It’s hard to beat garden fresh cucumbers, especially because there’s almost no calorie penalty to eating them! And they go great with almost any Asian dish. Throw this side dish on the table alongside your favorite southeast Asian main course and you can’t go wrong!
Serves 4
Preparation Time 10 min
Ingredients
4 cucumbers, peeled, halved and sliced
1/3 cup shallots, minced
1/3 cup green onions, chopped
4 Thai chili peppers (less if you don’t like it that hot)
My dad shared this recipe with me sometime around college so I wouldn’t waste my money on cheap fast food. He always had food right. As a kid in Korea, when we would make a Christmas trip to Hong Kong, I’d dive into McDonald’s the moment we landed. Korea didn’t have McDonald’s back then. While I was eating quarter pounders Dad would quietly go to a noodle shop next door and eat right, soaking up the flavor and the culture. I was a little slow to figure out what good food was.
Anyway, red beans and rice. I always looked forward to my dad making this when I was growing up. Born in New Orleans, my dad has Tabasco in his blood. It was always a treat to visit family in the summer and taste some of the amazing Cajun dishes they could whip up like red beans and rice. It reminds me of the crawfish boils, French Quarter parades, and using chicken necks to catch crabs from under the dock.
This is an easy one-pot meal that you can start in the morning and let cook all day. Be sure to soak your beans in water overnight. They’ll cook faster and more evenly if you do.
If you add hot sauce to your beans, Tabasco is the most traditional. And it’s made in Louisiana so it’s certainly at home amongst red beans and rice. But feel free to substitute whatever hot sauce is your favorite to make it your own.
Serves 4
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 6-8 hours
INGREDIENTS:
1 lb red kidney beans
1 onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced (sometimes I do 5 though. We love garlic!)
1/2 lb ham, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 lb Italian sausage
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Your favorite hot sauce, to taste (Tabasco, if you want to be traditional)
2 bay leaves
Salt, to taste
Rice, to serve
Chopped green onions for topping (optional)
RECIPE:
Soak the beans in water over night. When ready to prepare, drain the beans and place in your crock pot.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil, add cooking spray, and lay the sausage on the sheet. When temperature is reached, place the sausage in the oven and let cook til browned on one side, about 15 minutes. Turn over and place back in the oven for another 15 minutes. When browned on both sides remove from the oven and let cool enough that it can be sliced. If it’s not all the way cooked through, no problem. It will cook plenty in the crock pot.
Add to the crock pot the sliced sausage, the rest of the ingredients up to and including salt, and enough water to almost cover the mixture. Set the temperature to cook for at least 6 hrs.
When done, serve over rice and top with chopped green onions. Enjoy!
When I was a kid, it was always a big night when dad would make shrimp creole. Growing up in Korea, it felt like a rare magical dinner you couldn’t get anywhere for thousands and thousands of miles unless you were in dad’s kitchen.
We didn’t have access to the PX grocery store on the US Army base of Yongsan, so we did all our shopping at the local Korean grocery stores in Yunhi Dong. Back in the ’80’s, the Korean stores had most of what was available back in the States but not all, and many of the substitutes had at least a slight Korean twist to them. I wasn’t a cook back then, but I could taste the difference and it wasn’t always easy to make a typical American dish taste legit with what was available to us at those markets. Dad’s New Orleans blood in him must have been ragin’ like a Cajun back then though, and he could whip up a pot of shrimp creole that brought you straight back to the bayou no matter how far away from it you were.
He wasn’t always that astute, however, when he did the shopping in those Korean markets. One of the markets we called the Greeny Place cuz it was, well, green. It later moved and was no longer green, but the name stuck. It had just a couple shelves at the end of an aisle where they had whatever American goods had been acquired for the week through the black market. Dad spied a rare American gem sitting on one of the shelves – Kraft parmesan cheese for 1000 won/canister. That was about $1.25, and a real steal at the time considering how hard it was for us to get American stuff back then. So he grabbed 5 of them to stock up and went to the check out counter where they were rung up at the price he should have seen if he had been paying better attention: 10,000 won. Too embarrassed to put them back, dad came home with $62 worth of parmesan cheese that day.
I think we still have some.
Anyway, he can still whip up a mean shrimp creole! I believe this recipe to be almost identical to his and I’ve been using it ever since I left home for college. And with a few tweaks (omit the celery, shrimp, and hot sauce) it makes a great spaghetti sauce too. Just be sure to have at least $62 worth of parmesan cheese as a topping if you do……..
