Seafood Springroll

Just a twist from the traditional spring roll. So instead of meat, Wood-Ear fungus, and mung-bean noodle, I use seafood, veggies, and mayonnaise. It is rich but fresh at the same time, and of course, the taste of seafood. Octopus creates the crunchiness for the roll while veggies makes it sweet.The most difficult part is rolling the mixture of seafood because rolling too hard will break the roll, yet, too loose, the roll will fall apart

Oh, secret ingredient: condense milk ( make a  noticeable difference)
Let's start it. ^^~

Ingredient:

Wrap
Veggies: carrot, daikon, celery
Spring onion
Prawn
Crab ( real or artificial)
Seafood (any kind you have)
1 teaspoon Condense milk
4 tablespoon Mayonnaise
Panko
Butter
1 Egg

The Fill:

Dice vegetables and seafood

In medium heat, stir fry veggies and seafood in butter
Add a teaspoon of salt and pepper

 Put all to a bow
Add mayonnaise and condense milk, mix well

The Roll:

Beat an egg and blend it well

Prepare one plate with the liquid egg and one with panko crumb

The Brand that I use

 Here are all the ingredient needed to make rolls

Add about 1 tablespoon of seafood fill on the wrapper

Fold it diagonally

Fold it with the opposite diagonal as in the picture

Fold  again

Now roll and seal the end with egg yolk

Continue until finish

Dip the roll into the egg mixture prepared earlier

Continue to dip into the panko crumb

Fry it, babe:

Heat the oil in 350F
Deep fry the roll in 5 -7 minutes or until the outside turns golden
It won't take long since we already stir fry the seafood.

Now serve with some pickle.

It is the best snack/ appetizer in rainy season - just my reference ^^

No-bake Cheesecake

So, my favorite American dessert ever!!! I love the richness, sweetness yet sourness of cheesecake. It is like melting in my mouth, and aww, just AWESOME!!

There are two version of cheesecake: New York style, which needs to bake and I am a bad baker. The other is no-bake one. The difference between these two is one uses eggs to stabilize; the other use gelatin instead.

So here is my recipe:
1 tablespoon Laughing Cow cheese
1 Philadelphia cream cheese
1 plain or lemon yogurt ( don't buy Yoplait - it just doesn't work)
1 tablespoon butter
Biscuits ( as many as you wish)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon milk
Gelatin - MUST ( no substitution)
Wax paper
Pot/ Pan - whatever container you have in hand

Crust:

Crumb the biscuits

Add butter and mix well

Cut the wax paper to fit in the bottom of the pot

Press the mixture of biscuits and butter into the pot

Put the pot in the fridge

Fill:

Mix cream cheese, cheese, and sugar in a blender


Add yogurt and mix all again

Dissolve gelatin in water.

Boil milk at medium heat and add dissolved gelatin

Let the liquid chill a little then fold it into the bowl of cream cheese and yogurt

Pour all the mixture into the prepared pot

Let chill for 4 hours or over night

Serve with cranberry jam. Tada~

My recipe seems redundant since I try to make it more "healthy" than the other recipe by use a mix of cream cheese and cheese, and milk ( I used 2% fat milk). A note for those who want to try out this recipe, you can't substitute gelatine by agar agar. The cake tastes fresh because of the yogurt, still it is rich and melted in my mouth. Just love it <3

Flan

Flan is a common dessert in Vietnam. I remember one time my sister-in-law made a big flan for my brother, but my niece and I ate it all in one day. She was so surprised, so she made another the next day. Same thing happened. She did it for about a week, then she just gave up to our shark-liked eating behavior. I was so sad when she stopped making flan.

Anyways, flan was originally from France, which was called "Flaon." It is a sweet pastry dessert that usually in round shape. My favorite flan is served with shaved ice and aromatic coffee. The flan, itself, is sweet and rich from condensed milk not from heavy cream. It has a light golden color on the top and brownie, comes from caramel, in the bottom. The dark coffee complies the richness and sweetness coming from the flan. When I put a teaspoon of flan and the coffee in my mouth, I can feel the flavor coming from home-grown eggs and aromatic coffee. The texture is silky and it melts inside my mouth. Everything is like exploding at the time. That's what it makes me crave for more.

There are many versions of flan. My flan is sweet and rich but not too much, firm but soft, extremely silky with very few transparent bubbles, egg yolk flavor and coffee scent. 

So here is the recipe for those who what to give it a try. My recipe is a combination of Vietnamese and Japanese style. It helps control the firmness of the cake better and reduce the cooking time.

