Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Sweet Pea Journey

Cooking

Steamed Eggplant Salad

Y’all, this one is one of my childhood favorite! If you can take spices, you will love this one! It’s super appetizing, you can serve it as an appetizer or a vegetable main dish. You can leave out the spicy oil and make it more kid friendly.

Ingredients:

1 American egg plant, or 2 Japanese eggplants. I prefer the skinnier version Japanese eggplants for this dish because it’s tenderer and the skin is softer too. But all I had was 1 ginormous eggplant, so I used that one.

about 4 TBSP of my signature spicy sauce. Leave out the spices if you prefer mild version.

2 green onions, thinly sliced

Method:

Cut the eggplant into roughly 2 inch slices. Put eggplant slices into a large bowl and steam in a steamer (if you have one) for 10 minutes.

If you don’t have a steamer, do what I did, put a wire tray, or 3 aluminum foil balls at the bottom of the large pot, fill water to about 1 inch deep – you only need about 10 minutes anyways. Put your eggplant bowl on top of the wire tray or aluminum foil balls.

Once eggplant is cooked, kill the heat, take the bowl out carefully to cool. Pull the eggplant into strips, or cut into strips. If you are using Japanese eggplant, you will be able to pull it into strips, I find the large American eggplant it is harder to pull, you can cut with a knife though.

Put all egg plant strips back into the bowl, after dumping out the liquid accumulated at the bottom of the bowl. Drizzle with my signature spicy sauce, top with green onion. Mix well and serve!

Cooking

Asparagus and Bellpepper Stir Fry

Another simple yet scrumptious dish. Super easy to make and very satisfying.

Ingredients:

1 bundle of asparagus

1 yellow bell pepper, use yellow for color contrast. Red or orange would do too.

4 slices of fresh ginger

2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

Method:

Prepare asparagus properly. By properly, I mean you have to snap each asparagus towards the bottom part, so the tough portion of the asparagus would naturally fall off. I can not stress enough, a tough bite of asparagus REALLY kills this dish. But don’t worry, you are not really wasting anything. Save the tough pieces in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for next soup you make. They add a nice refreshing flavor to the soup.

Cut the asparagus at a diagonal, roughly 2 inches long. Clean the bell pepper, remove seeds and the white membrane inside. Cut into thin strips, this way asparagus and the bell pepper will be roughly the same size.

Thinly slice your ginger and mince garlic. Then you are ready for the fire.

Pan on fire, medium high heat, about 2 TBSP vegetable oil into the pan, heat up the oil for about a minute. In goes the ginger slices and garlic. Move the aromatics around for about 30 seconds without burning the garlic.

In goes the prepared asparagus and bell pepper. Stir fry for about 3 minutes. You don’t want to overcook the vegetables, all you want is slightly soften them, that way the vegetables preserve the nutrients and the crisp texture.

Add salt, pepper and ground cumin, and mix well. Kill the heat and dish up. The cumin is the secret ingredient here, it gives the dish a little extra oomph, and also a bit of a smoky and almost fajita like taste. It’s quite nice.

Cooking

Spicy Sticky Roasted Chicken

This one you guys, is for sure a keeper! It’s so incredibly easy yet tasty! Best of all, it’s pretty much all hands off cooking, meaning you can do something else, or absolutely nothing…All you need is a bit of planning, because over night marinating is the best. If you are in a pinch of time, a few hours will do just fine.

Ingredients:

Chicken pieces, skin on, bone in. I had a whole chicken cut up by the butcher, and used the breast pieces the other night for easy baked chicken. So I am using the rest of the chicken for this recipe.

1/2 cup of low sodium soy sauce

3 TBSP Hoisin sauce

3 TBSP oyster sauce

1 TBSP sugar

2 TBSP Sriracha sauce, leave it out if you don’t like spicies, add more if you like more kick, totally up to you, or use your favorite hot sauce

3 cloves of garlic, grated into paste with a grater

1 green onion, thinly sliced, needed on day 2, for garnish, optional

1 tsp toasted white sesame seeds, for garnish, optional

Method:

Clean chicken pieces, and lightly score each piece 2 to 3 times all the way to the bone. This helps the marinade to penetrate the meat. Add chicken to a stainless steel bowl, or a glass bowl, or a large plastic bag for marinating.

Add all ingredients except for green onions and sesame seeds to the chicken container. Massage well to evenly coat chicken pieces. Leave chicken in the fridge for marinating over night if you can.

When it’s ready to cook, pre-heat oven to 375 F. Line a baking dish with foil for easy cleaning up. Arrange chicken pieces onto the baking dish, without overlapping.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and lower the heat to 350F. Bake for another 25 minutes to ensure chicken is baked all the way through.

Remove chicken from oven, let it rest for about 10 minutes.

Dish up chicken pieces, pour the pan juice over chicken pieces, top with green onion pieces and toasted white sesame seeds and impress everyone!