As for the hot sauce, it’s up to you. Anything goes! If you want to be traditional, use Tabasco since it’s straight outta Louisiana. I usually do, but a friend of mine owns a hot sauce company here in NC called Mile High, so I’ve been using it lately. I like heat, so I added about 1.5 tbsp but you do you!
Serves 4
Preparation Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1.5 hours
INGREDIENTS:
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp flour
1 cup celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp tomato paste
16 oz can of tomato sauce
25 oz your favorite spaghetti or marinara sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
your favorite hot sauce, to taste
l lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
a small handful of parsley, finely chopped
RECIPE:
Start by making your roux. Combine the oil and flour in a large stock pot over medium heat. As the slurry heats, mix continuously with a wooden spoon. You may have to add flour or oil depending on how thick your roux is and to keep it from burning. Don’t step away from a roux. This is not the time to check Instagram! Keep stirring over heat as it becomes darker and darker, without burning. If it starts to burn, throw it out and try again, a little slower. In a few minutes it should turn a nice dark chocolate brown.
When you have a nice dark roux add the celery, onion, and garlic. Mix together and let cook on medium high until the onions are tender. Add the wine and stir to combine for 2 minutes, breaking up any bits stuck to the pan.
Stir in the next 8 ingredients and turn the temperature down to a simmer. Cover the pot and simmer for about an hour, stirring, tasting, and adjusting as necessary. After 30 minutes, add in the hot sauce to taste. I add about a tablespoon and a half of Mile High Hot Sauce or Tabasco.
After an hour, add the shrimp, put the cover back on and cook until the shrimp is done. Serve over rice and top with chopped parsley.
Growing up in Korea I learned to pronounce it ramyun but the Japanese pronunciation seems to have caught on more. However you pronounce it, it sure is a mighty tasty bowl of yumminess!
The best thing about ramen soup is it’s a “clean out the fridge” kind of meal. Anything can go in it as long as your heart and soul is in it first. I used pork loin for this recipe, but you could use just about any meat you like. Make it with a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken to save time or use leftover turkey the day after Thanksgiving. The same goes for the toppings. Pretty much whatever vegetables you have in the fridge can be used.
There’s a great movie starring Brittany Murphy called The Ramen Girl where an American girl goes to Japan and ends up an apprentice for a ramen chef. The chef’s soups are almost magical and she has to learn how to create the same magic with her own ramen concoctions. At one point she uses corn and he almost beats her, but in the end she makes it work because that’s her own style she brings to the soup. And that’s really the essence of ramen! It can be such a magical creation if you pour your soul into it and make it your own.
You’re going to be testing your broth periodically, and one of my favorite kitchen tools is this ladle I use for taste testing (picture below). Don’t use a metal spoon or you might burn your lips. And I like the ladle to be a small diameter (it’s just for a quick taste) but deep in case I’m testing something that has meaty bites in it.
For the beef bouillon cube, you can use whatever is your favorite. I’m sure there’s a good Korean or Japanese version out there, but for this recipe I used a cube typically used for Vietnamese Pho (photo below).
Serves 4
Prep time 1.5 hrs
INGREDIENTS:
1 lb pork loin
For the brine (if using):
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp whole peppercorns
2 cups hot water
For the soup:
8 cups beef broth (I use Swanson – it’s not cloudy like other brands are.)
8 cups water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 onion, peeled
1 shallot, peeled
2″ piece of ginger, peeled
6 garlic cloves
6 Thai chili peppers, ends removed (optional – it won’t add too much heat)
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns
1/2 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup soy sauce
To Serve:
20 oz ramen style noodles
4 baby boy choy, rinsed, rooted, and sliced in half
1/2 cup carrots, julienned
1 egg per serving
3 green onions, chopped
RECIPE:
You don’t have to brine the pork loin but it will make the meat nice and juicy if you have time. If not brining, skip this step. Mix the brine ingredients and let it come back to room temperature. Add the brine to the pork loin in a ziplock bag and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
Set the oven to broil. When the oven is heated, add the onion, shallot, ginger, garlic, and chili peppers and allow to char a little bit. The peppers and garlic will char first, so you’ll need to remove them prior to the onion, shallot and ginger.
