Leaf-Wrapped Salad Bites (Miang Kham)

I have known Leela at She Simmers for a few years now. Even though we have never met in person, we connected through our blogs and our email exchanges. I admire Leela’s beautifully written blog She Simmers; more importantly, I love her many authentic Thai recipes. In fact, I perfected my Thai Tom Yum recipe through her blog post and the secrets she shared. She Simmers is one of my to go blogs when it comes to authentic Thai cooking.

I am so psyched when I learned about her new cookbook Simple Thai Food. I got in touch with Leela and her publisher’s PR because I wanted to share a few of her amazing recipes in her gorgeously photographed and well-written cookbook. The first recipe I wanted to showcase is Miang Kham, or betel leaf-wrapped salad bites, one of my favorite Thai recipes.

My great grandmother was from Thailand…as a result, my grandmother spoke Thai and Thai influences were evident in her cooking and some of our family recipes. Through my grandmother and my aunt—whom I spent most of my childhood and teenage years with—I was introduced to Miang Kham, an iconic Thai concoction that I consider a flavor explosion in a bite! Who would have thought that random raw ingredients of cut ginger, bird’s eye chilies, toasted coconut, roasted peanuts, shallots, dried shrimp wrapped in betel leaves with a sticky, sweet and savory sauce would be such a delicacy? Well, that’s basically the premise of Thai food,  the perfect balance of flavors with the most unassuming—and humble—ingredients.

When I was growing up, my aunt would travel to the border town of Hatyai not that far away from Penang, and she would always bring back Miang Kham, all wrapped up in plastic bags. Our family would be so happy savoring all the foods she brought back for us from Hatyai, and Miang Kham was always one of them. We would quickly wrap up the salad bites, and reveled in the wonderful great taste of the dainty package.

Anyway, here is Leela’s recipe of Miang Kham. Simple Thai Food is a wonderful compilation of some of the most popular and delicious Thai recipes, all made with easy-to-get and store-bought ingredients. If you want to learn how to make Thai food, and to learn the fundamentals of Thai cuisine, for example: making the curry pastes from scratch, pick up a copy of Simple Thai Cooking when it releases in May. You can also pre-order the cookbook now at Amazon. I can assure you that you will love Leela’s book, I know I do.

View the original article here

Korean Beef Bites

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Spring Roll Bites – “Tapas” for All

Perhaps it’s by birth that I’m so addicted to fresh spring rolls. I can’t negate the fact that I was bred on a diet of rice and noodle dishes, so anything with Vietnamese or Asian flavors always sounds appealing. But if I could name one Vietnamese dish that I have at least three or four times a week, spring rolls are the front and center.

My love for spring rolls goes beyond the traditional pork & shrimp rolls that you would find on most Vietnamese restaurant menus. I call those rolls the traditional rolls and also, the default rolls. Those are the rolls that most Viet restaurant cooks will offer, assuming that is the only way consumers are comfortable eating spring rolls. Well, if you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you’ll know that I love going beyond tradition and making my own versions with different fillings from leftovers.

I’ve been known to break many traditional Vietnamese food rules and make a bacon, lettuce and tomato spring roll. I wrote about it previously and publicly apologized to my Mom. Sorry, Mom!

Now guess what? I’m back again to stir up some more trouble and tell you to forget the rolls and serve them up as little mini bites! like Sushi cut rolls! Oy, I can hear my mom rolling her eyes again and wondering how she raised a daughter to be so rebellious in the kitchen. Again, sorry Mom!

So here I go with some bits of party planning wisdom with spring rolls in mind. Yes, Todd and I have had many, many spring roll feasts in our garden and back yard where everyone gets to roll their own rolls. For these dinners, those spring rolls are the main entree. But what if you want to serve them up as appetizers instead?

Well, let’s take the spring roll to the next level and cut them into bite sized pieces as appetizers, or “tapas” style of eating spring rolls. Serving the rolls this way is so fun and allows you to make different types of rolls for a beautiful party platter. It’s one of those dishes that will make everyone drool over because they’re so cute. And it’s also the type of dish that can easily serve different types of eaters, from vegetarian, to vegan, to gluten free and so forth.

You can decide what fillings you want to add, roll them up and cut them into bite sized pieces for everyone to enjoy. In fact, rolling out ten rolls and cutting them into five pieces each makes a platter of fifty little bites. That’s enough for everyone to have two or three, then move on to the next dish.

For your next gathering, potluck or Summer bbq, whip up a platter of these and you’ll be the talk of the party. Here are some spring roll recipes and ideas that I’ve previously shared along with some great ones from other spring roll lovers:

Happy Bites to you!

