Mackerel & Pork Braise with Pineapple

Here is another traditional food that my mom used to make, and now I will try to prepare it to serve to her when she visits here. I hope that my mom will approve and enjoy my preparation so that people who need an easy Vietnamese soul food can please their families.

Ingredients:
5 medium mackerel (about 1 to 1 ½ lbs.)
1 lb. pork belly
2 cups pineapple cut into cubes
1 cup chicken broth
Marinade ingredients:
4 green onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 shallots, chopped
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs mushroom seasoning or chicken seasoning

1 tbs molasses
1 tbsp. chili oil
Chili oil
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup Korean chili powder and paprika

Directions:
If buying fresh mackerel, then ask the fishmonger to clean and gut out the mackerel for you. Cut fish in half and soak in water with salt and vinegar for hours. Drain and Clean fish well.

Slice the pork belly into approximately ¼ inch thick pieces.
Place both fish and pork into separate mixing bowls. Divide the marinade ingredients equally and add them to the fish and pork mixing bowls. Mix well, cover bowls, and let both bowls marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
In a small saucepan, add oil. Add chili powder and cook until chili releases its red color. Use this oil for any Vietnamese fish stew that needs the color.
In a cast iron pan, pan fry the pork with the marinade until golden brown.

 Add molasses and chili oil to color the meat.

Add fish with the marinade and gently stir fish to combine with pork

. Top with pineapple and add chicken broth.

 Bring to boil, cover and turn heat to simmer. Braise fish-pork for 1 hour.

 If you do not like a lot of sauce, at this point, uncover the lid and turn heat up.

 Add some green onions, and it is now ready to serve.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Mushrooms

Stir-fried dishes are delicious and tractable. Stir-fry ingredients are diverse, and the common meats, such as chicken, pork, beef, or seafood, are used for stir-fry. Sometimes, tofu is used instead of meat for those who like to eat vegetables. When preparing a stir-fried dish, the stir-fry sauce is always used to enhance the flavor, and chicken broth should be used. Many stir-fry sauces are available in the groceries these days to help busy cooks to perform this task. However, making a stir-fry sauce at home is an easy too. I love to make this particular stir-fried dish when my refrigerator has vegetables, and varieties of cultivated mushrooms should be used immediately; otherwise, they will be damaged, especially fungi, and this is a recipe for them. It is delicious dish and cleans out the refrigerator.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast, sliced
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking wine, sake, or dry sherry
Sauce ingredients:
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp cornstarch
Other ingredients:
1 tsp five spice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into strips
1 cup chives, cut into 2 inch lengths
1 cup snow peas, washed and stripped
3 cups of mushroom varieties (your choice of King oyster, button, or Enoki) torn and cut
1/2 cup bean sprouts
2 dry mushroom

Directions:
Soak dry mushroom in hot water for 20 minutes until plump. Remove and reserve the soaking liquid to make a sauce. Slice the mushrooms into strips. Add 1/4 cup of soaked mushroom liquid to the chicken broth to make 1/2 cup total.
Whisk the stir-fry sauce until smooth and set aside.
Marinate the chicken breast with soy sauce, cornstarch, peanut oil, and sherry for 1 hour.
In a wok, add oil and stir-fry chicken until golden brown. Remove.

Add ginger, garlic, five spice, chives, and dried mushroom strips. Cook for 1 minute until fragrant.

Add snow peas and other mushrooms, chives except the Enoki mushrooms. Stir-fry for one minute and add sauce.

Cook until the sauce thickens.

 Return chicken to the wok. Add Enoki mushrooms and bean sprouts.

 Make a quick stir and season with more salt, if needed, and white pepper.

Sprinkle with fresh chopped cilantro and serve.

Easy Sweet Potato Dessert (Chè Bà Ba)

Vietnamese people when hearing about this porridge dessert, immediately imagine a picture of a southern woman with her traditional shirt, called ao Bà Ba – a cone leaves hat, and carrying a pot of this dessert to sell at a street market on their shoulders. I am unsure about the history of this delicious porridge of the southern region of Vietnam, but this porridge’s rustic name, "Chè Bà Ba",  is the name for a woman who lives in the countryside of southern Vietnam. This particular porridge will never be served in urban hotels, whether or not it is a delicious porridge, as it is a food for rural people and can only sell on the sidewalks of the city of Saigon. I love to eat all kinds of tubers, and so this is also a dish that suits my taste. If sugar were not necessary to sweeten this dish, it can be a very good dish to be able to eat everyday. The natural sweetness of the potatoes, the fatty, creamy, fleshy texture of coconut milk, and green beans create a very unique flavor for the porridge. Here is a very simple recipe to create this country dessert. Whether we live overseas but we are always increased indispensable flavors of the dessert in the countryside of Vietnam.

Ingredients:
One of each type of tuber –Japanese purple, red or yellow, taro, and yucca root
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1/2 cup small tapioca pearls
1/2 cup tapioca sticks (bot khoai)
5 cups water
One 14.5 oz. can coconut milk
1 cup cooked mung beans
1 tbs pandan leaves extract
1/4 tsp salt

Directions
Soak mung beans for 15 minutes and drain. Add mung beans into a pot with enough water to cover the beans and bring to boil. Let boil for 2 minutes and pour off the water. Cover beans with lid and turn the heat to simmer. This will dry cooked the beans (about 20 minutes).
Peel, wash, and cut the tubers into big bite size pieces. Place yucca and taro, if using, into a heatproof, microwave dish and cook for 3 minutes. Add the rest of the tubers and cook in microwave for 4 more minutes. This is the process to partly cook the tubers. Set aside.

