Pan Grilled Lemongrass Shrimp Lettuce Wraps

The lil bro cooked dinner tonight.


Baked chicken drumsticks

I was bored so I made something simple, pan-grilled shrimp for lettuce & herb wraps.


Marinade peeled and deveined shrimp with: minced lemongrass, minced shallots, minced garlic, dash of soy sauce, teriyaki marinade, sesame oil, sugar, salt, pepper, and hot pepper flakes.


I skewered the shrimp...just because... =)


Add butter to a grilled pan heated at Medium.


Pan-grill the shrimp


Serve with soft green lettuce and choice of herbs (mint, vietnamese coriander, and fish mint)

Watermelon with Chili Pepper Salt / Dua Hau Cham Muoi Ot

Cold, crisp watermelon tastes good all on it's own and I never thought about eating it any other way until a few years ago. I saw an Aunt eat watermelon with chili peppers and salt and thought "why would someone ruin a good piece of watermelon with salt and pepper?!?!". I tried it myself and it didn't taste too bad. Pretty good actually. The salt made the watermelon sweeter and the chili gave it a little kick. I guess it was one of those Savory Sweet affects again (always a fan of the flavor combo).


Cut up a chili pepper.


Add salt


With a pestle, smash the chili and salt together into a paste


Dip watermelon in the chili salt and enjoy!

Steamed Fish w/ Ginger, Scallion, & Garlic | Ca Hap Gung Hanh Toi

A dish I learned from Dad and one I enjoy making because it's so easy.

I'm using striped bass, tilapia works great too.




Scale, gut, and clean the fish (the unpleasant part). I also like trimming off the fins. Score the skin of the fish a couple times diagonally for even cooking. Season both sides with salt, stuff the belly with onion slices and steam on a shallow heat-safe plate.


While the fish is steaming, prepare the vegetables. You'll need minced garlic, match-stick ginger, cilantro, and scallions cut into 1.5 in.


When the fish is cooked, take it out of the steamer, pour out the liquid, and discard the onion from the belly.


I transfered one of the fish to a separate plate (make sure it's shallow enough to hold the sauce) and added half of the scallions greens (saving the other half for the other fish).

Making the sauce for ONE fish - *on med-lo heat the entire time:



In a small pan, heat up some oil. Fry the scallion whites. After the scallions brown, add the garlic.


Let the garlic lightly brown, add the ginger. Add hot chili flake and about a tablespoon of sambal chili paste.

Deglaze with 1/4 cup soy sauce and a tablespoon fish sauce,.  Let the sauce reduce for 30 seconds or so.  Add3 tablespoons water and simmer for another 30 seconds (adjust to taste).  Turn off heat and add the greens of the scallions.


Pour the sauce over the fish. Scoring the fish prior to cooking also helps the fish absorb the sauce. Garnish with cilantro and fried onions. Serve with rice.

Braised Pork Spare Ribs | Suon Heo Rim

I don't make this dish too often since I usually use what ever is available in the house freezer and fridge...and ribs are almost always never there. Made this a couple months ago just never got around to posting it. Savory sweet...


A slab of pork spare ribs cut into 1-1 1/2 inch pieces. Go with baby back ribs if you can since its much more tender. The Asian Market usually sells them already cut, but I bought mine from Meijers - so I butchered it myself with a nice heavy cleaver.


Put them in the pot that you will be cooking it in and add a medium onion cut into wedges, hoisin, sugar, fish sauce, salt, hot pepper flakes, minced garlic, mince ginger, and soy sauce.


Mix well and let marinade for 30 minutes.


Set over high heat for about 40 minutes or until it's nicely caramelized and cooked- adding water if necessary to prevent burning. Garnish with a dusting of black pepper and scallions (or cilantro). Serve with rice.

Snapshot 2

One of my favorite drinks. Sweet, sour, cool, and refreshing. The first and best I ever tasted was from Cancun. I think the difference was in the sugar used...but whatever it was...other mojitos just aren't as good.


from Kona Grill. I've tried flavored ones too, but the classic seems to taste best.

Jimmy's Graduation

The last of the siblings has finally graduated. Much congrats to the baby bro!

Nice family reunion with Cuong, Lien and Andy in town.

Pictures of family and food...





Congrats to all the 'lil cousins!


Ladies of the Van and Pham family & Brandi


The Grad with the folks


Siblings


The resemblance between the three is ridiculous!!






Spoicy Good!


Fobstar!




Dim Sum at GH.