Cooking

Salt and Pepper Squid

If you like Chinese style salt and pepper anything, you will love this one too. And, it is amazingly simple to make at home, and it sure will impress!

Ingredients:

3 large fresh squids, cleaned

2 green onions

1 TBSP salt

1 TBSP freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup corn starch

3 Thai chili pepper thinly sliced

4 cups of vegetable oil

Method:

Lightly score the inside of the cleaned squid body in a criss-cross pattern. Try not to cut all the way through.

Then cut the squid body into bite size pieces, about 1 inch x 2 inch pieces.

Cut squid tentacles into roughly 2 inch long pieces, or as desired. Lay all squid pieces on a paper towel to dry the moisture. Mix salt and pepper in a small bowl and generously sprinkle the squid pieces with salt and pepper mixture.

In another small bowl, put corn starch for coating each squid piece. In a medium pot, heat up vegetable oil to a gentle roll. Test the oil with a small piece of squid.

Coat each piece of squid generously with corn starch, shake off excess and fry until golden brown, about 3 minutes.

Lay fried squid on a wire rack lined with paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and pepper again.

It would be great as is, but if you really want to kick it up a notch, in a large pan, with about 1 tsp oil, fry the green onions and Thai chili peppers till fragrant, about 20 seconds. Add all the fried squid pieces toss to coat and add another sprinkle of salt and pepper mixture. Dish up and serve!

Cooking

Simple Tum Yum Pork Ribs

This one is very tasty, yet so simple to make. Don’t pass it up without giving it a try. Yep, it’s the small bowl in the center of the feast.

Ingredients:

1 lb pork short ribs, cut into pieces

2 stalks of lemon grass, only top part and tough outer layers of bottom part, reserve the bottoms for pad kee mao

about 20 sichuan pepper corn pods

1 knob of ginger, about 1 inch, thinly sliced

2 green onions, only green part, reserve white parts for pad kee mao

6 shiitake mushroom stems only, save caps for pad kee mao

2 TBSP fish sauce and salt to taste

Method:

Thoroughly clean pork ribs. Put all ingredients into a large enough pot, fill up with cold water to completely cover ribs.

Bring it up to a boil, reduce heat to low, and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. Once in a while, check on the water level, add more water as needed and push down any lemon grass or green onions sticking up, and skim off any foamy part on top.

As I was cooking pork ribs, I used some of the ingredients mentioned above for pad kee mao.

Once everything is cooked and dished up, kill the heat and fish out the pork ribs into a bowl, season the soup with fish sauce and salt to taste. Ladle the soup onto the ribs and enjoy! Pork ribs will be fall-off-the-bone tender, and the soup has a nice tangy flavor, just the same as your favorite Thai restaurant.

Cooking

Signature Spicy Sauce

This is hands down, my favorite spicy sauce. It’s good with literally anything and everything. Rice, Noodles, Meats, you name it. This sauce is super easy to make, literally takes 2 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 green onoin thinly sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 TBSP low sodium soy sauce

1 tsp dark vinegar

1/2 tsp chicken bullion powder

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp sesame seeds – optional

1/2 tsp sugar

1 TBSP or more home made chili oil

1/2 tsp ground Sichuan pepper – optional

Method:

Mix everything in a bowl, mix well and use it however you see fit!

Cooking

Shrimp Wontons

Another classic dish from my home town. Adding some minced and roughly chopped shrimp into the pork filling gives this dish an elegant upgrade on both flavor and texture. Of course, I served it with my signature spicy sauce. Life is good!

Ingredients:

1 package of store bought thin wonton wrappers. Don’t buy the thick type for this dish. The thin type will be super soft and silky after cooking process and you taste buds will be focused on the filling and the sauce.

1/2 lb ground pork, I prefer the fattier type, if pork is too lean, the filling tends to be a bit tougher after cooking

16 medium sized shrimp, half roughly chopped, half minced.

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 knob of ginger, about 1/2 inch, minced

1 lemon grass stalk, about 4 inches long rough outer layers removed, ends removed, minced

1 egg

1 TBSP corn starch

1 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup water

Method:

Put all ingredients except for wonton wrappers into a large bowl.

Stir vigorously with a pair of chopsticks or a fork in one direction for about 5 minutes. The mixture will change texture to be a lot more smoother, but you can still see the chopped shrimp pieces.

Line up the work station with wonton filling, wonton wrappers and a tray. Put a small bowl of water nearby for sealing the wrappers.

Grab a piece of wonton wrappers flat on your left palm, put about 1 tsp filling in the center.

Fold the top half over the bottom half to enclose the filling, slightly offset a bit.

Keep the filling meatball around middle finger area, slightly lift middle finger to push meatball upwards, while use thumb and pinkie to keep the two sides down.

Dab a little bit of water onto the left corner, under the thumb. Bring the right corner over to the left corner and squeeze it on top of the left corner. Retract middle finger while doing that. Viola, you just made a authentic wonton.

