and let the tapioca balls sit for an additional 20 minutes. 
  9. Drain tapioca and place in a bowl, add 1-2 T of honey to sweeten balls and keep sitting in a syrup.

Strawberry Milk Ingredients:
16 strawberries 
60g sugar
500ml milk

Strawberry Milk Instructions:

  1. Wash strawberries, cut 8 strawberries in half and crush them in the pot (I used a potato masher), add sugar and heat on medium heat for 2-3 minutes
  2. Remove from heat and let mixture cool down.
  3. Dice remaining 8 strawberries. 
  4. Place the strawberry syrup, diced strawberries and milk in a bottle and mix/shake. Ready to go!

Recipe Inspiration: Strawberry Milk

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17May / 2021

Recipe: Homemade Brown Sugar Boba

Last weekend was a hoot, I made three recipes…and TWO boba recipes in one single day. I think I must have been delirious. It’s not easy so I’m going to milk it and share them both in separate posts. Been curious about making my own boba for a while now and since I had extra tapioca starch laying around from another recipe, this was the perfect time! The recipe is pretty easy, rolling the balls by hand were the most tedious part.

Here’s the ball of dough ready to be balled up.

Break up the dough and roll out skinny snakes, I am impatient so here are my snakes. Keep the remaining dough covered up since it dries up pretty fast.

Cut the snakes into smallish cubes and then roll each cube into balls. Oh my god do I appreciate machinery after this process…

What a pretty shot, here are the balls I rolled by hand.

Boil boil boil. Gotta boil it for 20 minutes, turn off heat and let it sit for an additional 20 minutes in the residual heat.

Look at how it looks after being cooked! Crazy yeah? The original recipe called for muscovado sugar, I don’t have that. I just used dark brown sugar. Gotta make do.

Sorry for the blurry pic, this is the boba cooking in the brown sugar syrup.

Sorry I don’t have pretty cups to show these drinks off! I made some strong black tea, added sugar, milk and ice to make our own milk tea! Tasted great, the balls were nice and soft. Was it worth it? Ehhh…well let’s just say if I want boba in the future, I will just go pay 4 bucks for a cup where professionals make it. It was fun to try though!

Brown Sugar Boba

Ingredients 

Boba:
45 g dark brown sugar
60 g water
90 g tapioca + for dusting
70 g dark brown sugar for syrup 

Milk Tea:
Black Tea Bag (1 C of Hot Water per tea bag)
2 T Sugar
½ C Whole Milk
Ice

Instructions:

  1. Heat 45g of dark brown sugar with 60g of water in a small pot until melted, remove from heat and add about 1-2 spoons from the 90g tapioca, place back onto heat and mix until mixture has thickened (this is very fast so don’t blink!).
  2. Remove from heat, add remaining tapioca starch to the mixture and mix. Place some tapioca starch to your surface and place the dough onto the area. 
  3. Knead until the dough is formed and no longer sticky.
  4. Pull out chunks of the dough (keep the remaining covered while you work on it) and roll out small snakes. Cut the small snakes into little squares. 
  5. Roll the little squares into little balls. Dust with tapioca starch if needed.
  6. Heat water in a pot and add the tapioca balls into the pot. Immediately stir the balls in the pot to prevent them from sticking to each other and to the bottom of the pan. It will take about 30 seconds for the balls to free float to the top of the surface on its own. 
  7. Boil on medium-high for 20 minutes. Turn off heat, keep lid on pot and let the tapioca balls sit for an additional 20 minutes. 
  8. Drain tapioca balls, heat new pan with 70 g dark brown sugar on medium. Add hot tapioca balls to the brown sugar and mix. No additional liquid is needed, it will form a thick syrup for the balls.
  9. Brew hot tea and set aside to cool. Add tapioca balls to the bottom of the cup, add 2 T of sugar (less if you prefer), tea (cooled), milk and ice. Enjoy!

Recipe Inspiration: emmymade

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12May / 2021

Recipe: Fresh Strawberry Shortcake

As I get older, I tend to favor less sweet things and that includes pastries. Have you noticed that Asian cakes and pastries are delicious without being sickeningly sweet? I enjoy that and well I need that too, gotta watch that sugar. Anyway, I drew inspiration from two different videos to make this cake – Korean and Japanese – best of both worlds!

The hack to cut parchment paper for a circular pan is insane. Do you folks know it? Believe me, it is so easy. If I can do it, you can do it. I suck at cutting circles. The way to do this is like fool proof! Refer to the Tasty Video link below with the recipe if you want to see the trick!

