Tag: southeast asian
Roti Canai
Roti Canai
Roti Canai is a flatbread that originated from India that is eaten with almost everything in Malaysian cuisine. While this recipe has minimal ingredients, it’s kind of hard to make. Mixing the ingredients and kneading is simple enough. Letting it sit is easy. The hard part lies in getting the roti thin enough. Once you flatten each dough ball with your hands, you have to pick it up and slam it to make it spread even thinner without creating holes. Then you fold it. Taking the folded dough, you let it stretch by holding it vertically and dropping it into another ball like shape. This creates in pockets in the roti, allowing it to be flaky like a croissant once it’s flattened again. It is worth all of the effort in the end.
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup wheat flour
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup minus a tbsp water
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Dissolve the sugar and salt in the water.
- Add to the flour and need dough for 5 minutes.
- Separate dough into 3 separate balls. Cover in oilfive oil and let sit for at least 40 minutes, preferably overnight in the refrigerator.
- When ready to use, flatten the dough balls with your hands as thin as possible. They need to be less than 1/8” thick.
- Fold the bottom 2/3rds up, then the top over like so.
- Hold the folded piece up vertically. It will begin to pull. Drop the stretched dough into a ball like shape like so. What this process does is create air pockets within the dough ball.
- Let these rest for another 40 minutes.
- When ready to cook, flatten the dough balls again.
- Add a tbsp of cooking oil to a griddle over medium high heat. Through on one of the roti.
- Cook for 1 1/2-2 minutes a side.
BBQ Pork Rice Noodle Salad
BBQ Pork Rice Noodle Salad
There is a lot of food prep in making this Vietnamese rice noodle salad; but it pays off in the end. You will see this on just about every Vietnamese menu, served with various forms of protein. My absolute favorite is char siu bbq roast pork. You can use lemongrass marinated grilled pork or chicken, meatballs, and shrimp as well. I just recently ate this at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, IPho by Saigon. I ordered their special and almost couldn’t finish it, it was so big. That’s saying something. It was topped with 2 types of pork, chicken, and shrimp. It was so good that I had to learn how to make it. 5 days later…
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 bunch green leaf lettuce chopped
- 8 oz rice vermicelli noodles prepare according to package
- 2 cup bean sprouts
- 1 cucumber seeded, cut into long strips
- 1 cup pickled carrots and daikon
- 1 cup fresh mint
- 2 green onions chopped
- 1/2 cup peanuts crushed
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- 1 1/2 lb bbq pork
Dressing
- 6 tbsp water
- 4 tbsp vinegar
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 3 garlic cloves thinly sliced
- 2 thai chilies thinly sliced
Instructions
- Mix all of the sauce ingredients together in a small pot. Bring to a simmer. Make sure all of the sugar is dissolved. Take off the heat and let cool.
- Assembly: Place a good handful of the leaf lettuce in the bottom of a bowl. Place about 1 cup of the rice noodles on top of the lettuce. Then arrange the ingredients around the perimeter of the bowl, with the peanuts in the middle. Pour the dressing over the top. This recipe makes 4 large servings.
Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork)
If I was put on death row and asked what the last thing on Earth that I'd like to eat, my final meal, char siu would be on the top of the list. I have loved this bbq pork ever since I was a little kid. My family would order everything with bbq pork in it from the Chinese restaurant that we got take out from. I love this pork so much, I snuck some of the pork in the picture into the movie theatre in a ziplock bag.Char siu is typically made out of pork shoulder. It can be made out of pork sirloin, pork loin, or tenderloin; but they tend to be less juicy than pork shoulder. Fat is a good thing here. You will want a 3lbs. piece of boneless pork shoulder. I purchased a whole bone in shoulder and processed out the coppa roast and the flat iron, If the coppa roast was a beef cut, you'd know it as a chuck eye roast. You don't have to go to this extreme. You can use any part of the shoulder. I just happen to know how to cut these muscles out of the shoulder and use them. Cut the pork shoulder into 2" in diameter chunks with the grain. The char siu gets its color from the red bean curd. If you've ever seen this pork really red, the color will be coming from red food coloring. But I want to avoid food coloring as much as possible. The red color in the bean curd comes from a natural fungus. This pork needs to marinate for at least 3 days.When ready to cook the pork, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Yes, 400 degrees. Normally when you think of cooking pork shoulder, you cook it low and slow. Not here. It will be tender. Trust me. I was skeptical the first time I tried making this. Roast this for 15 minutes. Pull it out of the oven and brush on the glaze. Roast for 7 minutes. You want to do this for 3 times total. The honey will caramelize the outside while the bean curd juice will give it a nice red color. Once done roasting, let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs boneless pork shoulder
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
- 3 red bean curd cubes + 2 tbsp liquid
- 1 1/2 tbsp Chinese 5 spice powder
- 3 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
- 3/4 tsp white pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 3 garlic cloves minced
Pork Glaze
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp red bean curd liquid
- 1 tbsp cooked marinade
Instructions
- Take a 3lb. piece of pork shoulder and cut it into a few long chunks with the grain. Each piece should be around 2″ in diameter. In this picture, I cut out the coppa roast and the flat iron. The coppa roast is the center muscle of the shoulder. If this was beef, you’d know it as a chuck eye roast.
