Happy Pho - shiitake mushroom

I love Pho, a traditional breakfast in Vietnam, but I don't like to eat pho outside (it doesn't not taste good, usually). I also don't want to buy instant pho from asian market, because they use so much MSG and other chemical for soup base. So, It's really happy that we found this product at Wholefood market (around $3 for w servings per box). Unlike other instant noodle, this soup base powder does not include much salt, so I add a tea spoon of fish sauce. The most important thing: no MSG.

To make a bowl of pho has more flavor, some slices of onion and chopped green onion (it will be better if you add cilantro) are added.

As it advertised, the noodle is made from brown rice, so even I use a mixture of water and chicken broth to cook, the final product's color looks so so brown !!!!

In amazon website, they sell 6 box/pack, but it's still very expensive. I will buy more once I see it in wholefood market, much much cheaper.

Where to buy Morel mushrooms

This kind of mushrooms ..... is crazily expensive! Wholefood viva

Chou farci - Pork stuffed cabbage

1. Ingredients:

- A whole savoy cabbage ( just around $1 at farmer market)

- 1 carrot (chopped)

- 1/2 onion (chopped)

- 4-5 mushrooms (chopped)

- Parsley and basil: 1 spoon for each chopped herb (if you don't have fresh leaves, used the dried one that every Trader Joe's sells it)

- 1/2 pound of ground pork

- 1 egg

- Stock: chicken/pork/ beef or vege is ok, even water

- bacon or prosciutto (I bought at Wholefood)

- Salt: 1,5 spoon, pepper

- Cotton string

2. Method:

- Clean the cabbage, cut the leaves out and boil them in boiled water for 1-2 minutes

- Risen the leave under cold water to let them cool down

- Mix meat, egg, chopped onion, carrot, mushroom, 1/2 amount of chopped herbs, salt, and pepper

- On a flat surface (or you can make it in a big bowl to make the round shape), put 3 to 4 strings cross each other before placing the biggest leaves in the shape of blooming flower

- Add a small leave in the center

- Start to stuff: 1 layer of mixed meat (around 1/2 inch) then 1 layer of leaves until all the meat gone.

When stuffing, try to make the whole piece as round as possible.

- Close the outside leaves and tight the strings

- In a medium pot, add stock/ or water (up to 1/2 volume of the pot), heat until it boil, then add the cabbage and the rest of chopped herbs. Make sure the water can cover the cabbage. After it boils again, cook at low medium heat.

- After 1 hour, take the cabbage out, the remain stock you can use to cook soup

- Cover the cabbage with bacon or prosciutto and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degree

- And here is my final chou farci

- This dish can eat with pickle baby cucumber (I bought from Trader Joe's). This one is imported from France.

How to use WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker - My first dish

To test the WMF Perfect Plus Pressure Cooker we just bought last week, I cook stewed-pork shoulder with radish in soy sauce ( kind of popular dish in Asia).

1. Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds of pork shoulder (pork butt, pork belly is ok. I choose pork shoulder because it's less fat), I keep the whole piece but you can cut it into stew-size
- 1 medium radish

- Green onion (it's better to have big Japanese green onion, but the other green onion is ok)
- Sliced ginger
- Garlic: 3 to 5 gloves
- 5-spice powder (any Asian market, even Wholefood sells it):1/2 tea spoon
- Black cardamom: A spice used in cooking Vietnamese Pho (optional)
- 1/2 cups of rice wine (optional)
- 1 spoon of sugar
- Pepper
- Soysauce: 3 spoons, (or you can use 1,5 spoons of soy sauce and 1.5 spoons of thick soy sauce)
- Salt: 1 tea spoon
- Water: 2 cups

  

2. Method
- Marinate pork with pepper, 5-spice powder and a little bit salt for at least 5 minutes
- Heat 2 spoons of oil in the pressure cooker (not cover lid) at medium heat, than add the meat.

- For each side, cook 5 minutes. I know it takes time, but if you cut into smaller pieces, it will be faster.

 - Add ginger, garlic,  Black cardamom, and onion, stir 1 minutes to make fragrance

- Add radish, soy sauce, and water to cover the meat.

- Close and lock the lid, use high heat for 10 minutes or until you see the yellow indicator pop up, then reduce the heat to low medium to make sure the the indicator not over orange color. Cook for 30 minutes after you see the orange indicator.

- After 30 minutes, I turn off the heat and leave it there for 20 minutes.