While the oven heats up, start your broth by adding the beef broth, water, and bouillon cube to a stock pot and bring to a boil. Add the charred vegetables to the broth and reduce the heat to allow the broth to simmer. After about 30 minutes add the sake, mirin, and soy sauce. Continue to simmer for at least another 30 minutes, tasting and adjusting periodically as needed. If your broth is reducing too much you can add more water.
Pour the broth through a colander lined with cheese cloth into another pot to remove all the solids. Return the nice, clean broth to the stove and continue to simmer for another 15-30 min.
Cook the noodles according to package directions, then drain and let sit.
While the broth simmers remove the pork from the brine, rinse it, and dry the meat with a paper towel. Season the pork to your liking. Salt and pepper will do just fine, but for this recipe I used 1 tsp ginger powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder, salt, and pepper. Bring the oven to 400 degrees. In an oven safe pan on medium high heat, brown all sides of the pork in a tbsp of vegetable oil. Then put the pan with the pork in it into the oven until cooked to at least 145 degrees internal temperature. Remove from the oven, let rest for 5 minutes, and then slice the pork.
In a wok or pan, stir fry the carrots in 1 tbsp sesame oil over medium high heat for about 3 minutes or until done but still crisp. Remove from pan and set aside. Add the bok choy to the pan and stir fry just enough that the leaves don’t wilt. Set bok choy aside. Cook the eggs in the pan to your liking and set aside. I prefer them sunny side up but you do you!
All that’s left is to assemble the bowls. Start by scooping some noodles into the bottom of the bowl. Add broth to the bowl and then place bok choy and pork over the noodles. Top with the carrots and green onions and serve.
There are lots of variations for chapchae noodles. As long as you’re using Korean sweet potato vermicelli noodles and a soy/ginger/garlic sauce you’re pretty much there and can throw in your favorite meat and vegetables. This version is pretty typical, although it doesn’t have the often used mushrooms in it………cuz I really think mushrooms are gross and, anyway, elves use them as homes and I’m no home wrecker.
Chapchae can be made with beef instead of pork. I usually serve it with bulgogi (Korean bbq beef) so here’s my pork version.
1 cup sliced mushrooms (If you wanna. You’re the elf hater. Not me.)
2 eggs, beaten
4 green onions, chopped
sesame seeds
sesame oil to stir fry
1 lb sweet potato vermicelli (tang myon) noodles
RECIPE:
Slice the pork (or beef) into thin strips and place in a ziplock bag. Add the marinade ingredients, stir to combine, and add to the pork. Marinade for at least an hour.
Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain in a colander and cut with scissors. They’re really long noodles and if you don’t cut them you’ll need to sit on a ladder at the dinner table to eat them. Add the drained noodles to a large mixing bowl where you’ll toss with the meat and vegetables.
In a wok or stir fry pan, add a tablespoon of sesame oil and stir fry the carrots over medium high heat. After about 3 minutes, add a tablespoon of the marinade to the pan and continue to stir fry until carrots are done but still have some crunch to them, about 5 minutes. Remove and add to the noodles. Add another tbsp of oil to the pan and cook the meat (and mushrooms, while you gloat at all the elves you’ve rendered homeless). You may have to do this in batches – if you overcrowd the pan the pork won’t sear – it’ll just steam. Add the cooked meat (and – sigh! – mushrooms) to the noodles. Add another tbsp of oil to the empty, hot pan and stir fry the onions with remaining marinade until crisp but cooked through. Just before the onions are cooked add the spinach or bok choy leaves and allow to absorb sauce and wilt just a little bit. Toss the mixture with the noodles and other vegetables until the noodles are completely covered with the sauce.
Fry the eggs over medium heat in a pan just big enough for the mixture to be about 1/8″ thick when cooked through. Slice it into strips and serve on top of the chapchae noodles. Add green onions on top with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and serve!
This meal is the reason people say I eat fast. Growing up in Korea with 3 sisters, we were kind of a big family and going out for bulgogi wasn’t an inexpensive evening for our parents at the time. They always under-ordered, hoping that us kids would fill up on the 47 or so side items that traditionally are served with bulgogi. I never touched any of that stuff. As a kid, I was totally carnivorous. So as soon as the raw meat hit the bbq in the middle of the table, my sisters and I would immediately declare it “done” and have a chopstick fight to grab every morsel we could of the tasty meat before it was all gobbled up. You had to bring your A game if you were gonna hang with me and my sisters on bulgogi night!
