Tom Yum Soup

After our epic hot pot yesterday, we had an astonishing amount of food left over. This included half a bag of squid tentacles and a whole mountain of shrimp, fish balls, fish roe-filled fish tubes, shrimp balls, egg dumplings, fish dumplings, tofu, daikon...the list goes on. Anyway, I had accidentally left out a chicken breast because I thought initially that we would have a chicken-based broth. So in the end, I had to find a way to get rid of all this meat before it all went bad.

So I made tom yum soup...except that I dumped everything I could get away with into it. It was quite epic.

Tom Yum Soup

-3 cups water

-8-10 prawns with heads still on (or more)

-3 slices ginger

-handful of kaffir lime leaves, bruised

-2 tbsp nam prik pao

-fish sauce to taste (~2 tsp)

-2 stalks lemongrass, inner white parts only and chopped into manageable pieces

-5 shiitake mushrooms, dehydrated

-Any other type of mushroom (enoki, oyster, button, etc.)

-1 chicken breast, diced

-Squid tentacles

-Any other type of addition - fishballs, egg dumplings, shrimp balls, etc.

1. Remove shrimp heads and boil in water. Simmer for about 10 minutes before removing the heads. Now you have shrimp stock!

2. Add lemongrass, shiitake mushrooms, kaffir leaves, and nam prik pao, and bring to a boil.

3. Add meat, other mushrooms, and fish sauce.

4. Just before serving, add the lime juice. Don't add it any earlier, or the soup will turn bitter.

5. Dish out and serve!

Cream Puffs

Back in freshman year of high school, our teacher once had a movie class and allowed us to bring whatever snacks we wanted while we watched. One guy brought a giant box of Costco cream puffs - the really good ones that are fill with actual ice cream. It was literally gone in about 10 minutes...and it wasn't until the girl behind me reached for the last piece that she turned the box over and saw the nutritional information.

"Percent Fat: 100%"

That guy got a lot of beef from the girls in our class after this unfortunate discovery.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that cream puffs are EVIL! But deliciously so :)

By the way, did you like the orchid blossom I added to the photo? It's from Gordon on Valentine's Day (still impressively healthy too...nice choice Gordon). I'm usually not big on flowers just because they seem to die without much purpose except aesthetic ones, but at least now I've found a good use for them :)

Continue for the recipe

Sourdough Starter

I've always wanted to make a sourdough starter. Ever since I learned that it was

possible to recreate that infamous sourdough taste at home (I'm from the Bay Area, so I grew up on San Francisco culture), I've been on a mission to perfect my yeast. I've actually tried a few times before...but trust me, they weren't pretty. The main problem was that I was using regular white and whole-wheat flour, which just doesn't give enough sour to the taste. I got pretty far at one point, but when I put it in the fridge, the wrapping on top got moved, and the exposed dough actually developed mold....bye bye to a month's worth of time, effort, and flour. That just ain't coo.

It wasn't until I went to Philly for a medical school interview and got stuck an extra day from a giant snowstorm that led to my wandering through the neighborhood of downtown Philly that I chanced upon...GOLD! Actually a bag of rye flour, but in the West Coast, that's as rare as gold (and expensive too!). So I carried that precious bag of valuables home with me (it cost me a security check at the airport because I supposed a bag of unknown powder looks a bit suspicious under the X-ray) and immediately set about making a brand new batch of sourdough starter. And here is the log of my journey...

Japchae (Korean Cellophane Noodles)

This was probably the first Korean dish I ever tried in my life. For the longest time, my mom and I searched for the recipe, and it wasn't until I moved into college with my Korean apartment-mate that I finally figured out how to make it. It can be eaten as a panchan (appetizer) or a main course.

Continue for the recipe

CARB FIEND ON THE PROWL

Bagels are my guilty pleasure. Especially when they're just out of the oven with that heady aroma and that golden brown skin. Mmm...you should watch me when I first pull them out. I know I'm going to get burned, but I can't help just digging into one as soon as I can get my hands on them safely (or even before). So for the first five minutes I'm spending half the time with this look of epic joy on my face and the other half swearing as my fingers get scorched. Ah, the joys of life.

Continue for the recipe...

Mmm...steak

Our fridge is a disaster...literally. I'm not kidding look at the pictures. I think the worst of it is the freezer. It comes from living with 5 girls who spend half of their day around the kitchen.

So in a spurt of spontaneity, I decided that I would do our apartment a service and cook off my last steak for Gordon. It was actually a REALLY good deal...I'm not much of a meat-eater, but I really couldn't resist. I got 3 good New York steaks for about $2.99/lb, and they were good quality steaks too.

Hello World! (Heart-Shaped Doughnuts)

This is my first blog post ever! Very exciting.


Anyway, I would like to honor my new blog with a recipe that I made for Valentine's Day weekend. I'd been wanting to make doughnuts for the longest time, but never got around to doing it because I didn't know if I could get rid of them all -_-!!


It wasn't until I got reassurances from Gordon (later followed by a whole slew of guys) that they would be eaten that I finally decided to take the leap!