I saw this old school recipe online the other day and decided to make it as meal prep for my weekly breakfast. How was it? Good! The only thing is, I make such a huge batch that I get tired of it pretty easily. That’s the thing about meal prepping, I save a lot of money and time but get so tired of the food by day 3 or so. Wish I had the mentality of eating to live rather than living to eat. Hard life (lol). Anyway, I’ll share the recipe below. I think I found this from the Electric Kitchen website. The only thing I changed was to add rehydrated bean thread noodles at the bottom of my container before pouring over the stir-fry to make it a heartier dish and because I’m carb crazy.
Pork Tofu and Watercress Stir Fry
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon oil
1 pound lean pork, thinly sliced
1/2 cup shoyu
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 medium onion, sliced
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 (1-inch piece) ginger, crushed
1 (20-ounce) block firm tofu, cubed
1 bunch green onions, chopped into 1-inch lengths
1 bunch watercress, chopped into 2-inch lengths
Directions:
In a large pot, heat oil and brown pork.
Add shoyu, water, sugar, onions, carrots and ginger.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Add tofu, green onions and watercress and simmer gently until watercress is wilted.
Had a quick breakfast at Yogurstory and you can’t go wrong with the fat pig fried rice. I must be getting old because oh man was this dish salty. I really prefer blander foods now other than spicy (ha!). It was very good but I always forget how the dish comes and find myself asking where the portuguese sausage is. It’s just chopped up as part of the fried rice! Duh! Anyway, good dish but like I said…salty and probably get MSG.
Garlic Shrimp Spaghetti | $14.25 including 2 pc garlic bread
Mini Cold Ginger Chicken (all rice) | $9.89
Back at Lucky Box Restaurant again – can’t go wrong with their food. Tried a new dish this time, the garlic shrimp spaghetti. How was it? Good. It’s just garlic shrimp scampi on spaghetti noodles and well, the noodles are a bit bloated because I think they pre-cook it and just throw it into hot water again to warm them up for orders, so yeah…not at all al dente. That’s okay with me though, I like noodles in all shapes, sizes and textures. The garlic shrimp tasted good. And the cold ginger chicken? Well nothing new there, still good as always. I think I like their cold ginger sauce the most of all that I’ve tried. I am pretty sure they add garlic to it too which makes it lip smacking good. Love it!
I’m always on a look-out for recipes during the week that I can meal prep during the weekend for the next week’s lunches. It’s hard because I want to cook something I won’t get tired of eating 4 days in a row. I think I found a winner recipe this week! It’s super easy to make and I have almost all the ingredients at home already! I would definitely make this again. I’ll type out the modified recipe before but I will also give credit to the original recipe below!
Crispy Chow Mein with Shrimp Egg Swirl
Ingredients 1 pound shrimp, deveined deshelled 1 bulb of garlic, minced 4 pounds chow mein noodles (I used the fresh Sun Noodle Chow Mein noodles) 4 tablespoons avocado oil divided 2 bunches choy sum, cut into 2 inch pieces 4 tablespoons cornstarch 4 tablespoons cool water 4 eggs
For the Marinade Pinch Kosher salt 1 teaspoon cornstarch 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper plus more for garnish 2 teaspoon Shaohsing wine
For the Sauce 2 cans chicken broth 2 tablespoons oyster sauce 2 tablespoons soy sauce 4 teaspoons dark soy sauce 2 teaspoon sugar
Instructions
Bring a large pot of water to boil.
In a small bowl, marinate shrimp with pinch salt, ½ teaspoon cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon white pepper, shaohsing wine. Set aside.
In another small bowl, lightly beat eggs.
In another small bowl, dissolve cornstarch in cool water to make a slurry.
Blanch the noodles in the boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Drain well.
In a large frying pan on medium heat, add 2 tablespoons avocado oil. Add noodles and pan fry for about 2-5 minutes until golden brown. Flip and fry the other side, adding another tablespoon of oil along the side of the pan. Remove the noodles onto a serving platter and set aside. (I didn’t pan fry my noodles – you can do this step if you want to!)