Preparation: 30 mins
Cooks: 5 mins ( yes, it is abnormal compared to the original method)

Ingredients:

7 eggs
1 condensed milk
5 tablespoons of sugar
Gelatin
Ramekins

Directions:

Beat 7 egg yolks and 5 egg whites into a big bowl and whisk it slowly
Mix condensed milk and boiled water with ratio 1:1
Pour the mix of milk into the bowl of egg.
Put 1/2 teaspoon of gelatin powder into the mixture, mix well.
Pour the mixture over a filter to remove any undissolved parts
In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt sugar until liquefied and golden in color.
Carefully put the caramel into each ramekin and put them into fridge to cool down
Carefully pour the egg into each ramekin without mixing up with the caramel
Put about 1 liter of water into the lowest tray of a steamer pot. 
Put all the ramekin in the higher trays.
Cover the pot lid with a bath tissue to prevent water drops to fall into the ramekins
Steam in high heat in 7 minutes,
To check whether the flan is cooked or not, use a fork or tooth stick. if the liquid does not stick on the fork or the stick, it's fully cooked.
Put all in a fridge to cool and serve.

Try it with coffee and shaved ice.

Use a knife to cut around the ramekin and put a disk on the ramekin.
Turn the ramekin with the disk upside down.
Put shaved ice on top of the flan.
Pour a little of coffee on top of the shaved ice
Tada~ We have a treasure buried under an ice mountain.

Bún mắm - Vietnamese Gumbo

Bún mắm is a kind of vermicelli noodle soup that was originally in Soc Trang, Vietnam. It is modified a lot more when introduced in Saigon. The soup broth is the key. The stock is combined of pork stock and fermented gouramy fish base. The stock is rich, sweet, salty, and smell of fish base. When you eat, basically you can put any kind of seafood into the bowl together with the vegetables and the stock. For this noodle, veggies is a MUST-HAVE ingredient.

I ate this noodle at several places but An Dong market, Vietnam is the best place. Some places don't put enough fish base into the broth because of its stinky smell so the broth is just blank.
This is my favorite Vietnamese noodle style. I can eat it for a week and still craving for more. It is so much easier to cook than I expect. Anyways, I will post the recipe for those who want to cook it at home.

Prep: 60 minutes
Cook 30 minutes.
Party of 10

Ingredients

Stock
1kg of pork bones
1kg of fermented fish Gouramy fish base ( prefer: grind fish base)
3 stalks of lemongrass
1 tablespoon of minced lemongrass
2 gloves of garlic
1 hot pepper

Method:

• Slow cook the pork bones to get the 1.5 liter of stock.
• In another pot, put 500ml water in. Cook with the fish based in 10 minutes.
• Fine chop  the garlic and pepper.
• Prepare a hot pan, put oil in. Saute the garlic, pepper, and minced lemongrass until fragrant.
• Add the mix of saute garlic, pepper, and lemongrass into the fish stock. Cook for 5 minutes.
• Strain the fish stock and add it to the pork stock. Bring the mix into boil
• Again, cut the stalks of lemongrass into 3 inch stick and saute with oil.
• Add the saute lemongrass into the broth.
• Add 4 teaspoon of sugar into the broth.
• Cut eggplant into big chunk and add to the boiled stock. Cook until the eggplant become soft and fluffy

In the bowl
Big vermicelli
Fish fillet ( tilapia, halibut, snakehead)
Squid,

Prawn,  peeled

Roasted pork, cut into 0.5 inch thick slice
Grilled chop fish

Method:

• Cook the vermicelli as the manufacturer advises
• Cut chives, lily roots, ong choy into 3 inch long
• Slice bananas pedals and put into water and vinegar until served.
• Half boil squids, prawns, and fish fillet
• Deep fried the grilled chop fish

Accompaniments:
Chives
Bean sprouts
Lily-water roots
Basil
Ong choy
Bananas flower pedals

Dipping sauce
Fish sauce or my homemade tamarind fish sauce

Method:

• Put 3 table spoons of sugar into a bowl
• Add 3 table spoons of hot water into the bowl. Mix it
• Add 1 table spoon of concentrated tamarind.
• Add 1/2 table spoon of fish sauce into the bowl.
• Add chopped pepper  ( optional)

Serve
Put a little of accompaniment veggies in a bowl.
Put a handful of vermicelli
Add squids, prawns, fish fillet, grilled chop fish, and roasted pork.
Add broth and eggplant into the bowl.

Eating time!!

Add a little of the homemade dipping sauce into the bowl if to complete the taste. 

Add more veggies if you like. I like to put a lot of bean sprouts and bananas pedals into my bowls.

Eat like you never eat. 

Enjoy~!!