- Mix together the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, red bean curd cubes and liquid, 5 spice powder, honey, cooking, wine, white pepper, sesame, oil, and garlic cloves. Mash the bean curds into a paste. Mix everything thoroughly.
- Add the pork shoulder pieces and the marinade to a gallon sized ziplock bag. Marinate for 72 hours. Turn the bag over every 12 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Lay the pork shoulder pieces on a rack onto of a foil covered baking sheet. Add a couple cups of water to the baking sheet to prevent smoking. Roast the pork for 15 minutes.
- While the pork is roasting, mix together honey, red bean curd liquid, and some of the marinade. Make sure to cook the marinade in the microwave for a few seconds before mixing in. Now you have your pork glaze.
- After the first 15 minutes of roasting, take the pork out of the oven and brush on the pork glaze. Don’t worry about getting the bottom. Put the pork back in the oven and roast for 7 minutes. Repeat this step 2 more times, for a total of 3 glazes.
- After the final glazing and roasting, let the pork rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing.
Pickled Carrots and Daikon
These pickled carrots and daikon are used as a topping for banh mi sandwiches. Sweet and vinegary with a nice crunch. These are good in your refrigerator for up to a month.
Ingredients
- 6 oz carrots cut into large matchstick sized pieces
- 6 oz daikon cut into large matchstick sized pieces
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 6 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Cut your carrots and daikon into large matchstick sized pieces.
- Place them in a bowl with 2 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp salt. Let sit for 5 minutes. Liquid will start to pool at the bottom. Rinse in cold water and pat dry.
- Mix together the water, vinegar, salt, and sugar until dissolved.
- Place the carrots and Daikon in a mason jar. Pour in the brine. Let pickle for a day before use.
Thai Noodle Soup with Pork Belly
Kuay Jub (Thai noodle soup with pork belly)
Kuay Jub. Thai rice noddle soup with pork belly. As far as I’m concerned, this is the ultimate comfort food. I recently ate this for the first time at my favorite local Thai restaurant, On’s Kitchen, and have never been so satisfied. I went home afterwards and took a nice nap, cradling my filled gut. This is a soup that will make you want to change your undies afterwards. Climactic. While there is a lot of steps and ingredients to make this soup, they are all fairly simple. The pork belly is the only thing that really requires a lot of time to cook. Cooking the belly at 225 first helps render out a lot of the fat. Turning it up to 400 for another 20 minutes will make the skin nice and crispy. If you are good at multitasking, while the pork belly is cooking, fry up the tofu and drain on a paper towel. Hard boil your eggs. Boil your rice noodle flakes. Make your soup stock. Get 2 birds stoned at once.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
Pork Belly
- 2 8 oz skin on pork belly slabs
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
- 1/8 cup vinegar
- 1 tbsp salt
Noodle soup
- rice noodle flakes
- 1 cup bean sprouts
- 2 hard boiled eggs
- 2 cups fried tofu
- 5 cups water
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tbsp 5 spice powder
- 5 minced garlic cloves
- 1 tsp dried black peppercorns
- 1 tsp cilantro stalks diced
- 1/3 lb sliced pork
Garnish
- green onion
- cilantro
- fried garlic
Instructions
Pork Belly
- Mix fish sauce and vinegar together. Add the pork belly. Coat on all side and let marinate for 10 minutes.
- Put pork belly in a baking dish skin side up. Poke slits with a knife on the skin side to help render out the fat and make the skin crispy. Add salt to the skin side.
- Preheat oven to 225. Roast pork belly for 45 minutes. Turn up oven to 400 and roast pork belly for another 20 minutes until skin is crispy. Set aside
Noodle Soup
- In a stock pot, bring water, light and dark soy sauce, 5 spice powder, sugar, garlic, cilantro stalks, and peppercorns to a boil. Turn down to medium heat and add fried tofu and hard boiled eggs. Simmer covered for 15 minutes. Add sliced pork and cook for another 2 minutes.
- While the stock is cooking, soak 2 servings of rice noodle flakes in cold water for 3 minutes. Then add the rice noodle flakes to boling water and cook for 5 minutes. Drain.
Soup Assembly
- Put rice noodle flakes on the bottom. On top of them, in the center, add bean sprouts. On the left side of the sprouts, add chunks of pork belly. On the right side of the sprouts, add chunks of fried tofu from the stock. Take out one of the hard boiled eggs from the stock and slice in half. Put below he bean sprouts.
- Spoon over the soup ingredients the broth with the sliced pork. Garnish the top with green onion, cilantro, and fried garlic.