Add another tablespoon oil and add shrimp. Cook 1-2 minutes until almost cooked through. Add garlic and stirfry for another minute.
Add broth and vegetables. Let broth come to a low simmer and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Stir in slurry. Add the slurry to the sauce and stir until thickened.
Gently pour beaten eggs in a slow stream to create a ribbon. Stir gently. Turn off the heat.
Scoop mixture over the noodles. Garnish with a pinch of ground white pepper.
I thought I planned out the perfect Costco trip. I took my car in to get my tires rotated and they gave me a 1.5 – 2 hour time frame. I sat in the food court and read my book for a little bit, then as the last hour crept up, I went in to order my contacts and then do my shopping. Well, I certainly took my time walking the aisles this day. It was also crazy that it was way busier at 3 something than at 5 something. What? Are people not working? Anyway, long shopping trip means I buy stuff I don’t need. This is one of the things…but it’s good! It comes with 3 medium sized packs inside! Kind of spicy – it has like a mala flavor. Oh by the way, it took almost 3 hours for my car to be done. It’s complete madness.
I saw these in the frozen section of Don Quijote the other week. Have any of you tried this? I was quite intrigued. Get “naporitan” pasta, teriyaki yaki-udon and yakisoba noodle. These are all fully cooked, just heat and eat kine. It says they are all small batch and kettle cooked – just throw the whole bag in boiling water for 20(!) minutes and then you can serve it up. I wonder how it is. and don’t let the name fool you, it’s actually a Japanese company.
Tangle Garlic Oil Pasta
Yes, the continuing saga. I got the garlic oil version as a cup noodle and tried it at work. It was better than the bulgogi flavor but not great. I followed instructions for water measurement and placed it in the microwave – it completely overflowed into the microwave enough though I barely had water inside. It was okay but not great.
Hong Yeon just opened last week and I am shocked I am making this post before social media shares it out. The main rush of why I wanted to share this now is because through the month of September for their grand opening, they are selling bowls of jjajangmyeon for only $10 each. Hong Yeon is located on Isenberg and took over the Maple Garden restaurant spot. Parking is HORRENDOUS. Small lot that is hard to maneuver around, street parking exists but was barely available when I went.
My coworker was nice enough to offer a ride here for lunch one day. I write this with a bit of shame because I should have come here with Chan first since he’s the one that told me about it! But shoot, I couldn’t resist $10 noodles and a free ride. Besides! I gotta report back to you folks right? If you go to their yelp page, I uploaded the entire menu in pictures so you can check that out.
Must have sides for jjajangmyeon! No other banchans by the way…maybe for now?
Sweet and Sour Pork | $32.00 (!)
The price is a bit shocking (a lot not a bit). It’s a nice sized serving but is it worth $32? I don’t know…we enjoyed it a lot. The pork was fried perfectly crisp, not a thick batter and not hard crunchy – light and crispy! We enjoyed it very much. They do have lunch combos that combine noodle and sweet sour pork for $24 – that’s a much better deal in my eyes.
Jjajangmyeon | $9.99 (Opening Special)
Sprinkle on that gochugaru! I like that they serve up the fine gochugaru – I didn’t want the coarse powder to affect the texture of this dish.
Noodle Pull!
So it was super busy when we were there during peak lunch hours but they were able to move us customers into seats very quickly. And I assume they just had them all ready because our jjajangmyeon came out basically right when we ordered it. The noodles were perfectly cooked, a nice bounce to them! Lovely sauce, mild in taste but delicious. Pretty sure it’s chock full of MSG but that’s okay, I will suffer for delicious food! We all enjoyed this meal very much. Service was also very good but it was the grand opening so I will have to judge service on when they’ve been open for a while. If you want to get the special price, I highly suggest you go early and during lunch. I’m just so glad we have another northern chinese restaurant to eat at!
Another recipe that helps me cook to my roots. My mom used to cook this dish for us all the time and I hated making it when I learned how. You could technically use ground pork but that wouldn’t be the same. She would use pork shoulder and chop it down by hand which I hated but now that I’m older and wiser, I realized that having chunks of the pork makes all the different in this dish.
