Ca Kho To (Vietnamese braised fish)

I don't want to go all crazy with ingredient, so I kept it pretty simple!! Takes about 15 minutes to make this.

Ingredients:
- 4 to 5 1 inch steak cut cat fish
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 medium onion minced
- salt and black pepper
- Thai chili pepper (optional)
- Sauce: In a bowl, add 2 tbs soy sauce, 2 tbs fish sauce, 1 tbs balsamic vinegar, 1 tbs sugar, and 1 tbs honey.

This dish is very salty and sweet, so eat it with rice to balance the flavor.  Canh Chua also go with this meal.

Shrimp Crispy Noodle

Gravy ingredient for one portion: In a small bowl, you'll need 8 oz of  chicken stock, 1/2 tbs sugar, 1/2 tbs oyster sauce, 1/2 Pantai, some black pepper, and just about 1 tbs starch or a little less.  Mix it well before pouring in.

Ingredients: garlic, red onion, snow pea (steamed), carrot (steamed), oyster mushroom (steamed), shrimp, and fried crispy noodle (1 bag can make 4 dishes)

Birthday cake

 

Let's be clear!!! I didn't make this yummy cake because I just don't have the talent. It was my wife Birthday, so I had my friend who is also my business tutor (Melissa)  made this delicious cake.  I have to say, she is talented!!!

My take on Banh Beo (water fern cake)

 

Sauteed shrimp 

Mung bean

Ground pork

Shredded dried shrimp 

Green onion with cooking oil

Crab in 2 ways

Well, crab was on sale for $3.69 at my local Asian store.  I took the liberty to buy 2, one for me and one for my wife.  So I decided to cook it 2 different ways: I steamed one to keep that true flavor of it.  For the other, I wanted to go with the Asian tradition.  That was to stir fried with 2 main ingredients (ginger and oyster sauce) and along with other components.

Ingredient for Ginger and Oyster sauce:
-3 cloves of garlic (minced)
-1 green bell pepper
-1/2 red onion
-3 stems of green onion
-1/4 to 1/2 cups of ginger (julienne)
-seasons with salt, sugar, black pepper, and oyster sauce

Ingredient for cilantro lime sauce
-cilantro leaves
-1/2 lime
-sugar
-fish sauce
Credit to my sister for Cilantro lime sauce.  You can use this sauce with steamed crab.

Salmon with glazed persimmon

Salmon with crispy skin, served with rice, glazed persimmon and sauteed green bean.

Pickled watermelon

Yes!!! I know, who eats the white part of the melon? I took this idea from my dad when he had me to peel off the skin of the watermelon.  He wanted to pickled the white part of the melon.  This old man was crazy, who does that and for what?  Well, it turned out that it tasted pretty good and I want to share it with you on my take of this pickled melon.

Making something with leftovers

 Very simple: I had fresh pizza dough,  clam chowder as my sauce, leftover rib-eye steak, steamed broccoli, mozzarella stick, tomato and onion.  I made pizza!!! Weird??? Turns out that it was not bad at all.  Good eating.

 Again, leftover mash potato with crispy bacon, fried chopped garlic, and fried chopped onion.  I rolled it into a ball and coated with bread crumbs.  After I deep fried it, I used the leftover clam chowder as gravy!  Awesome!

My take on Dad's Burger

          I had leftover beef round steak so I decided to make a burger inspired by a burger from Dad's Kitchen in Sacramento, CA.  Beef round steak is really lean and could be dry at times if cooked too well.  The burger patty is made up of beef round steak, polish dog, and butter (to help from being dry) grounded in a food processor. Then I added some crispy applewood maple bacon on top of the cooked patty to give it some seasoning and texture.  I used an onion cheese bun to give it more flavor.

My take on Crawfish!!!

I have gone to four different places to eat crawfish (crawdad) in Sacramento: The Boiling Crab, Sac Crawfish, Firehouse Crawfish and a friend's house (Hiep Vu).  After trying all these different flavors, I've come up with a new sauce this year for the crawfish.  Stay tuned for the instruction video.

Here are the ingredients:

9oz Chorizo
2 cups Garlic
1 cups Onion
1 cups Lemongrass
1/2 cups Carrot
2 1/2 tbs Smoked Paprika
2 tbs Louisiana seasoning
2 cups White Zinfandel and 2 cups Orange Juice
2 sticks of Butter
1 tbs Fish sauce
Sugar candy
Lime powder
Curry (optional)
Jalapeno (optional)