I am one of those typical Asians who grew up eating rice all my life. I could not imagine not having rice for an entire week. When I went to Italy for over two weeks, all I had was pasta and meat and I was getting homesick and tired of the food. When I finally got to Venice, I tried the seafood risotto at the famous Antico Dolo. It was like home all over again! Granted, the rice grains were short and al dente and it had that cheesy butter taste, it was still great to have rice again.
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Steamed Egg
A lot of time, many of my recipes are halved or used very little egg. And I’m left with all this egg! I couldn’t possibly throw it away! So I normally save the egg to make steamed egg. I find it’s the poor people food because it’s mostly water.
My mom makes this all the time when she didn’t know what to make.
Ingredients:
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup of water
- several pinches of salt (some people put a crap load but I like only a hint of salt)
Additional ingredients:
half a stalk of scallion
baby carrots (I always have baby carrots with me)
You can steam it on the stove in bake safe bowl over simmering water for 15 minutes or cover and put in microwave for 1.5 minutes high.
Spicy Tuna Stuffed in Panko Crusted Squid
One of the things I love about tuna is that it can taste like meat if you cook it right. So when I originally tried this menu Spicy Tuna Stuffed Squid Tempura by Jennifer Yu of Use Real Butter (by the way, she has AWESOME photos on her website!), I thought, wow, it was amazing! It tasted just like dumpling fillings that my roommate always make using pork and chive. I recommend trying out the original recipe (fried and all!)
I’ve been on a healthy kick diet, refraining from fried and buttery food but I was just craving this dish!
So I thought, well, what if I used less flour with more panko and baked it! Tada!
So follow the instruction from Use Real Butter. I abstained by adding mayo because I absolutely hate it with a passion. And I didn’t realize I ran out of sriracha sauce, I used chili garlic sauce, and halved the recipe since I wasn’t paying attention when I bought the squid, thinking, wow, what a great price I got…it’s because they are tiny. But (!) since they are smaller, they were easier to cut and much softer to chew on.
I rubbed the squid in egg, and 1/8 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of panko, and some cajun spice for a nice kick. I set it to bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.
Viola!
If you’re wondering what to do with the egg, don’t throw it out! Use it again to make steamed eggs!
Wild Flower Lime-ade
I love flowers. There’s no doubt about that. I’m intrigued by them, drawn to them, and probably in my last life, I was a flower myself.
One of my gifts happened to be a wild hibiscus flower in syrup (or you could also purchase it at Macy’s Cellar). Since it’s summer (though today is a bit gloomy), I always like to make fresh lime-ade. I’m a big fan of mojito so I enjoy making sour drinks.
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Tour of Sweet Eateries in the Village
It’s been awhile since I’ve made plans to go out and explore the city. Mostly, it had been dreary, cold, and a stressful start to the year. Mother nature worked out on my side as fog and rain dissipated to warmth and sun. I walked through Soho to find a beautiful public artwork on the ground. At first, my friend thought it was a circuit board but turns out, it was a subway map.
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A Slice of Pizza and Life
This weekend has been one of those weekend I wish I could take away all the bad things and keep only the good things. There are times where you wonder, what is a life? What happens after life? Will I see you again? Will I see her again? Will they remember me? Am I really just a grain in time? These are questions no one has really brought back from the grave (though some claim to but one is always/must be skeptical).
Despite the heartbreaking news of a dear friend, life does move on. In your mind and heart, you carry a memory of them. And you know they are surrounded by loved ones until the end, so there’s a sense of ease and acceptance.
Sadly, the news coincided with my pizza making class that I had booked a month ago (Groupon). I went with a heavy heart, unhappy, tired, and emotionally drained out. But the thing was, it turned out to be a good distraction. I enjoyed it more than I expected.
Slice is a local pizzeria that uses local and organic ingredients and boasts locally crafted ales and beers. Their Pizza 101 class is located in their Greenwich Village location. It’s a small little place that probably only seats 20 people and 4 bar seats. Cute and cozy, there was a constant stream of people coming and going despite it being the Superbowl night.
Class started promptly at 3. My friend and I ordered a ginger lemonade, which was a good start. Not fizzy at all and entirely homemade.