I didn’t have a recipe written for this but can recall certain details. I noticed that online sources have all kinds of variations but I went the super simple route. Remember when I posted this the other week?
Yup, it was to make this dish! I tried to use this recipe as inspiration for my dish but I ended up just improvising. My mom didn’t use water chestnut so I didn’t use that and I wanted shiitake mushrooms in it, so I added that.
I don’t really have a recipe to type up, I used two pounds of pork shoulder that I chopped up. I added about 8 shiitake mushrooms. I rinsed off the salted turnip and minced that small but boy I messed that up. I should have rinsed and soaked the turnip overnight because bugga is SALTY. So salty.
I seasoned the patty with some oyster sauce, sugar, cornstarch, sesame oil, chicken bouillon and white pepper. No salt or shoyu cause it’s so dang salty. I also drizzled some vegetable oil on top before steaming it for about 20 minutes.
If it wasn’t so salty, this dish would have been perfect. Luckily I ate this with rice and some squash soup. I don’t know how traditional this is but when we had leftovers of this pork patty, my mom added eggs to make another meal out of it (almost like a meat chawan mushi).
I added a few eggs and some water (I don’t even measure, just eyeball it myself) – topped it with fresh green onions and steamed it for about 10 minutes or just until it is set. And boom, another entree! Ah this was a good dish. I had enough pork mixture to make two pie platters so I froze half for later. If you want a recipe, let me know and I’ll try to type one out next time I make it.
One faithful Sunday morning, after doing a quick grocery run with Chan, I offered up a drive to Chinatown to get some GRUB. Had a hankering for some beef noodles even in the hot Hawaiian summer heat. We parked in my favorite municipal lot and headed out. Lam’s Kitchen is super busy all the time but guess what, it ain’t busy before 8AM lol. We were the only 1 of 2 diners that morning. They did however have a lot of Chinese folks walking in and out of the shop for their takeout orders.
Chinese Doughnut Stick | $3.00
One of Chan’s favorite dishes and it was nice and crispy here too. We didn’t have jook today but it is nice dipped into the noodle broth too!
Beef Flank & Tendon Mein with Won Ton $18.99
I made Chan order his with won ton so I could just have one or two (mwahaha) and it was so much food, Chan could hardly finish his bowl even after giving me wonton. He got his with the skinny mein noodles.
Beef Flank & Tendon Look Fun | $14.50
Look fun is always good and Lam’s makes it very well. I got all confused in my mind that morning and was feeling like lai fun. I don’t know why I’ve been hankering for lai fun lately and I hardly see restaurants carrying it, let me know if you know of a good lai fun joint. Anyway, lai fun is kind of like udon noodles but a bit skinnier and not as soft. Anyway, this dish was good as always! Can’t beat a classic!
My original name for this recipe is Chinese Bean Curd, Cucumber and Mushroom Salad. Too much of a tongue twister so let’s just call it cucumber salad. I found this recipe on TikTok and I wanted to make it because wood ear mushrooms are Chan’s favorite but it also looked like such a refreshing salad. I had to type up the recipe and best guessed the quantities from the video and guess what? It came out GREAT. It is so delicious! Do I think the peanuts are needed next time? I don’t think so.
Dried Bean Curd Sticks
I found this at Don Quijote, I’m sure you can find this in Chinatown in any store. You have to soak these in water to rehydrate them. There are many different ways according to different websites but I decided to just soak it in cold water in the fridge overnight and that worked great! I rotated the sticks once just to make sure they got equal exposure to the water.
The wood ear mushrooms rehydrated much faster, I soaked them in room temperature water and it took about 30 minutes to get soft. The recipe calls for you to blanch both of them for about 1-2 minutes.
Garlic, Red Bell Pepper, Crushed Peanuts, Roasted Sesame Seeds and Green Onions ready for the hot hot oil…
Hot oil added! Immediately mix the ingredients so the hot oil can distribute to them evenly!
Cucumbers after my quick sugar pickle!