Dinner Date: McCormick & Schmick's

Another dinner date with the gals a couple weeks ago to do some catching up. Julie suggested McCormick & Schmick's. It was our first time there. A nice quaint restaurant located behind Somerset Collection. We ordered and shared a few dishes from the Happy Hour menu.



Potato Croquettes


Buffalo Chicken Tender w/ Crisped Onions


Mini Cajun Salmon Sliders w/ Fries. Yummy


Spinach Dip & Pita Chips. Always ordering spinach dip when its on the menu...


Spicy Chicken Quesadillas (too spicy for me!)

The above dishes, two No-jitos, a berry Mojito, and a Half Pound Cheeseburger to-go for $40 bucks? Good Deal!

Shapshot 1

I love this picture. Jimmy is a monster compared to Brenden.

Memorial Weekend Get-a-way: Chicago

Only 1 post last month? That's terrible. Work is still a little hectic, but I'm managing. Maybe that's the reason why I'm slacking. No more excuses, lets revisit May.

When planning a small trip, even if it's just for a day and a half: plan ahead. A few of the siblings and I thought it would be nice to visit Chicago during Memorial Day weekend. Being the procrastinators we are, most of the planning was done Saturday night. We tried squeezing in as many activities within the time frame as possible, knowing it was a holiday weekend, not knowing how much walking we'd be doing. Tapping my brain as I write this to recall what we did...



Driving into the city...the buildings are a beaut.


First stop: M. Henry. We waited outside for an hour before being seated. I ordered the fresh fruit crepe which the waitress forgot. When it come out, I ate a little of the crepe not drenched in the sauce and all of the garnishing nectarine. Of course she didn't charge us for the dish and even gave me a free oversized chocolate chip cookie. The crepe was too sweet (first time having crepes), but that cookie...sure was good!


Great Lawn and Pavilion @ Millennium Park


The infamous "Bean" @ Millennium Park


Nice.


Crown Fountain
Walked down Michigan Avenue to the Magnificent Mile to do a little shopping. The walking and beating from the Sun was taking it's toll...we got tired..checked into the hotel...rested for a few minutes then made our walk to the Navy Pier.


Seadog Speedboat Ride on Lake Michigan. Much needed. Being on the water was refreshing, cooling on such a hot day, and fun .

We caught a sub taking us into Chinatown to check out this Joy Yee's Noodle restaurant and see what all the rave was. We got off in the middle of nowhere requiring another 10 miles on foot before we actually reached the restaurant. Hot, tired, and nauseous, I ordered a bowl of pho...because Pho cures everything. The 'bowl' came out and the thing was humungeous. It could've easily served 3 people. I stared at it and realized I was no longer hungry. Too tire to eat or walk...I just wanted to sit. That's when I realized that I was TERRIBLY out of shape. Need to hit the gym asap.

Springrolls. The only picture I got because I was too beat.
Hailed a cab (a first), hoped on the sub, walked a little more and we were back at the hotel.

The next morning, we were all aching. Good laughs. haha

Spent the last few hours in Chinatown and Viettown. We ate dim sum at Pheonix Restaurant. Am I crazy to say that the dim sum at Pheonix taste better than Golden Harvest's? =0 Friendly service too. After breakfast, we went to Ba Le Sandwiches to get a few banh mi for the ride home. Lisa and Phuong went in while the rest of us waited in the car. They came out an hour later. Madness!

Chicago is a really beautiful city. Although I can't imagine myself living there. I'm already a terrible driver and the whole bumper to bumper parking deal just won't do. Chicago, see you again?

Baked Pork w/ Rice Noodles | Bun Thit Nuong

It's not often that I dine at a Vietnamese restaurant - but when I do, I'm ordering Bun Thit Nuong almost 4 of 5 times. It's just that good.

I was being lazy and didn't go out to purchase what I needed. Missing ingredients; cucumber, bean sprouts, and garlic. I substituted the garlic with garlic salt.



Par boil chunky pieces of pork shoulder. Rinse and slice into thin pieces. Marinade with 1 finely chopped onion, fish sauce, oyster sauce, garlic salt, black pepper, pepper flakes, sesame seeds, and sugar.


Instead of grilling the meat, I pop them in the oven. It lacks the barbecue flavor and aroma so sometimes I marinade the meat with Char Siu mix - I didn't this time since I didn't have any available. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread a thin layer of the marinaded meat onto the lined sheet.


Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Or until the meat is cooked and golden brown. Broil Lo for another 3 minutes.

Serve with vermicelli rice noodles, variety of lettuce and herbs, crushed roasted peanuts, and fish sauce.

A little heavy handed with the fish sauce for the marinade and it would've tasted better if there were cucumber and bean sprouts. Next time...