This is a super easy recipe where the marinade can be made 1 hour or up to a day ahead so all you have to do is cook the meat before serving. But the best way to have it is to cook it right on the table with guests. If you have a butane burner and a traditional Korean barbecue pan this is really easy to do. It gets everyone involved in the cooking process and can bring out some pretty entertaining arguments when two people claim to have been working on the same piece of meat!
If you’re looking for a barbecue pan, there are a lot of options that you can find at your local Asian market and there’s a big difference in how each gets the job done. I prefer one that has a round shape that’s like an upside down bowl with a trough on the outer ring (see picture below). The trough will capture the juices as the beef cooks so you can spoon over your rice if you like. My next favorite would be a cast iron one like in the photo above, but it drains to the middle and therefore doesn’t do a good job of rendering the juice from the cooking meat.
Bulgogi goes great with rice or as a lettuce wrap, but if you’re entertaining the more traditional way is to serve it with every other Korean dish and condiment you can think of to totally overwhelm your guests. If you do it right, your cupboards will be completely empty and you’ll be doing dishes the rest of the night. We like to serve with rice, cucumber salad or a kimchi, chapchae noodles, and stir-fried green beans.
Bulgogi Recipe
Serves 6, Prep Time 30 min, Cook Time 15 min
INGREDIENTS
3 lb beef (Your choice. It should be fairly lean but a little fat will add flavor.)
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp sugar (honey also works well)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
6 green onions, finely chopped
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
3/4 cup water
1 tbsp sesame seeds
2 green onions, chopped (optional, as a topping)
a few whole cloves of garlic to cook with the bulgogi (optional)
RECIPE
Cut the beef into thin strips, trimming off any excess fat. Mix the next 10 ingredients to make the marinade and pour over the beef in a ziplock bag or marinading container. Make sure each individual piece of beef is coated in the marinade rather than just pouring the marinade over the beef. Let the beef marinade for at least one hour, or up to 24 hours.
Stir fry the beef over medium high heat until done, adding garlic cloves if you’re into whole cooked cloves of garlic (my wife loves it, much to the dismay of her coworkers the next morning). Depending on your pan or wok size you will probably have to cook the beef in batches so as not to crowd the pan. If you do, the beef will boil and won’t really brown right.
Serve with rice and top with green onions and sesame seeds. Enjoy!
While training for Ironman Arizona 2018 I ate a lot of salmon and bok choy for dinner. It’s high in protein, low carb, low calories, and full of muscle rebuilding nutrients. But it can get a little boring after a while. This recipe adds a good amount of flavor and just a little spiciness. Serve it over rice if you want to pair it with carbs.
For an added Asian touch I used Korean lemon tea marmalade (photo below). Full disclosure: if you’re at Food Lion right now wondering what aisle this stuff is in you’re in the wrong place. You’ll need an Asian market to find it, but if you don’t have it don’t close the book on this recipe and order that pizza instead cuz orange marmalade will do just fine!
For the record, I intended to use Korean ujacha which is only slightly different but I didn’t have any. And if you’re wondering what the big deal is about ujacha buy some and try this: a heaping spoon of ujacha, a shot of bourbon, and some hot water mixed together is a wonderful treat for a cold or sore throat!
Serves 2
45 minute preparation
INGREDIENTS:
For the Sauce:
1/4 cup ujacha (Korean citrus tea marmalade – orange marmalade will do)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp siracha sauce
1 tbsp sake or Chinese rice wine
2 Thai chilis, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
To Serve:
1 tbsp olive oil
2 salmon filets
5 baby boy choy, halved (more if you share with your peppers)
1 orange, sliced into quarters
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
sesame seeds to garnish
salt and pepper to taste
RECIPE:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Dry the salmon filets with a paper towel and sprinkle both the salmon and the bok choy lightly with salt and pepper. Mix the sauce ingredients and simmer in a saucepan on low. Heat olive oil in an oven proof skillet over medium high heat. Once heated, add the salmon and fry for 2 minutes on each side. Add the bok choy and orange slices and place in the oven for about 12 minutes or until salmon is done throughout.
If your dogs are drooling like mine do at this stage it’d be a good time to sneak them a piece of that extra bok choy you cut up!