Fresh cilantro washed, drained and ready to go! Cilantro is a must!
Here’s the sauce with all the ingredients dumped in…so good…!
Chinese Bean Curd, Cucumber and Mushroom Salad
Ingredients
3 Japanese cucumbers, washed and cut into 1 inch sticks
3 T Sugar for quick pickling
2 small packets Wood Ear Mushrooms, rehydrated, rinse and drained (from Don Q – takes about 30 minutes in room temp water to rehydrate)
1 package Bean Curd Sticks, cut into 1 inch sticks (soaked in cold water in the fridge overnight)
1 Red Bell Pepper, diced
1 bunch cilantro
1 handful of shelled roasted peanuts
Sauce Ingredients
3 Green Onions, sliced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 T Toasted Sesame Seeds
3 T Crushed Peanuts
3-4 T heated neutral oil
6 T light soy sauce
6 T black vinegar
2 T oyster sauce
2 t salt
2 t chicken bouillon
1 T sugar, to taste
Toss cut cucumber sticks in a bowl with 3-4 T sugar and let sit for 10 minutes. Drain the water. Set aside. Heat a pot full of water, blanch the wood ear mushrooms and bean curd sticks in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Immediately drain, rinse in cold water and drain.
Add red bell pepper, green onions, garlic, sesame seeds, and crushed peanuts into a heat safe bowl. Heat up neutral oil in a pan/wok until smoking, turn off the stove and pour hot oil over the ingredients in the bowl. Immediately stir it to distribute the hot oil to all the ingredients.
Add soy sauce, black vinegar, oyster sauce, salt, chicken bouillon and sugar to the bowl and mix well. Taste and add sugar to your taste.
In a big bowl, add cucumber sticks, bean curd sticks, wood ear mushrooms, roasted peanuts, cilantro and sauce, toss. Can be eaten right away but tastes great after marinating for a few hours!
Note: Doubled sauce recipe when I made it compared to the video, doubling of sauce is reflected in this recipe write-up
Happy August! Oh my, is it already August? This is crazy. I feel like summer just started and here we are again. I love summer traffic so much, I need to appreciate the next few weeks until all the schools start up again! Sniff…
Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery | Assorted Dim Sum Items
Baked Char Siu Manapua | Winnah’s (big competition to U-Choice In) Custard Tart | Just okay (not the flaky pastry crust I like) Char Siu Su | I didn’t even get to try this. Ugh, too much food for the past few weeks so I let it go bad. My chinese self is kicking herself! Custard Bun | Okay, this was GOOD. It’s the pineapple bun with custard inside, so so good. Even better than the dim sum restaurants!
Fresh Peach Burrata Salad
In line with the season, I saw this fresh peach salad on TikTok. It’s fresh peaches, burrata cheese, prosciutto over arugula greens. It’s topped with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. If anyone asks, I can post the recipe. Super easy but the ingredients can get pricey. Chan loves arugula so he liked this salad!
Wea da noodles?
Inside joke with V. I made this really refreshing soba salad the other week to eat with Chan. It includes yuzu kosho dressing mixed with perilla oil and is topped with fresh cilantro. So good and refreshing, get noodles in there some place. Simple recipe, maybe I’ll post it one day. 🙂
It’s summer time so you know it’s time to do some BBQ’s! I wanted to try something a little different so I made vietnamese grilled pork skewers! Never tried making skewers like this before…and using fresh lemongrass before but it was a hit! Perfect food to go with some alcohol too. I had to buy a big pork shoulder chunk and slice it thin manually, that was the worst part of this dish. Other than that, it was good!
Salted Turnip
I found this at Don Quijote the other day and got super excited, really happy to see them branching out and getting more obscure Chinese ingredients. I don’t think I have ever bought this before but I think I was taught how to make a pork hash patty long time ago with it from my mom. Here’s to me cooking to my roots!
Look! This is the first time I ever guessed Wordle on the first try! This was my go-to first word everyday. Now that it’s been used, I am so lost without my first word guess! Gotta keep up with my streak!