I gotta tell you guys, this is my second batter. I made the first one and messed it up majorly. I forgot the step to mix it for 8 minutes until the batter has thickened and like doubled in size. The cake came out flat like a pancake (hard like a hockey puck). Give me a break guys, this is the first time I made a cake from scratch (not from cake mix kine). Anyway, this is the second batter – I followed the instructions closely this time.

Yay! The cake came out perfect! I didn’t line the sides of the pan because I have a Springform pan. Ha, joke’s on me, it still stuck to the sides. Also, one of the videos instructions to cut the top part of the cake off. Like why? I guess it’s to make the pieces even? Well, I flipped the top part to be on the inside so I still get a flat top and no cake waste!

Just wanted to show you how the cake looks like inside. How’s the crumb structure? I don’t know, I just like watching Great British Bake-off a lot.

I had to make double the frosting recipe! It reflects in my written recipe. I also didn’t have the same size pan as the videos did…ugh! It’s okay, I made do. I think I whipped the cream a bit too much, it’s okay…adds texture to the cake. Just kidding, I won’t whip it as much next time, haha.

Fresh Strawberry Cake
(Strawberry Shortcake)

Ingredients 

190g Egg (4 large eggs)
130g Sugar 
13g Corn syrup
3g Vanilla extract
120g Cake flour 
33g Melted unsalted butter
53g Milk

500g Strawberry
Whipped cream (600g whipping cream + 60g sugar)

Sugar syrup (¼ C Sugar and ¼ C Water is more than enough)

9 inch springform cake pan

Instructions:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 340°F.
  2. Add Eggs, Sugar, Corn Syrup and Vanilla Extract to bowl over hot water bath and whisk together until temperature of mixture hits 40°C.
  3. Remove bowl from hot water, use mixer to mix until fluffy (light yellow). You should be able to swirl a figure 8 and it stays for a bit (takes about 8 minutes with a hand mixer).
  4. Sift cake flour into batter and gently fold in.
  5. Melt butter and milk in the microwave until butter is melted (about 1 minute). Add a bit of batter into the butter/milk mixture and then add it to the batter.
  6. Line the cake pan with parchment paper, pour batter into the cake pan. Drop the pan twice from a relatively low height onto a hard surface, this helps to knock out any air bubbles.
  7. Place the cake pan into the preheated oven, bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick or skewer, poke center and if the stick comes out clean, it’s done!
  8. Cut fresh strawberries into a small dice, whip the heavy whipping cream and sugar together until it reaches a stiff peak (about 5 minutes). Combine with diced strawberries.
  9. Let the cake cool after baking, cut the cake into two pieces (two layers) right before you are ready to frost it.
  10. Apply sugar syrup to the first layer of the cake. Add frosting. 
  11. Place the second layer of the cake (brown or top side down – I was too lazy to cut the top part off but you can), add sugar syrup to the second layer of cake. Frost the top and sides of the cake.
  12. Decorate with fresh strawberries and blueberries on top to your liking!

Recipe Inspiration:
Cooking tree
Tasty

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07May / 2021

Recipe: Instant Ramen Hacks

Do I even have to preface these posts anymore? Yes, both hacks I am sharing are from TikTok. Both came out fine but nothing I would keep in my arsenal for future use, you know what I’m saying? Let’s goooo!

Hack #1

One Egg, Kewpie Mayo, Minced Garlic

Add the soup seasoning packet

Mix, mix, mix

In the meantime, cook and drain your ramen noodles. Add the hot boiling water to the mixture you just made…mix it as you add water. Add the noodles back in and voila, fake tonkatsu broth? Hahaha, okay so if you needed a way to make your instant ramen more fattening, here it is. Was it worth the extra calories? Edible but nothing special.

Hack #2

This time, you throw away the original seasoning packet (or save for something else), cook the noodles, drain and leave to the side. Then in a saucepan, you heat up butter, brown sugar, shoyu, minced garlic, red pepper flakes…

Add your noodles and mix…

Add an egg. I made three servings so here are three eggs. MIX.

Voila. Done. You can top with some fresh green onions and Everything but the Bagel Seasoning (which I left at work so I couldn’t do this). Well first, I added too much red pepper flakes (thought it said T, not t…so yeah). Was it good? Sure it was good. But I think if I’m going to eat a mixed noodle like this, I rather eat Indomie Mi Goreng (which is one of the best instant noodles ever made).