So what was the pizza we made? It was a honey whole wheat 10 inch personal.
Ingredients:
- 2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white bleached flour
- Garlic salt
- Kosher salt
- Honey
- Olive oil
- Yeast
- 1 cup warm water (more, if too dry)
The flour was already prepped so we just made an indent to pour the dry ingredients (salt). Toss it around and then add the fresh yeast. You really have to work the yeast to break it up so it doesn’t clump and cause weird rising in the dough.
Here, the teacher poured in 1 cup of warm water. We really worked the dough. At one point, I ended up standing up to knead. Why exercise when one can do some arm workouts just working pizza dough?
After kneading it until the wrinkles are gone, we rolled in into one big ball, divided it into two and cleaned the wrinkled with some water. Pour some olive oil to keep the dough soft. One was put away so we could take home. The other was put on top of a stove (do not put on hot service) so that the dough rises in half an hour. Otherwise, room temperature rise takes about 2 hours.
In the meantime, we were served with complimentary merlot wine Widow’s Walk and Asian Cabbage salad with peanut sauce. I’m allergic to most nuts so they kindly gave me hummus and pita. I was starving at this point, having been unable to eat from depression (I’m one of those people who don’t eat when I am sad), so I ordered their Flight of Pizza, which is 4 small slices of their different pizzas.
As I was finishing up, the dough came out. We were told, kitty paw the dough from center out. After which we put on a rack. We added the marinara sauce (recipe is a secret) and tossed some part skim mozzarella cheese (this is the first time I will say, more cheese would have been great) (also, I didn’t know that cheese before sauce is called a Chicago style). Then a tray of toppings were passed around: barbecue chicken, chicken sausage crumble, kalamata olives, red peppers, button mushrooms, and eggplants.
When that was put away, we were served with another glass of wine! Pumphouse red wine. Considering I’m a lightweight, at this point, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drink anymore.
The pizza cooked for 8 minutes and voila! Honey whole wheat pizza with red peppers, olives, and eggplants!
PS, they served a third glass of wine for free.
PPS, My friend made a mini pizza. The teacher named it Darrell. He was quickly munched up.
Fire Roasted Vegetables
Living so close to Costco has been amazing and difficult. Amazing that food is so available but difficult with what I want but can’t/shouldn’t have. The task with living in New York is carting everything back and finding places to store them. How does one bring it back? I’ve yet to use what I call the “grandma cart” to haul everything back so items must be purchased sensibly.
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Sour Mango
Having made the shrimp namtok with mango, I had nearly a full mango left! What to do? I know it’s not summer but I love sour mango so I used something my mom used to make for us when she wanted us to eat fruits.
It’s super sour, super spicy, and a hint of sweet all tangled together to make you sniff and crave for more. In the summer, we would make a bunch of these sour mango treats, burning our mouths, making sweat in the blazing heat yet we couldn’t stop eating it. It’s such an addiction.
It must be unhealthy! Who knows.
This recipe is not for the light of heart. You have to like spicy and sour food at the same time.
Ingredients:
- 1 mango
- 1/2 tbsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of fish sauce
- 1-2 fresh or dried chili pepper
Make sure to clean the mango thoroughly.
You can always replace sour mango with sweet mango, not too ripe, and not use any sugar and it’s still great.
Just chop the mango up. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just make sure it’s small enough to munch on. When I was a kid, my mom used to cut the skin off but now I like it. Of course, the smaller the pieces, the more it absorbs the taste.
Toss the peppers, fish sauce (you can always use salt), and sugar into the sliced mango bits.
Of course, you don’t have to follow the measurement exactly. It’s not some sort of science. You can add more or less of any of the ingredients. Just not by too much. My mom never taught me how to cook with measuring cups or spoons so I normally don’t know the exact measurement either. She always told me, “cook for what taste good to you.”
Shrimp namtok
Namtok means waterfall in Thai. Why then would a grill beef salad be called that? I’ve heard stories that the way the juices from the meat is cooked with the sauces looks like a waterfall, hence the name. In any case, I love having beef namtok in the summer. A filling cooling salad with taste!
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