- Because I cook the whole piece of meat, so when it get cool and stored in refrigerator, I can slice it as thin as I want. It's suitable for ramen  or other soup noodles dish. Or you can reheat the sauce, add chopped garlic, green onion, and cilantro, than cover the meat (after slicing and heating).

Where to buy pate?

I like adding pate to toast or bread for breakfast, and just found Wholefood sells a very good ones. They have several type of pate, made from pork's, chicken's, duck's, or goose's liver. That's amazing quality and flavor. You can keep it in refrigerator for a week.

Taiwanese sesame chicken soup

1. Ingredients:

- A whole chicken, you can buy cut chicken if you don't like the whole one like this. I bought this one at Wholefood Tustin, level 5. This is the best chicken I can find in Irvine, it even better and more expensive then the fresh chicken at farmer market.

- 1 big piece of ginger

- 1 spoon of dried goji berries ( bought at Wholefood)

- 5 dried date (Asian date)

- 5 to 8 dried shitake mushroom (Japanese mushoom is better)

- 1/2 cup of sesame oil

- 1 cup of rice wine (Taiwanese rice wine)

- 1 spoon of salt, 1 spoon of fish sauce (optional)

2. Method:
- Rinse mushrooms, goji and dates under water for 10 seconds (clean extra dust or preservatives if added)
- Then soak mushroom in water for 10 minutes

- In a big pot, heat the sesame oil, then add sliced ginger, use medium heat for 5 minutes

- Clean chicken, dry well with paper towel, then add to the put, fried each side for 5 minutes

- Then add all other ingredients but the rice wine
- Add water to cover the chicken, open lid, cook for 45 minutes after it boiled

- Add the rice wine, open lid, use medium heat for 10 minutes to let the alcohol evaporated
- Then it's done, you can taste the soup to add more salt or fish sauce if you want.

This dish is suitable for winter time, but this summer, Irvine is too cold, I still want to eat  it ~~~~~

spring flowers at Wholefood

How to cook Chicken porridge (congee) by Breville

Breville Risotto Plus is a very good slow cooker, you can use it even for Asian dish such as porridge. Korean friend told me how to cook this dish simply and deliciously.

1. Ingredients: for 3 people
- A whole cornish hen (I prefer to buy organic cornish hen in Wholefood, about $12 per one)
- 1 cup of rice (less or more is up to you, depends on the thickness of congee)
- Date: 6
- Green onion: 1
- Garlic (optional): 3 gloves
- Gingseng (fresh/dry): 1 (optional)
- Chesnut: 5 (optional)
- Black pepper, salt
- Organic cotton twine (for cooking, I bought in from Mother's market)
- And a slow cooker: Breville Risotto Plus

2. Method:
-Wash and soak the rice in cold water for 1 hour. If you don't have time, just wash it.
- Clean the chicken, trim out the fat (I prefer that)
- Stuff rice into the chicken (don't make it too full), tie up with the cotton twine

- Put the chicken in the center of the bowl, add the remain rice around it (if you have some)

- Put other ingredients but the green onion into the bowl, then pour water cover the chicken

- Use Saute setting, till it broils for 10 mins (be careful, open the lid if it has too much bubbles), stir well the bottom (make sure no rice sticking there) then change to fast slow cook.

- After 2 hours, add some green onion, your soup is ready!

Sake for winter days

Recently, I try to reduce drinking coffee. I want to wake up in the morning, go to work happily without a cup of coffee. Drinking too much coffee sometimes let me feel TIRED! ~~~~~

Ok, so I have a new hobby (hope not become habit as it was with coffee): sake: a traditional drink from Japan. It makes my mind clear before and after every final exam ^-^ .

My husband does not allow me drink any sake with alcohol in ingredient. The pure sake does not include it as a material to make sake but only rice and yeast rice. The problem is the good sake is imported from Japan without English description.!!!!! 

After several purchasing, we figured out that buying sake from Wholefood is the cheapest, even compare with Japanese supermarket around Irvine. The difference in price for each bottle (300 ml) is about $4.

Wholefood (in Tustin, next to Costo) also has a large range of GOOD sake, they keep it cold!

 The flavor sake

These are what we tried.
- Prepare a big tea pot (you can use a big bowl)
- Use medium hot tape water
- Put the whole bottle into water for 10 minutes, the water will warm up the sake. Warm sake is better for a cold night!
- Then drink haha

You can drink a bit before you put the sake into warm water, and pour the sake out every 5 minutes, you can enjoy all range of sake's flavor, from dry to sweet, cold to warm.

Each of these bottle is about $10.5

pS: don't drink when you are pregnant and under 21 year old, or when you are using medicine.