Thai Style Glass Noodle Cold Salad

In this warmer weather, I would love to make some cold dish for my girls.  I found that if I make hot noodle soup or Chinese herbal soup, I would sweat after I finish it and that is definitely not welcome when I already hot to begin with.  Hence, making a cold noodle dish or cold salad is ideal.

I just shredded some leftover chicken breast into strips, add some roasted peanut, thinly sliced cucumber, thinly sliced reconstituted wood ear fungus (parboiled it), thinly sliced carrot, some chopped cilantro, some chopped garlic and some toasted sesame seeds.  Place everything in a large bowl and season to taste with fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, sea salt, chili oil and sesame oil.  Mix well and enjoy it cold or as it.

Simplified Yu Sheng (Yee Sang) for the Year of the Horse

It is the year of the Horse as my Yu Sheng will tell you if you can read Mandarin.  My girls requested I created a running horse on the Yu Sheng, I tried doing that but it was not easy so I settled with this.  Because I didn't have the wonton skin, I made my own fried cracker here, I just used flour, sea salt and water to make the dough.  The trick was to roll it very thin and deep-fried it twice to make it crunchy.  I made the crackers a day before so it made it easier.   Happy to use my homemade raspberry vinegar ginger here and this year no colorings was used in the creation of this Yu Sheng.

Get the simplified Yu Sheng recipe here.

Salad for Lunch

Our lazy and healthy lunch (minus the fried chicken tender)!  These days when I made my Asian Peanut Sesame Salad Dressing, I would double the recipe and keep it in a glass bottle in the refrigerator.  Then, I would pack the salad with dressing on the side for Evy to bring to her school for lunch.  Edda and I would eat that for lunch as well and that's the best way for us to have some raw food into our diet.  As in our Chinese culture, we hardly consume any raw food, it has to be quickly blanch in hot water or in a quick stir-fry.

For this salad, I was trying to incorporate as much nutrients as possible so I added fruit (banana, dried cranberries), seeds and nuts.  Not to forget the cilantro (can remove toxic chemicals from the body).  I forgot to add tomato and Hijiki seaweed.  I finally thought of another way to eat the Hijiki seaweed but on that day itself I forgot to use it.

Easy Pocket Bread /Pita Bread Lunch

I was searching for pita bread to buy but strangely I couldn't find it in any of the supermarkets that I frequent.  Then, I saw an ad. at Sprout and saw that they have whole wheat pocket bread!  That's just like the pita bread that I was searching for.  I bought those and made a quick lunch for Edda and me and also for Evy to bring to her school.  For Evy, I put half of the pocket bread in a Ziploc bag with a spoon and a packet of ketchup.  And then fried the smoked fish ham with 2 eggs in the morning and packed it in a thermos so that it would keep warm until her lunch time.  She was having fun stuffing her pocket bread and enjoyed eating it as well.

See my salad above, I added strawberry and dried cranberries and it was so delicious.  Now I must eat my salad with dried cranberries and sunflower seeds (would add some walnuts next time).  Click here for my peanut sesame salad dressing.  Now I double the recipe and keep it in a glass container in the refrigerator and stock up on organic romaine lettuce hearts for my quick lunch.  The dressing is good as a dipping sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls too.

Asian Peanut Sesame Salad Dressing

Evy's school has a "Healthy Salad" cooking contest and I needed to help her to create a healthy salad with a healthy salad dressing.  Hence, this recipe was created.  Her salad mix presented to school would be more colorful with fruit, seeds, nut, cherry tomatoes, carrots, mixed baby salad greens and hard boiled eggs.  We needed to do a taste test before submitting the recipe so I mixed up a quick and simple salad to try out the peanut sesame dressing.  We all loved it and I hope the judges would as well.

This peanut sesame dressing only has 1 tsp. of oil and it is sesame oil which is good for our health.  I think the rest of the ingredients are healthy too, if you try it, feedback and link back to me ya!

My simple quick salad mix above is cut organic romaine lettuce heart, cilantro (great to detox our body from mercury, aluminum and lead) and unsalted toasted sunflower seeds (you can add pine nuts too if you have).  It was so good when paired with my peanut sesame dressing that Edda and I couldn't stop eating.  Edda loved this salad very much and she would finish the bowl clean.  I would probably add a packet of pouch albacore tuna and walnuts next time.

Cold Mixed Watermelon Rind (凉拌西瓜皮)

I saw this recipe while watching a healthy eating Taiwanese cooking show and it intriguing me.  Thus far, I only used the watermelon rind to make cooling soup and have yet to try anything else with it.  So, of course this fast and easy cold salad interested me.  They said this is good as a side for drinking too.  I shared my measurement with you as that show didn't provide the measurement (You will have to buy their cookbook to know it).  It tasted surprisingly refreshing and delicious and my friends also gave it a thumb up.  I will share with you what I did with this salad as well (like as seen on that TV show) because I just wanted to know how it would taste like.  Stay tuned for this surprising upcoming dish!