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03May / 2021

Recipe: Nui Xào Bò (Vietnamese Macaroni)

Yes, another TikTok recipe but from a legit Vietnamese family so let’s not make fun. This was incredibly easy to make and SO good. The sauce is so nice and savory and OMG, did you know this trick? I’ve been cooking my pasta all wrong all my life. This recipe told me to boil up the water, add the pasta in and boil it on high for about 2 minutes and then shut off the heat and let the macaroni sit in the pot for about 12 minutes and it will cook perfectly. I placed the lid back onto the pot slightly ajar. Am I the only one who has “cooked” the pasta…like stand there and keep stirring and keep trying to make sure the water doesn’t boil over? Ridic! Anyway, I’m using this trick for all pasta now. I think spaghetti noodles can do with maybe 10-11 minutes of sitting. Ugh, so much easier.

Nui Xào Bò (Vietnamese Macaroni)

Ingredients:
1 lb of Macaroni (16 oz – 1 box)
2 T Oil
2 T butter (separated into 1 T pats)
1 T chicken bouillon (3 small cubes for me)
1 lb of meat, sliced thin (shabu shabu type) or ground beef
1 C green onions (cut into 2 inch strips)

Sauce: 
⅓ C Sugar
¼ C Oyster Sauce
¼ C Soy Sauce
½ C Dark Soy Sauce
Stir sauce ingredients and microwave in a microwave safe dish for one minute. Set aside.

Directions:
Mix chicken bouillon with meat and set aside. 

Cook macaroni according to package instructions. I boiled my macaroni for 2 minutes on high heat, shut off the heat, placed the lid (slightly ajar) on the pot and let the macaroni continue to cook in the residual heat for 12 minutes. Drain, set aside.

Heat a pan with 2 T of oil. Add cooked macaroni, 7 T of the sauce and 1 T of butter, mix. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Heat pan with remaining 1 T butter, add meat and 1 C of green onions and cook for 2 minutes (or until meat is cooked through). Add macaroni and mix well, add more sauce if desired.

Notes:
The sauce ingredients make a LOT. I think it could be enough for 3 recipes

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28Apr / 2021

Recipe: Yakiniku Fried Rice

Yes guys, it’s another TikTok recipe post. Kind of a short lived trend and I think this recipe was just alright, nothing special but not bad either. You know how can tell it’s not that great, when the kids no like gobble it down. To me it was good! I just can’t eat all that rice…it’s too much!

Looks good ah? Not practical at all. This is merely for looks. This is not a good way to cook the meat, lol.

After you cook the meat a bit, add two pats of butter, can of corn and green onions. Mix it all together and then add store-bought yakiniku sauce. I got mine from Don Quijote. If you are curious which one, let me know and I will add a picture of it.

Okay, I guess I lied because I’m not really typing out a full recipe. You can see the ingredients all in the pictures and it’s really just throwing them all together and then eating. It’s the yakiniku sauce that makes all the difference. Pretty easy thing to throw together and tastes pretty good.

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23Apr / 2021

Recipe: Seitan

Have you folks ever heard of Seitan? It’s basically gluten and has been used to create the meat alternative in many dishes. My familiarity with it stems from small kid days through Jai. I think gluten has always been my favorite component of jai, I just never knew what it was and always assumed it was a form of tofu. Well there was a very short lived trend on TikTok the other week where people were making seitan out of flour, water and a few spices. I was intrigued. It’s an interesting process, you first mix flour and enough water to form a dough. Let it sit…then rinse the dough ball. You are literally washing away all the flour and what you’re left with is just the gluten. In the end, you end up with these lumps of gluten that you can shred apart that looks like shredded chicken! Do you agree? Peep the picture above.

This is the big ball of dough I had after I washed it in water. It’s just so interesting!

I think I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika…I think that’s it.

Gotta let it rest again after adding the seasoning.

I separated the big ball into smaller chunks that I tied into knots and pan fried…

Ooh look at that color…

Oops, think I got a bit too much color on this side. This is after both sides are browned, you add the broth of your choice and braise them…

After braising, check out how big they get!

Looks pretty “meaty” yeah? Tastes pretty good too! I think it can definitely be used as a good meat substitute.

Jenny’s Seitan

2 lb organic bread flour (found at Whole Foods) or 5.5 C of bread flour
2 C of water (I actually used 2.5 C and it was too much)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Smoked Paprika
6 C of Broth (Veggie, Beef, Chicken, whatever you prefer)

Instructions:

Mix flour and water until it forms a dough. Let sit under a towel for an hour.

Rinse dough under water and knead until water becomes a light rice water color.

Added 7 cranks each of salt and pepper, and then 1 T each of garlic powder and smoked paprika. Knead seasoning into gluten and rest for another hour (no towel needed).

Separate into smaller balls, I knotted each ball to help create more texture. I pan fried the dough balls to get some color and then added about 6 cups of vegetable broth and brought it to a boil. I then lowered the heat to a low simmer and continued to braise for an hour.