Keep repeating the process until you exhaust either the wrappers or the filling. I tend to make slightly more filling than wrappers, just because the fillings can be easily turned into meatballs or be incorporated into some other dishes, while leftover wrappers, you really don’t have much other use for them, and they tend to dry out very fast.

Now it’s time to cook these bad boys and enjoy them.

Boil a large pot of water on high heat. In the mean time, make your sauces in a large bowl. You want to be able to mix the wontons in the spicy sauce when they are done.

Once water is boiling, carefully put in about 15 to 20 wontons per adult serving into the water, don’t over crowd them. Move wontons gently with the back of a slotted spoon. Bring the water back to a boil.

Let fresh wontons boil with lid off for about 5 minutes. They will float up to the surface once they are done.

Spoon the wontons directly into your sauce bowl, mix well and enjoy!

Cooking

Super Crispy Pan Fried Chicken

This is one amazing technique marrying one super easy recipe. The results? Super tasty!

Ingredients:

4 bone in skin on chicken thighs, or boneless skin on chicken thighs if you can find them.

2 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp chili powder

Method:

In a medium size bowl, place chicken thighs and all seasoning together and mix well. I suggest use a spoon, or wear a glove to mix by hand. Turmeric tend to stain absolutely everything. Set chicken aside for about 20 minutes to marinade.

In a heavy bottom pan, heat up 1 TBSP vegetable oil, place chicken thighs skin side down into the pan. Cover chicken with a piece of parchment paper and place a smaller heavy pan on top. Or add some weight into a smaller pan to weigh the chicken thighs down. This way, the skin will be completely in contact with the hot pan to help crisp up the skin.

Keep the heat on medium and let chicken thigh cook for about 15 minutes bone in, or 12 minutes boneless. Remove smaller pan and parchment paper, flip chicken thighs over and continue cooking another 15 or 12 minutes until chicken is fully cooked through.

Dish up and serve. You won’t believe how crispy the skin is!

Cooking

Pork and Veggie Stir Fry

Another versatile dish, use your favorite vegetables and put your own spin on it. This is super quick and easy week night healthy meal. Your kids would love it too!

Ingredient:

Half a pound of lean pork, thinly sliced against the grain

1 TBSP corn starch

2 TBSP soy sauce

1 tsp Sichuan pepper corn powder, leave it out if you don’t have it

4 jalapenos

1 onion

1 green onion, sliced into 1/2 inch sections

1/8 cup of soy sauce

2 TBSP hoisin sauce

4 cloves of galic, minced

5 slices of fresh ginger, cut into strips and minced

Method:

Marinade pork slices in a small bowl with corn starch, 2 TBSP soy sauce and sichuan pepper corn powder. Mix well and set aside.

Cut jalapeno in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds and white part using a spoon and cut into bite size pieces. Cut onion into bite size pieces, separate the onion peddles, that would make stir fry a lot easier later.

Heat up about 2 TBSP vegetable oil in a nonstick pan on medium high heat. Dump pork slices into the pan and cook the meat to medium rare. Take the meat out from the pan and back into the marinating bowl for later.

Add more oil into the pan, in goes the minced garlic and ginger and stir fry until it’s fragrant. There is no need to wash the pan or wiping it down.

Add the onions and peppers and stir fry for a few minutes to take the raw edges off the vegetables. Add the pork slices back into the pan.

Add soy sauce and hoisin sauce to the pan and mix well. The sauces will help pick up any brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Because the pork had corn starch in the marinade, the sauce will thicken up nicely too and become kinda glossy.

Kill the heat, add the green onion pieces and stir through. Dish up and enjoy!

The best part of this dish? Switch up the vegetable choices and you get a different dish, the possibility is endless!

Cooking

Cilantro Lime Rice

Another week night dinner go-to recipe. It’s so easy, yet sooo good! You have got to try this one.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup of long grain rice

2 TBSP vegetable oil

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 lime

1 small bunch of cilantro

Method:

Heat up oil in a medium size pot on medium high. Add rice and toast the rice until it’s golden brown. This adds a lot of flavor to the rice and makes it super fluffy.

Add the minced garlic and stir the rice for another minute. You will almost immediately smell the fragrance of the garlic clove. But don’t worry, it will not linger in the rice in the end, just adding a very subtle hint of depth.

Add 2 1/4 cup of water to the pot. while the water is heating up, zest a lime directly into the pot. Use only the green part of the lime, don’t zest the white part, since it will be bitter. Add a dash of salt as well. Give it a good stir to distribute lime zest and salt.

Once water is boiling, lid on and lower heat to low. Simmer gently for 15 minutes. Then turn off heat, leave lid on and let the rice sit in the pot and continue steaming for 10 minutes.

In the mean time, cut the lime zested, and finely chop the cilantro leaves and soft stem part.

Lid off the pot, squeeze in the juice of the lime and add chopped cilantro. Fluff the rice with a fork and mix in the cilantro. Dish up and enjoy!