When cutting the watermelon to eat during Summer, save some of the flesh between the rind and red flesh of the watermelon for this cold mixed salad.  Don't cut it too close to the skin as it would be hard.  I have a picture to show you how I cut it in the recipe page.  I also freeze some to make soup (recipe already posted in my blog under Soup).  It can freeze for months.  But for this cold mixed salad I won't recommend using the freeze one.  It is best when freshly sliced.

Seaweed Salad (Miyeok Muchim)

I took out too much of the seaweed for my seaweed gochujang soup, so the best way to use up all the seaweed is to make it into salad.  I had a similar seaweed salad with cucumber and thought it was really refreshing.  My girls loved seaweed so they helped me finished this except the onion, the raw onion was just too pungent for them.  Not only for them but for me as well but since I was raised not to waste food, I had to finish all the onion.  You can omit the onion if you want.  I did another version here which uses sesame paste and sesame oil which we liked better.

Dragon Yu Sheng/Yee Sang (龙年鱼生)

My dragon yu sheng for the dragon year.  I saw some dragon inspired yu sheng and those pictures really inspired me to create this dragon yu sheng.  Yu Sheng or 鱼生 literally translate to raw fish.  It is a raw fish salad that Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore enjoy throughout the 15th days of the Chinese New Year.  I omitted the raw fish because my family don't eat raw fish.  The salad in itself was so delicious that it was worth the day of slicing those vegetable.  My version was quite simple as I omitted the fried colorful taro strips and some other things.  I also got the fried crunchy wonton from my friend's restaurant which they happily gave it to me (which cut down my labor of making this).  It was so good and I wonder why we only eat it during Chinese New Year?  Why don't I have the urge to make it some other times, just like the CNY cookies and nian gao?  How strange we are right?  Anyone of you make yu sheng other than during CNY?

Click here for the full recipe.  This salad is very versatile, you can add whatever extra you desired.

I am also sharing this dish with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  The deadline for submission has been extended to Feb 6th, the last day of CNY.  So go see the roundup on the 7th!  :-)

Korean Spicy Chayote Squash Muchim

 
While I was slicing the chayote preparing for my Stir-Fried Chicken Breast with Chayote,  I remembered that it can be eaten raw.  So, I took a piece and tried it and immediately fell in love.  It was really good when eaten raw.  Hence, I was figuring out what to make of it and I thought that it would go well with Korean muchim preparation and serve as a banchan/side dish.  I saved half of the chayote for experiment, therefore my recipe only had half chayote.  It turned out delicious as the refreshing and crisp chayote made such a good banchan.  I thought I might be the first one to thought of this as I really thought of this combination while slicing the chayote for another dish.  So later, I did a search on Google and I found out that other actually made this before, as I saw a picture of this dish being served in a Korean restaurant (no recipe though).  What a surprise, as I figure chayote is not common in south Korea and seriously thought that I invented a new Korean recipe, but realized that Korean American would probably know of this.  Please tell me if this is common in Korea?  Or just an adaptation dish for Korean American?

I am sharing my spicy chayote banchan recipe with you and strongly recommend you to try it.  It's going to be my regular banchan now.  Chayote can be bought at Asian and Hispanic supermarkets.  It has become my regular buy at the Asian market now, I just love it!

Korean Scallion Salad (Pa-Muchim)

This scallion salad is usually served along side Korean barbeque in a Korean restaurant.  You can wrap this and the barbeque meat in a green lettuce leaf and eat it together.  I made this to serve it with my Hanainese chicken because I thought it would go well together with the ginger sauce and chili.  This scallion salad was indeed delicious and it would pair well with any meat dishes.

I think it is best to make this on the day you want to serve it and finish it in the same day.

Mu- Saengchae (Spicy Korean Radish )

I saw this dish in a Korean cookbook and immediately felt a urge to make it at home.  I combined two recipes together to bring out the best spicy Korean radish dish for myself.  I liked this as it was spicy and went well with rice or jajangmyeon.

Usually this is served as a Korean side dish called Banchan (반찬).  I ate it with rice and toasted seaweed, made Korean pancake, made omelet with it, added it in my Korean spicy instant noodle, or just have it as a side dish to my everyday meal.  Surprisingly my little Edda loves this and she didn't complaint that this was spicy.  I guess I trained them well.  Evy on the other hand, doesn't like this banchan.

Homemade Yee Sang for Chinese New Year (魚生)

Yee Sang, Yusheng, 魚生 or Prosperity Toss is enjoyed throughout the 15 days of Chinese New Year.  It is a symbol of abundance, vigor and prosperity as the fish tossing in this salad means 余升 and 年年有余.  The waiter would add each ingredient and says an auspicious phrase related to that ingredient and then everyone would stand up and toss the yusheng together while saying auspicious wishes.  It is believed that the higher you toss, it would bring you higher growth in wealth and fortunes. This dish is mainly enjoyed by the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia.  I talked to Chinese from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan before and they have no clue what is 魚生.  Whereas if you mention this dish with people from Malaysia or Singapore, everyone knows what it is.  This dish is a must have and very popular during Chinese New Year, in fact, it only served during or around Chinese New Year.  You can order it in a restaurant or "to go" the ready made packet to bring it home.

