Bitter melon noodles

I was never a fan of bitter melon until recently.  When I was a child,  my mom would make bitter melon soup with meat and shrimp stuffing.  It wasn't tasty at all because it was so bitter.  My taste buds have definitely evolved over the years.  Now, not only can I eat bitter melon, I actually enjoy the bitter taste.  For tonight's dinner, I added some egg noodles to the bitter melon soup.

I first mixed the following for the stuffing: ground pork, chopped shrimp, dried fungus, shredded carrot, vermicelli, 1 egg yolk, chopped fresh onion, soy sauce, fish sauce, salt, sugar, black pepper and garlic powder.

 

With the bitter melon, cut it into 2 to 3 pieces.  Then take out seeds so that you can stuff the stuffing in.  Then  placed the bitter melon in a large pot and cooked it in my homemade shrimp and chicken stock for 1 hour on medium heat.  I seasoned it with sugar candy and onion.
While the soup is almost done, I cooked some egg noodle and placed it in a bowl.  Once the soup is done, cut the melon and place it in the bowl.  Here comes the tricky part:  In another bowl, put some soup that was just made, premium soy sauce, sugar, baby ginger and starch for the noodle sauce.  Heat up a pan on medium heat and pour the sauce until it lightly thickens.  Then last but not least, pour the sauce in the bowl that you prepared.

I garnished it with chopped cilantro and mint/cilantro oil.  Don't let the bitterness stop you from eating good food.  Happy eating!

Bibimbap

If you never heard of Daiso, you might want to go check it out because they sell lots of plates/bowls/cups for such a cheap price.  The clay pot featured above was $2 each.  I brought it not too long ago and wasn't sure what to do with it until today.  I wanted to make this Korean dish with rice and adding Korean bbq short ribs, cucumber, carrot, bean sprout, and my egg cooked sunny side up.  My uncle in-law threw a birthday party for his son and there was short ribs to take home.  I used the leftover short rib for my clay pot.

First off, I put EVOO in the clay pot and rice.  Then I placed it on the stove and set the heat on medium for 5 to 8 minutes.  I want the bottom of the rice to be lightly burnt and crunchy when you take that first bite.  Remember to not burn your rice!

The following are some veggies that I put together.  For the bean sprouts, I steamed it and season it with teriyaki sauce, sugar and sesame oil.

 

Once you prepare these ingredients, start your plating.  One of my key ingredient is the eel sauce. When you are done plating, drizzle some eel sauce and poke the egg yolk and enjoy that first bite.

At first, I called the dish clay pot because I didn't know what it was called.  Thanks to my friend Jimmy, I realized I was trying to recreate bibimbap.

Deep fried tilapia and sweet mild garlicger sauce

No meat on Fridays! No problem.  I present to you my deep fried tilapia.  There was a couple of times I bought fried fish at the Asian market home for dinner.  It was a bad idea because my car smelt oily for a week and half of the fish was soggy.  Looking back, I'm glad that I invested in a deep fryer.  It's pretty big and easy to use.  So please don't try to fry your fish in the house, invest in a deep fryer because it is so convenient and fry it outdoors.
I had the butcher clean just the stomach but keep the scales.  The scales turn very crispy once they are deep fried.  I set my deep fryer to the max at 375 degrees.  I fried the fish for about 10 to 15 minutes and placed it on a paper towel to soak the grease.  Now, the most important of this dish is the fish sauce used to dip the fish with.  Mix together the following: 1 clove of garlic and 1 ginger (same size as the garlic) mashed, 1/2 lime, 1tbs fish sauce, 3/4 tbs sugar (you can always add more sugar if you like it more sweet), and 1/4 tbs chili garlic sauce.  I would call this sauce sweet mild garlicger sauce. I hope you enjoy it.

Recreating chicken confit

I was at SaveMart and found out that chicken legs was only 47 cents lbs.  I went ahead and got 10 lbs because it was cheap.  I decided to recreate my chicken confit because I didn't like the presentation from my previous dish.  I also put extra ingredients to bring out more flavor of the chicken.  I added carrot, celery, smoked paprika and fish sauce.  I know it sounds weird with the fish sauce, but it tasted pretty good.  I also made my own gravy for my mashed potato and cilontro/mint oil for freshness.

 

 

 

Nice, tender, soft and tasty my friends....

Stir fried green beans

Boy...I love cooking.  At first, I was going to make stir fry green beans with beef and carrot only.  Then I took a look in my fridge and found a couple shrimps and left over king oyster mushroom.  Yes...I added it.  I'm going to be brief on the recipe.  So I used iron steak and marinated in sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, black pepper, and mash garlic for about 5 minutes.  (1st portion) Using a wok on high heat, add cooking oil, onion and garlic (about 20 seconds).  Then add in the beef.  When the beef is half way cooked, add in shrimps and king oyster mushroom and stir until cooked.  Scoop everything out from the wok into a bowl and reuse the wok.  (2nd portion)Make sure the green is pre-steamed (I microwave mine so I don't lose any flavor),  In the wok, add  cooking oil, vegges and oyster sauce.  Stir for about 1 minute and add the 1st portion back in for another 30 seconds.   My friend...I present to you stir fried green beans.

I love having family style dinner.  I get to seat down with my wife and daughter to enjoy a wonderful meal.  I would have rice, soup, thit kho (caramelized pork belly) and my main dish. Happy eating!

Butternut Squash soup

4 simple ingredients: butternut squash, carrot, homemade chicken stock, and thyme. Once it is done cooking, puree it.

My sandwich has cheese, caramelized onion and king oyster mushroom, honey mustard, avocado, poached egg, beacon, and ham cooked with beacon.

 What can go wrong with soup and sandwich?  Happy eating.

Chicken Feet

Ingredient: Red wine, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce, black bean sauce, onion, garlic, sugar, ginger, galangal, strawberry jam for sweet and paprika powder.

Oysters!!

Oyster, lemon ponzu, caviar, chives, sriracha, lemon juice and zest...

Lettuce wrap

Ground turkey, water chestnut, English cucumber, king oyster mushroom, and homemade orange seasoning.

Fresh Pasta

Serving size: 2

Ingredients:
-2 cups all purpose flour
-2 eggs
-1 red bell pepper
Direction:
Grill the bell pepper so that the skin is easy to peel off.  Peel off the skin and let it sit and cool down.  Using a processor, add in flour and leave the machine on while adding the bell pepper and eggs.  Turn off the processor when the dough forms into a ball. Take it out and saran wrap it. Put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours (I left it in overnight). Start rolling!!

 

Egg rolls

Stuffing consists of ground pork, ground shrimp, taro, carrot, dried fungus, onion, egg, rice vermicelli, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and black pepper.

There are many ways to eat an egg roll.  I ate this lettuce wrap style with cucumber, cilantro, mint, and bean sprout and dipped in my homemade fish sauce.  Enjoy!