Remove from heat and let it cool, you can slice the seitan or shred like I did!

Connoisserus Veg’s Seitan Recipe

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19Apr / 2021

Recipe: Miyeok Guk (Korean Seaweed and Beef Soup)

This is going to be a very undetailed recipe post, I’m so sorry. I will link a few other recipes for this…I actually learned this from a friend long time ago and was amazed at how easy it is. When I make it now, I just eyeball the ingredients honestly. I don’t know if I shared but I’ve been needing to up my iron intake and this is a good recipe to do that, all that wakame and beef…they feed this soup to new moms for a reason. Get those nurtients in!

After I saute the chunks of meat for a bit of color, add water, bring the to a boil and then lower heat to simmer for 2 hours!

After the 2 hours, turn off the heat and remove the meat to cool. Once meat is cool enough to handle, shred it up! The meat is all soft and tender now.

I add my rehydrated wakame into the pot. I just buy the already cut wakame packs from the store…rehydrate in water, drain and then threw it in this broth. Added the meat back in…added the seasoning which is mainly salt, pepper, and some sesame oil and you’re all set. Oh so good. I’m sure if you wanted to add some konnyaku noodles, you can!

Jenny’s Throw Together Miyeok Guk

1-2 lb. Beef Chunk (Chuck Roast or Brisket)
1 package of Cut Wakame (2.5 oz package)
3-4 cloves of garlic, smashed
10 C Water
1-2 T Sesame Oil
Salt and Pepper
Fish Sauce

In a big soup pot, I place oil (I used avocado oil) and slightly sear both sides of the beef chunk(s). Add water and garlic cloves and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours. In a separate bowl, add enough water to cover cut wakame and let it rehydrate (2 hours is plenty of time to hydrate), drain and set aside.

Turn off heat and remove meat from stock. Once meat is cool enough to handle, shred into smaller pieces. Add wakame into stock and bring mixture back up to a boil, add meat back into pot and mix to incorporate and bring to final boil. Add sesame oil, salt and pepper to your taste. You can also adjust the salt if you want to add fish sauce or Korean soup soy sauce, just taste it as you season! Once perfect seasoning has been reached, turn off and enjoy!!

Serious Eats Miyeok Guk
My Korean Kitchen Recipe
Korean Bapsang Recipe

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09Apr / 2021

Recipe: Shrimp Fried Cauliflower Rice

A lot of my recipes come out of trying to clean out my freezer or fridge. As you know, I’ve been on a bit of a health kick so cauliflower rice has become somewhat of a staple in my menu. Well I decided to experiment with it to make a fried rice and it came out really good! The people I shared it with really enjoyed it too so I decided to share the recipe with you folks. The instructions are a bit casual, let me know if you have any questions.

This has become my style, adding fried garlic to EVERYTHING.

Adding the previously sautéed shrimp back into the cauliflower and garlic mixture…

Adding the scrambled eggs back in. No mix ’em too hard, I like my eggs chunky.

Shrimp Fried Cauliflower Rice

4 small bags of frozen cauliflower rice (I got mine from Costco – the entire package contains 4 small bags of rice so I used the entire package)

2 T Butter
4 eggs, beaten

2 T avocado oil (whatever oil you prefer)
1 box of Kauai shrimp (the box from Costco), thawed, de-headed and peeled (I didn’t devein because who cares)
Salt and Pepper

2 T avocado oil (whatever oil you prefer)
1 1/2 heads of garlic, minced
White pepper (optional)

Instructions

EGGS
Heat up about 2 TBS of butter, add eggs. Cook to a soft scramble, should still be wet. Remove from pan and set aside.

SHRIMP
Heat up avocado oil in pan, add shrimp, sprinkle salt and pepper (about 2 cranks each). Flip after about 2-3 minutes, add salt and pepper again and cook. I didn’t cook the shrimp completely since you’re going to add it back to the rice later anyway. I think I cooked it maybe…6 minutes? Remove shrimp from pan and set aside. 

GARLIC
Heat up avocado oil in pan (I didn’t wash the pan after the shrimp) on medium low heat. Add garlic and cook, constantly stirring. It will take a while but the garlic will turn nice and brown without getting burned. Be patient.

FRIED RICE
Once garlic has reached golden brown status, add the frozen cauliflower. The frozen cauliflower is easy to break apart in the wok. Break down rice and mix it with the browned garlic. After about 3-4 minutes, add shrimp and eggs into the rice and mix together. I try to be careful because I like my eggs to remain in big chunks. I add a bit more salt and white pepper to taste at the end. It’s really up to you for seasoning, just season to taste.

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