We living in the U.S. or overseas have no such luck as in order it in a restaurant or buy it at a store.  But fear not, we can enjoy Yee Sang (魚生) too.  Frankly it is not difficult to make at all.  The only tedious part is the slicing of the vegetable thinly.  I made this easy version so it would be easy for all of us.  :-P  Everything can be bought in the Asian store such as ground toasted peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, wonton wrapper (or better yet the ready to eat fried wonton crackers), pickled ginger, ready to eat jelly fish etc.  I used jelly fish because we don't eat raw fish in the house.  Of course you can use any raw fish you like or smoke salmon, etc, etc.  You can even add pomelo or other ingredients you can think of.

 

I actually have thinly sliced romaine lettuce underneath the cilantro, scallion, pickled ginger and seaweed.  My plate was too small thus I had to pile everything up a level.  My carrot was actually got covered underneath too.  If you have sharp eyes, you will notice that my crunchy doesn't really look like fried wonton.  Well, you were right, because I was out of it and thus I used the spring roll wrapper.  It was crispy but turned soft quickly when mixed together as it was very thin you see, so the wonton skin is recommended.  I tried to make the nam yee cracker from scratch but failed as it turned soft when cold.  Later I did toast them in the toaster oven to crisp it again for the yee sang when the spring roll crunchy turned soft.  And it worked!

This simple yee sang is delicious, try it yourself and feedback to me ya!

Today is also the 7th day of CNY, which is everyone birthday, so Happy Birthday to all of us! 人日快乐!

Use of Leftovers 1: Cucumber Rojak

This is the leftovers from the satay dinner the other day. Some homemade compressed rice, tiny bit of shallots and a small bowl of cut cucumbers. For the cucumber, it was fairly easy to turn it into another dish of it's own. Scroll down to see what I did with it.



I turned it into a cold and refreshing cucumber rojak with the ready made CKC satay sauce. I always have some toasted ground peanuts and sesame seeds in my freezer. So making this dish is as easy as 123. I do love to store some ready made rojak sauce in my pantry just in case I have a craving or some leftover cucumbers. Of course you can now order this sauce at the convenience of your home, in front of your computer at MyTasteOfAsia.com.

Stay tuned to see how I transform the compressed rice and shallots into! Part 2 coming up!

Salad with Sun Ripened Tomatoes and Dried Apricot

I need to lose some weight that I gained in Malaysia. So what is the best healthy choice for me to do so? I thought salad for lunch might be just it (of course plus exercise too). So easy to prepare and sure look like a healthy meal. I received two bottles of free Kraft salad dressing from Kraft Food. So it sure comes in handy for my salad. I used the Light Raspberry Vinaigrette with reduced fat dressing with the prewashed iceberg garden salad that I bought in the grocery store. My added touch would be the sliced sun ripened tomatoes and dried apricot in my salad.

By the way, anyone knows the difference between sundried tomatoes and sun ripened tomatoes? When I did the purchase I thought I was buying the sundried tomatoes until I saw the name on the packet later. Are they the same thing?

p/s
Dear Readers,
Happy 4th of July and Happy BBQing where ever you are and enjoy the Fireworks!

Japanese Seaweed Salad

I bought myself a packet of dried seaweed (Dolkak-Cham Miyuk) at H-Mart while shopping with Lily the other day. She told me a little bit would do because it expands a lot. So, I just used a scissor to cut a small corner off and soaked it in hot water. After 30 minutes, when I opened the cover, whoa! it really EXPAND A LOT and thus I left with extra seaweed. I only need about 1/2 cup for my Gochujang tofu soup. So, what about the rest of the seaweed? I need to do something with it and thus turned it into the seaweed salad that I concocted myself.

My Simple Rojak

Rojak is a Malaysian salad. The sauce is mainly made of shrimp paste, chili and belacan. I named it my simple rojak because of the limited ingredients, I only had jicama and seedless cucumber. I used the ready-made rojak sauce from CKC and it was delicious as it tasted very authentic and a wee bit spicy. I topped mine with extra ground peanuts and toasted sesame seeds.

Want a bite of my jicama?

P/s It definitely need "grilled you char kway", fried tofu, mango, pineapple and green papaya to make it more "shiok"! But I have none yet very tham jiak (glutton) and thus this "bor liao" (simple) version. :P

Pusiva's Acar

As you all probably know, I always in search of easy recipe to cook or bake. The other day when I browsed through Pusiva's blog, her acar recipe caught my eyes. It seem simple enough and I have all the ingredients in my pantry, so why not give it a try.

I made it few days ago and it was also my first time attempting acar. It was pretty good and I ate it like a salad for snack. Oh, I sprinkled grounded roasted peanuts and toasted sesame seeds before serving since I have both ready in the freezer.

Here's her recipe. Thanks Pusiva!