Remove from the oven, add the heated sauce on top of the salmon box choy mixture, and serve topped with cilantro, green onions, and sesame seeds.
If you’re new to pho, it’s much harder to know how to pronounce it right than to make it. Pho is all about the broth, but you can make a doggone good broth without simmering bones all day! 🐾 And it’s pretty hard to ruin it too. Just put a little heart and soul into it and you’ll have a flavorful bowl of magic in about an hour or two!
You will need a few ingredients you probably won’t find at Piggly Wiggly or your average local American grocery store though. Scroll down to the ingredients to make sure you can find the items you’ll need. And if you can’t, tell your local store to stock this stuff cuz everyone should be able to enjoy a good bowl of pho no matter where they live!
The beef you use should be sliced very thin, so it cooks in the bowl the moment you add your broth to serve. It’s easier to slice the meat if it’s partially frozen. Or you can just buy it already sliced thin at your local Asian market.
I also suggest you use a good fish sauce. The best way to tell if it’s good is to pour a few tablespoons on your spouse’s pillow and see how long she/he can handle the smell. It should take less than a minute before the pillow is thrown in the garbage outside. If not, you have crap fish sauce. Okay, maybe not. But if it looks American it’s probably not the most authentic. Here’s what I use, and you should be able to find it at your nearest Asian market (see photo below).
Serves 4
1.5 hours (though you can simmer the broth longer if you like)
INGREDIENTS:
For the broth:
8 cups of beef broth (Swanson is the clearest in my experience – cloudy broth is not good broth!)
1 Pho Bo boullion cube (I use Bao Long. If you can’t find it a regular beef broth cube will work)
4 cups of water
1 yellow onion, peeled
1 large shallot, peeled
4 garlic cloves, whole
2” piece of ginger, peeled
6 – 8 Thai chili peppers, both red and green (or 2 jalapenos), stemmed (and seeded if you like) – This will add a slight zing to the broth but won’t make it super hot. If you’re a heat wussie you can omit this.
2 stalks of lemongrass, trimmed and crushed slightly with the side of a knife
1 cinnamon stick
2 – 3 black cardamom pods
4 – 5 green cardamom pods
12 – 15 black peppercorns
6 – 7 whole nutmeg
5 – 7 whole star anise pods
2 – 3 tbsp of fish sauce
2 tbsp of crystal rock candy (it’s like sugar, crystallized and in big chunks)
To complete the soup:
1 pack of pho noodles
1 lb thinly sliced beef (like, as close to paper thin as you can get)
1 yellow onion, halved then thinly sliced
Thai chili peppers, both red and green, sliced (or jalapeno) – you choose how many according to your heat preference
Thai basil leaves (or Italian basil if you can’t get Thai)
3 green onions, thinly sliced (just the green parts)
RECIPE:
Turn the oven to broil.
Add the broth, boullion cube and water to a large stock pot and bring to a boil over high heat. While it heats up, put the next 5 ingredients in a baking pan and place in the oven to broil. Let them brown a little bit to bring out their flavor and then add them to the broth. The smaller items will brown quicker so be sure to take them out before the larger items or they’ll burn. Once the broth is boiling, lower it to medium low heat and allow it to simmer.
Add the lemongrass, cinnamon stick and next 5 ingredients to the broth. If you have a cheesecloth bag you can put the herbs inside and tie it shut to keep them from swimming all over the broth. Add the fish sauce and rock candy. Give the broth a taste test and see if it needs any adjusting. Let it simmer for at least an hour. You may have to add more water, beef broth, or boullion at some point to adjust the taste as it boils down.
Cook the noodles according to package directions. Drain in a colander and rinse lightly with cold water.
Pour the broth through cheesecloth into another pot to clear out the solids and put the nice, clean broth back on the stove to simmer. Once simmering, you’re free to assemble the bowls and serve but there’s nothing wrong with letting it simmer further to your liking.
Place a handful of the noodles in each of the bowls then add some of the sliced onions and the raw beef. The meat will cook through when you ladle the broth over it if you have it nice and thin. That doesn’t fly with my wife, who likes her meat super done. If that’s you, you can swish the meat in the simmering broth prior to adding it to the bowl to serve.
Ladle hot broth over the mixture. Top with sliced chili peppers to your heat preference, green onions, and finally the basil and it’s ready to serve!
