Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Fresh Spring Rolls






Time to prepare- about 30 minutes
No cooking!

This is another recipe you can change to suit yourself.  We adjust for the amount of people, I can easily eat 5 by myself
But here is what we do:

Dried Rice paper wrappers
Dried rice vermicelli
Fresh Thai basil leaves (I admit we makes these during our Thai basil season, if you don't grow your own, you should, it is easy-peasy)
Coriander/Cilantro (optional) personally I hate it
Fresh mint leaves
Carrot cute into short thin strips
Cucumber cut into sticks
a bit of grated lime rind
If you think these are too 'dry' you can add a bit of sweet chili sauce,
we dip ours in just some soy sauce with a lot of grated ginger and we don't think you need anything else.
Many people used hard boiled egg cut into 1/6 ths.  But we quickly toast some thin tofu squares in butter, and then cut them like the carrots into matchsticks.

 Soak the rice vermicelli in a bowl you fill with boiling water for about ten minutes to soften them, and then drain them in a colander 
We use a class baking tray and fill it with warmish to almost hot water and then soak each rice paper wrapper as we use them, just immerse, soften and then spread it out on your work surface next to all your prepped ingredients and wrap them up

Basically you layout your wrapper, fill as desired (Zok puts in some chopped chillies - no surprise there...)
Then wrap them sort of burrito style, or just fold up the ends and roll them
Sort of tap down the filling as you do this
If the rice wrapper gets brittle just sprinkle it with a bit of water

That's it!
Healthy, quick and very tasty
 
 
 

Thursday, February 13, 2014

San Choy Bau or Zok's version of Lettuce Cups






This dish is all about the prep.  Because really it is just a wok stir-fry.
The process is about 20 - 30 minutes prep and 10 minutes cooking.
Zok uses two woks, one for his pork version, and one for my tofu version.  This works out well because I also don't like as much spring onion, and Zok adds diced chillies to his.

1/4 cup (60 ml) oyster sauce (veg. style which we think is really a mushroom sauce)
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/4 (60 mil cooking sherry)
1 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tbls. vegetable oil
1/4 sesame oil
2 crushed cloves of garlic
3 tsp. grated fresh ginger 
6 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal
100 g (about 3 oz) bamboo shoots, finally chopped (we use canned)
100 g (about 3 oz) water chestnuts, drained and finely chopped (we use canned)

Zok uses about 500 g (1 lb) of pork mince from the local butcher
and for me most of a block of tofu (we have used both soft and firm it's really a consistency choice)

Whole lettuce leaves (we use iceberg) rinsed and trimmed.
First your stir fry sauce, Combine:
oyster, soy, sherry and sugar in a small bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves.

Then heat your wok(s) over high heat, and add your oils, roll your oil around to coat the wok.
Then add the garlic, ginger, and half of the spring onion, and stir-fry for about a minute
Then add your mince (or tofu) and cook about 4 minutes

Add your bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and the rest of your onion (and any chillies if you go that way), then pour in your stir-fry sauce and cool for about 3 minutes or until the sauce thickens up a bit.

Then put your mixtures in a hot pot or some dish with a lid
and set them out with the lettuce leaves to make your lettuce cups.