Bring 5 cups of water to boil. Add both tapioca pearls and sticks into the rolling boiling water and cook until both the tapioca pearls and sticks turn clear or soft when tasted.

 Add all the cooked tubers until all the tubers are tender and are still in shape.
Add sugar, pandant extract, and coconut milk and the cooked mung beans.

Bring to boil for 1 minute. Ladle dessert into a serving bowl. Serve warm.

Vietnamese Vegetarian Chili Sauce Sate

Vietnamese chili, also called "sate", is a side dish served with the soup dishes, often Bun Bo noodles or hủ tiếu. Sate is a side dish, which is also very popular especially for those who like spicy food. There are many recipes for preparing sate depending on the taste of each family for which sate dishes are cooked. However, most major spices used are still garlic, shallots, and, of course, plenty of chili. Other spices are used, such as lemongrass and some cooks add dried shrimp. Another traditional Vietnamese taste ingredient of the sate is fish sauce. Simply, because I want all vegetarians to enjoy this sate recipe, I will now share a very simple formula to make this sate dish – I like to use salt and soy sauce instead of fish sauce. Sate when served with other dishes often provides more flavor to the dish. Sate can be preserved for a long time in the refrigerator. So we should always have a jar of sate ready in the refrigerator.
Ingredients:
1 cup oil
1/2 cup garlic, peeled
5 large shallots, peeled
1/3 cup fresh chopped lemongrass
Spices:
1/3 total cup of a combination of dried chili, Thai red chili, the poblano chili, chili flakes, and cayenne
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar

Directions:
Use a mini food processor to grind individually the garlic, shallots, and dried red chili.

In a sauté pan, add oil and garlic first. On low heat, cook garlic for 3 to 5 minutes.

 Add shallots and cook until both garlic and shallots release their fragrances.

Add lemongrass, stir, and cook on low heat for another 7 minutes (it should look slightly brown). Add all the hot chili and stir to mix well.

Add salt, soy sauce, sugar, and black pepper.

Cook further for 5 minutes and adjust the seasoning.

 Turn heat off and let cook before pouring into a glass jar with lid.

 I should take better photo

Quick Brown Bread

Here is a good recipe for making quick brown bread. It tastes like an old-fashioned Boston Market brown bread.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups flour
2 bags of granola raisin oatmeal or 1 cup regular oatmeal
1/2 cup super fine sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or skim milk (add 2 tbs lemon juice)
1/2 cup raisins
2 tbs butter

Directions:
Use 1 tbs of butter to grease and flour a 9” x 5” loaf pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 350°.

 
In a blender, grind the granola oatmeal to fine.
Blend the sugar to make superfine sugar.
If making sour milk, let milk sit for 30 minutes.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins, and superfine sugar and mix well. Make a well in the center and add eggs, and sour milk. Use a handheld mixer to beat well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Top with butter.

 Bake for 45 minutes or when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve warm.

 

Nutritious "Milk"

My mother and sister will visit with me in August. I have been thinking about possibly adding a few dishes which contain very beneficial nutrients for elderly adults, such as my mother. Usually, the elderly are either too lazy or forget to eat, so they frequently suffer from malnutrition. I often write about the wonderful of the soy milk machine. This machine performs as a workhorse in my kitchen, so that I can process food ingredients into a very tasty milk that fulfills the needed essential nutrients in my diet instead of drinking ordinary milk. I will share this recipe for those who still have elderly parents. This recipe can make a dish for extra nourishment for their drinks. The good news is that this dish is very easy to implement.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup red beans
14 cup almond
1/4 cup brown rice
Equipment:
Soy milk machine
Fine sieve

Directions:
Soak red beans, almonds, and brown rice over night. The next day, first drain the soaked ingredients a fine sieve and add to the soy milk machine. Follow the guideline of proper water level. Turn the machine on.
Drain the cooked milk again through a fine sieve to remove most particulates and to achieve the best taste of the milk. Sweeten the milk by adding honey to it.

 Serve warm or cold

For the variation of beans: Add any kinds of bean to this ingredients and follow the amount has given. If you like to make sweet rolls in the bread machine, then the pulp from this milk is a good choice too.

Easy Apple Cake

I am still trying to finish using some of the apples that my neighbor gave me yesterday. The simplest way is to make an apple coffee cake. I have a recipe for easy cake. Also, I will add coconut oil with regular butter or vegetable oil in this recipe to make this cake a healthier choice for breakfast. A stand mixer is one of the most helpful piece of kitchen equipment for home baking. If I had more space in my kitchen, I would like to have two stand mixers to make other kinds of cake more easily, such as the kind of cake that needs beaten egg white. However, this is an easy cake, and even a handheld mixer will do the work.

Ingredients:
Dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp each of ground cinnamon and pumpkin spice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Wet Ingredients:
1 ½ cups sugar
3 eggs
1tsp vanila
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
3 cups peeled, cored, and chopped tart apples

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Grease and flour a 9 inch diameter cake pan and set aside.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and set aside.

In a stand mixer bowl, add eggs, sugar, and oil. Beat for 5 minutes or until the egg looks light in color. Add vanilla

Add flour and turn machine on a low beat to combine.

 Stir in apple and mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Serve warm or let cake cool before icing the cake.