Feeling Saucy #1

If you didn't know already, I have an obsession with sauces. Any new and interesting sauce must be mine. This is a new series which will feature sauces I love to use and sauces I have created myself. The first one I am posting about is my "Thai-style" Lemongrass & Mint sauce. The ingredients are simple: 1. 3 2-inch stalks of lemongrass (from base) 2. a handful of mint 3. 1/2 cup Thai fish sauce 4. juice from 1/2 Meyer lemon 5. 2 tablespoons of sambal 6. 2 table spoons of shrimp paste with shrimp oil

Chop up the herbs, mix in the other sauces, and bam! You have the most savory, sweet, tart, and DELICIOUS sauce ever. I can literally drink this stuff. The shrimp oil brings it all together. The Meyer lemon keeps it from being too tart. The fish sauce gives it a nice saltiness and pungency. The sambal brings some heat. I've seen other recipes use salt, but I felt like using the Meyer lemon and Thai fish sauce brought enough sweetness to the sauce. Tomorrow I will be using this sauce on top of oil-poached barramundi. Look out for my next post with the recipe! Happy saucing!!!

Feeling Inspired!!!

Hi All!!! Long time no see. Med school has been rough. I lost my inspiration too cook, which was very sad. But now, I'm back!! I bought an Instant Pot and that has been life changing! Can't wait to post about stews and all the goodies I can make with this pot! Let me know what you like to do with your instant pot!

I'm Back!!

It's been a while

So I haven't been able to post lately because I have moved to Minnesota.

Ever since moving here, I've been struggling to adjust to the lifestyle, culture, weather, and lack of good food. In a way, I've become uninspired to blog, to go out, and to explore good foods.

Recently, I have become motivated again. I have started to cook again and am now much happier and more accepting of my life.

Stay on the look out for more recipes as I am going to start teaching the folks here in Rochester that good food does indeed exist.

Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Noms on My Phone #13

It's been a while since I've posted one of these and boy, do I have lots to share! I recently came back from Hong Kong and Macau, so there will most definitely be a whole separate post on my food experience there!

For the random pick of the day we have...... 

Details:

Who: Me and my parents

What: 12 oz. Cowboy cut of a dry aged prime rib of beef seasoned with garlic and fresh rosemary, slow-roasted and sliced to order, served with creamy horseradish & au jus 

When: April 18th, 2014

Where: The Harris Ranch Restaurant, 24505 W Dorris Ave, Coalinga, CA 93210

Why: My parents and I were on our way back from Morro Bay and happened to pass by this place!

Overall verdict:

While this was not the best prime rib I have ever had, it was definitely one of the better ones. The prime rib was quite juicy and had great flavor. The sides were well seasoned and paired nicely with the steak. The au jus sauce was delicious and not too salty. Overall, I really liked this prime rib and its sides. The only gripe I had was that there was a bit too much fat left on the prime rib. I like myself some nice marbling, but I don't really like having chunks of fat next to my meat. 

Will I come back? Heck Yes! Harris Ranch is known for their fresh cuts of beef and their dry aged steaks! This is the perfect spot to eat at if you ever find yourself in Central California!

I give this..... 4 apple pies out of 5!!!!! 

TChen Makes Taiwanese Sweet Custard Brick Toast

Hey All!!

Sorry for the long hiatus, but I am back and ready to start whippin' up some recipes!
We will be making the super delicious, extra fattening, Taiwanese Sweet Custard Brick Toast today!

This dessert holds a special place in my heart because I used to eat this all the time when I lived in LA. Every time I went to a boba/tea shop, I would always order at least one brick toast. Now that I no longer live in LA, I have these cravings for this sweet dessert every time I drink milk tea. Unfortunately, there are no tea shops where I live currently that serve this dish. So....  I decided to take matters into my own hands and try to make it myself!

Here is what you need:

- 1/3 cup of salted butter
- 1/3 cup of powdered milk
- 1/2 egg yolk
- 1/6 cup of powder sugar (I don't like my toast too sweet so I always cut down on sugar..... but feel free to up this to 1/3-1/4 cup of sugar if you like it to be sweeter)
- 2 slices of thick toast (I don't have a Chinese bakery near me to get the super thick toast, but I just settled for Rainbo brand Texas toast)

How to set it up:

- Preheat toaster oven to 350 degrees.
- Heat up your butter first so that it is slightly melted. This will help you mix everything together.
- Mix the butter, powdered milk, sugar, and egg yolk together using a spatula until it reaches a paste like consistency
- Score the top of your bread by taking a knife and lightly cutting the top vertically and then horizontally. You should get cuts that resemble a hashtag (#)
- Put the sweet custard paste onto the bread and make sure you cover the whole piece of bread, including corners.
- Place in oven and bake for 4-5 minutes until the corners look a little light brown.
- Turn to broil feature on oven and bake for additional 1 minute to get a nice caramelization on top.
- Let it cool so that custard will solidify.
- Serve!

Remarkably simple, yet irresistibly delicious!

Enjoy and good luck in the kitchen!

-

TChen Makes Thanksgiving... duck?!

Hey everyone! I hope y'all had a lovely Thanksgiving! Please share with me what you ate!

So my Thanksgiving was a bit... nontraditional. We did what we like to a call an "Asian Thanksgiving." I mean, after all, didn't the native Americans initially immigrate from Asia? (But actually, we were just too lazy to make a turkey/didn't have enough people to eat a turkey/ couldn't imagine eating turkey leftovers for the rest of the year.)

What did we make then? Well we had a Chinese hot pot and a Chinese roast duck! The hot pot used chicken broth as a base and we added lots of beef, shrimp, abalone, veggies, and noodles! The duck was prepared over 2 days, by the one and only, me.

sorry! so foggy!

can you spot my phone?

 So sorry guys! My phone was a bit hazy for a few of the pics, but I hope you were able to get a good idea of what I made!

Now for the recipe... I didn't really follow a specific recipe, nor did I measure anything out. It was more like a squeeze of hoisin sauce here, a pinch of five spice powder there, and few oranges in the cavity, and bam! Sounds simple, right? Well it really was quite simple. However, there are two tricks. First, you should separate the skin from the meat using your fingers if you cannot inflate it with a air syringe pump. Next, you should hang and dry out your duck before you cook it. We dried out the skin for at least 24 hours so that the skin almost became paper thin. This is more of a trick for Peking duck, rather than roast duck, but I noticed that the skin wasn't so fatty in the end and was quite crispy! I figured, why not combine the best of these two recipes to make the ultimate duck!

And boy, was it an ultimate duck. It was juicy and had the slightest hint of oranges. Delicious.

Let me know if you really want a full recipe and I can see what I can do!