-diane

View the original article here

Shredded Pork Banh Mi Bites- A Take on Tapas

Too much of a good thing is certainly possible. Take for example, my favorite sandwich in the world, Vietnamese Banh Mi. But wait, before you blame me for being biased (you’re absolutely right anyways), allow me to clarify a few things about my subjective love of this sandwich.

Yes, I’m Viet-Nam born, am Vietnamese at heart, and grew up eating banh mi for as long as I can remember when I started chewing solid foods. I often took this sandwich for granted as a grade school kid and was often embarrassed about taking it into my school lunch bag for fear of being sniffed out. As soon as this sandwich emerged from my bag, my classmates would pick up the aroma of pungent pickled daikon and carrots.

The pungent smell of pate and fish sauce laced pork loaf meat was quickly picked up by the rest of my peanut-butter-jelly clan of classmates. Noses would turn up, but not in a hateful way. It wasn’t often that fish sauce scented foods made way into an elementary school cafeteria and pickled daikon was known to clear a room rather quickly.

Still, my humiliation radar turned on. The crusty french bread with fresh pickles, rich pate, flavorful pork meat and tender sprigs of cilantro had no value to me at all. This was not quality food, I kept thinking. This was just embarrassing.

I was wishing I had a ham and cheese sliced white bread sandwich instead. And oh, an Orange Capri Sun would have been nice. I never got Capri Suns in my lunch and wished I was with the cool kids sipping this astronaut looking drink bag. Instead, Mom snuck in a can of tofu milk instead. I’m going off on a tangent, but all this is another long, venting post.

Anyways, fast forward 10 years later in High School. My non-Vietnamese friends are bringing banh mi sandwiches to school that they picked up at the local banh mi shop. Suddenly, banh mi was super cool to have at lunch. The cool Senior bench had cheerleaders sharing a banh mi sandwich and the captain of the football team was sporting a grilled pork banh mi and shrimp chips. Here was the coolest white guy on campus eating a banh mi and I’m sporting a PB & J sandwich. There was something seriously WTF’d up with this picture.

Since then, I’ve found pride again in my native foods and every time I pulled out the white wrapped banh mi sandwich, everyone turns my way in envy, not with their noses turned up. I’m crunching on my fabulous banh mi sandwich with crumbs falling on my lap and with a big beam of pride while everyone around me is barely gnawing on their limp PB & J. Those bastards in my 3rd grade class were definitely losing out. I believe that now.

My menu now at parties normally have a banh mi platter filled to the brim with bite sized sandwiches. But as of late, I’ve been playing with more tapas, bite sized, open faced banh mi bites. I’m loving this because the fillings are exposed and the first bite is always terrific and full of the fresh, flavorful fillings. That’s how my fun parties are started with: tasty little banh mi bites.

Timing was quite perfect last month when I was craving my banh mi bites again and thinking of making some shredded pork for the bites and Gilt Taste contacted us about trying out some organic pork. Normally we don’t accept offers to review food products, but knowing the quality of specialty foods that Gilt Taste offered, it was hard to pass up.

From what I had read at Gilt Taste, their market offers quality food made by artisans and small farmers across the country. We accepted their offer to try the Becker Lane Organic Farm‘s heritage breed Berkshire pork shoulder. We trusted Gilt Taste’s choice to support Becker Lane and quality of the pork and ethics on how the pigs are raised.

The pork shoulder was used to make this shredded pork banh mi and we were extremely pleased with the wonderful marbling and flavor. When pork of this quality tastes this good, you don’t need to eat a whole lot to be satisfied. Better yet, the philosophy of Becker Lane on their farming technique is both admirable and in tune of how we try to be more conscious about where our food comes from.

So thank you to the lovely folks at Gilt Taste for helping us satisfy our craving for more banh mi. Like I said in the beginning, too much of a good thing like great pork on banh mi should always be possible. I never feel a bit of guilt when I can enjoy comfort food from my childhood with fabulous ingredients produced with love.

Enjoy!

diane

Shredded Pork Banh Mi Bites Recipe

This recipe is my standard braised Vietnamese pork banh mi recipe and the only difference is how it’s served. Rather than serving it in a closed sandwich style, I’ve served it bruschetta style. These smaller bites are fun and perfect appetizers for parties and gatherings.

For the recipe and step by step photographs, please refer to my original Pork banh mi post.

You can see from the images on this banh mi bites post on how I served and prepared the final look.

Thanks and have fun with the banh mi bites!

More of my Banh Mi & Vietnamese Recipes:

View the original article here

Squez'n Bites Lychee Flavor Jelly

Ingredients: Water, sugar, fructose, coconut chunks, locust bean gum, seaweed extract, citric acid, natural lychee flavor. Contains : 9 individually wrapped jelly cups.

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon