Fish with Sesame Seeds Crust

What's for dinner is the question most of us ask every day. Sometimes, this question becomes annoying for many reasons. However, to deal with this question, I always try to prepare dinner in a flash, or it should never be complicated. After a long day of work, many of us just want to relax and enjoy a simple meal at home. Anyway, relaxing is not simply stopping to pickup food on the way home from work — especially when it is a junk food. In fact, the recipe that I present here finds the answers to all mealtime questions. It is a healthy meal with an easy way to prepare, and most of the ingredients are in the pantry. Let’s cook dinner!!

Ingredients:
Two 6 oz tilapia or tuna
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne
4 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 tbs sesame seeds
2 tsp olive oil
Sauce:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs sake
1 tsp cornstarch

Directions:
Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Mix well and set aside
Place fish onto a plate and sprinkle with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and the sesame seeds on both sides of the fish. Press the sesame seeds onto the fish.
Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook fish on both sides for 2 minutes on each side or until cooked to taste.

Transfer fish to a serving plate.
Add the sauce ingredients into the same skillet.

Cook for 1 minute. Add the green onions and stir occasionally until the sauce just begins to thicken.

Pour sauce over fish and serve. Some steamed vegetables or rice can be served with this dish.

Garlic-Sesame Soft Pretzels

I have a habit that every time I go shopping in a mall, I have to buy pretzels. I look at the way they make pretzels, and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the hot and buttery pretzel just comes out. Many times, I wanted to make pretzels at home, but I felt that if I made them at home, I probably will never buy them at the store. Since shopping is not what I have been doing lately, I decided to make pretzels at home to satisfy my yearning for this wonderful snack. Chefs.com has a good recipe for making soft pretzels using a stand mixer. I always like to use my bread machine to create all kinds of bread, and soft pretzels are not different.  The soft pretzels sold at the mall are deep-fried, but the one I will make at home is much healthier. Adding some other ingredients, such as garlic, sesame, cheese, or salami will give the soft pretzels a more interesting taste.

Ingredients:
Pretzel ingredients:
1/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs soft butter, margarine, or vegetable shortening
2 cups bread flour
2 tsp active yeast
Other ingredients:
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs sesame seeds
1 egg
1/2 tsp coarse salt
5 cups water
1/3 cup baking soda

Directions:
Place the pretzel ingredients into the bread machine pan and press start. When the dough has risen long enough, the machine will make a sound. Turn off the machine, and remove dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Add minced garlic into dough and knead a few times to combine.

Preheat oven to 450°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Bring water and baking soda to a rolling boil in a pot.

Divide the dough into about 6 or 8 equal pieces.

Roll each piece of dough into a 12 inch rope.

Make a U shape with the rope, then use the two ends of the rope to cross over each other and press each end into the center of the sides to make a pretzel shape.

Make any shape that you feel comfortable making, Practice makes perfect, so don't worry if it does not look like the shape of pretzels that are sold in stores.

Carefully drop pretzels one at a time in boiling water. Boil each pretzel for 30 seconds, turning once. Use a flat spatula to remove pretzel and drain on a rack for a few minutes.

 

 

Beat an egg and add 1 tbs of water to make an egg wash. Place pretzels on a prepared baking sheet. Brush each pretzel with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds and coarse salt over the top of each pretzel.

Bake in preheated oven until pretzels turn a deep golden brown (about 15 minutes or more). Serve warm.

 

 

Vietnamese BBQ Sauce

While growing up in Vietnam, I never heard of BBQ sauce. I know the reason is that no large size Vietnamese family, such as mine, had enough meat to feed so many children and BBQ seemed way too expensive for us. Unlike in America, we had different kinds of BBQ from different regions of this country. BBQ is very well known for summer or any time of the year. Personally, I love BBQ sauce, and I always create my own sauce for the one reason that I can control the sweetness of a sauce. The BBQ sauce that I will introduce today is somewhat like the Korean Bulgogi sauce. I got this idea while I was having dinner with my family in a Korean buffet restaurant in California. This buffet served all kinds of beef marinated in the sauce, and we grilled the meat at our table. I went through a few Korean cookbooks and some other Korean web cooking blogs and created my own version of this famous Korean BBQ sauce.  However, some ingredients are not the same, but cooking is always for our self, and the taste is the most important consideration. As long as it is good, name it any way that you want.

Ingredients:
1/2 Fuji apple
1/2 Asian pear – Bosc pear is ok
1/2 onion
6 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs honey
1/4 cup sake or Korean soju wine
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1 cup water
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/4 cup peanut oil

Directions:
In a Vitamix or other blender, place all the ingredients and blend well. Pour the sauce in a glass jar with a lid. Refrigerate for one week.

 

 

 

To marinate the meat, beef or chicken, you need:
2 lbs of meat
1 cup of the BBQ sauce
4 green onions, chopped
1 tbs sesame seeds
A few red dried chilies

Place meat in a container with a lid. Pour sauce over the meat and sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onions. Cover and marinate overnight or at least a few hours.

 Turn on the outside BBQ grill or on a stovetop using a cast iron pan. Brush pan with some oil and grill the meat. You can grill some thickly sliced white onions, green onions, or asparagus to serve on the side. Sprinkle a little salt over the meat while grilling, if needed. Serve with rice, steamed noodles, or bread.

 

 

 

Vietnamese Chicken Curry (Cà ri Gà)

Chicken curry is the traditional dish that most serve in very special events. In the South of Vietnam, this dish has a little sweeter and heavier taste than others because a heavy volume of coconut milk is added. Different kinds of potatoes can be used for this dish. Some recipes bake or fry the potatoes; some others just cook potatoes with broth. All the spices are typical Southeast Asian from India, Thailand, or China. In Vietnam, the curry powder to use for this dish is "Cà ri Ấn Độ", but I am using the combination of both curry powder from India and red curry paste from Thailand because I love the taste and the color when adding the red curry paste to the broth. The desire for authenticity is always behind most of my Vietnamese recipes with only concessions for the Westerners’ preferences and the healthy purpose--I never use the MSG (monosodium glutamate) and less of the fish sauce as the main seasoning for Vietnamese food  just as soy sauce is for Chinese food. In my not so humble, subjective opinion, Vietnamese Chicken curry should be at least as popular, if not more, as Thai or Indian curry.

Ingredients:
2 lbs chicken thighs, bone in, skinless
Spice paste:
1 large shallot, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped
2 tbs sugar
1 tbs lemongrass chopped  very fine
2 tbs curry powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Other ingredients:
1 lb. potatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks
2 carrots, peeled and cut into big chunks
1 small white onion, thickly sliced
1 kaffir lime leaf or bay leaf
1 stalk of lemongrass, lightly crushed
1 tsp Thai red curry paste
1 can coconut milk
3 cups chicken broth
2 dried red hot chilies

More salt and fish sauce to taste
1/2 cup oil

Garnish with chopped green onions and cilantro

Directions:
Cut the chicken thighs into big chunks.

Mix all the spice ingredients in a large container. Add chicken, cover, and marinate for a few hours – it is best when marinated overnight.

In a large sauce pan, heat oil until hot. Fry the potatoes until golden brown. Remove from pan.

Wipe off some spice paste from the chicken and reserve the spice paste
In a sauce pan, heat oil until hot; Fry all the chicken until brown.

Add white onions, cook, and stir until softened. Add the reserve spice paste and red curry paste into the sauce pan.

 Mix well with chicken. Add chicken broth, the crushed lemongrass, the carrots and the kaffir leaf. Bring to boil (skim off some residue if any rises up on the surface).

Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add  potatoes and continue cooking on medium heat for another 15 minutes.

Add coconut milk and simmer further for 10 minutes. Season with fish sauce and salt, if needed.

Sprinkle green onions and cilantro over it. Remove and discard the lemongrass. Serve with a crusty French baguette or plain rice.

Easy Apple-Pear Bread

This bread is much easier than its presentation. With basic sweet dough bread, the fillings are any fresh fruit on hand. It is a bread that not only just tastes good but also makes a good welcome gift to new neighbors, as well.

Ingredients:
Basic sweet dough:
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 stick margarine or butter
2 tsp active dry yeast
Filling:
2 tbs melted butter or margarine
1 pear and 1 large apple, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1 tbs flour
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
For icing:
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 tsp milk

Directions:
Place the basic sweet dough ingredients in bread machine pan. Select dough setting and press start. When dough has risen long enough, remove dough and place onto a lightly floured countertop

Butter a jelly roll pan or two pie tins and set aside



de.Using a rolling pin, roll out dough into a large 20” x 12” rectangle or two 10” x 12” rectangles.

Brush dough with melted butter. Then add apples and pears. Sprinkle with flour. Continue adding raisins, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

Starting with the long edge, carefully roll up dough. Pinch edges and end to seal. Place dough seam-side down on prepared pan.

 Shape dough into a round or crescent shape by pulling the two ends slightly together.

Cover and let rise until double in size (about 40 to 50 minutes depending on the temperature of the room).
Preheat oven to 350°. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

In a small bowl, combine confectioner’s sugar and milk to make icing. Drizzle icing on top of the bread when bread is completely cool.

Mock Pork Skin (Bì Chay)

I have no idea where the name, Bi Chay, comes from, but Bì means "skin". There are many Vietnamese dishes related to this recipe, such as Bún bì chay, Bánh mì bì, Bì cuốn chay, and Cơm tấm bì. If not a vegetarian, pork skin and pork meat are the main ingredients for this same named recipe. I will make this dish for vegetarians because it is much healthier. When my mother was young, she was a chef for the Quang Minh Temple in Chicago. At every Buddhist celebration, this dish was a hit. My mom told me, “Serving this dish to and pleasing a big crowd is easy because people have choices.” I used to help her cut carrots, jicama, or deep-fry the cellophane noodles, but for the final stage, she was the only person to finish the preparation. For many years now, I make this dish to remind me of the wonderful time that my mom and I had at the Quang Minh Temple.

Ingredients:
8 oz firm tofu, drained
1 small jacama, julienned
2 carrots, julienned
2 potatoes, shredded
1 oz cellophane noodles
2 oz fresh king oyster and button mushrooms, julienned
1 oz rice powder (Thính)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 shallots, sliced
1 cup of peanut oil
Seasoning:
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions:
Heat oil and fry the shallots until crispy. Remove the crispy shallots.
Slice tofu and deep-fry in the shallots oil until golden. Julienne the tofu.

Deep-fry the cellophane noodles in the same oil in small portions, until crispy. Set aside.

Deep-fry the potatoes until golden brown. Remove.

In a sauté pan, add 2 tbs oil. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Stir in jicama, mushrooms, and carrots.

Season with soy sauce, salt, black pepper, and sugar. Cook for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are wilted.

Remove and place in a large mixing bowl.
Add tofu, potatoes, rice powder, crispy shallots, and crispy cellophane noodles to the jicama-carrots. Gently mix them well. The cellophane noodles still have their crunchiness after mixing together. Season again with salt, if needed. Now the Bì Chay is ready to serve.

 

Bì cuốn chay

 

Bún bì chay