Cold Shrimp Salad Sandwich

This is yet another simple lunch box recipe for the kids.  The sweetness from the cooked shrimp, creamy mayo, crunchy celery on a toasted torta bread is just simply simple, quick and delicious.

I did not put in any lettuce in this sandwich because made this for my youngest doesn't like to eat lettuce. If he was having this sandwich at home, he would have had no choice but to eat this shrimp sandwich with some lettuce but because this was for his lunch box, I did not bother to put it in because he would just take the lettuce out and eat his sandwich!

 Ingredients,  for 1 sandwich

1 torta sandwich roll or any bread of your choice (I used La Brea Torta Rolls)
1/2 cup of frozen cooked pink shrimps, defrosted
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of finely chopped celery stalk
some freshly cracked black pepper
a bit of lime juice, around 1/2 teaspoon or less
some lettuce leaves
some butter for toasting the torta roll

Directions

1. Remove any excess moisture in the defrosted cooked pink shrimp with a kitchen towel      
    and put in a bowl.
2. Squeeze a bit of lime juice over the shrimp and mix. This helps to remove any fishly smell 
     from the shrimp and also adds a little tartness to the shrimp filling. 
3.  Add the mayonnaise, finely chopped celery, crushed black pepper to the shrimp and mix 
     well. The shrimp has some salt in it already so I did not add any salt to the shrimp.
4.  Cover the bowl with a cling wrap or transfer the shrimp to a container and refrigerate the 
      shrimp.
5.  Next cut a torta roll or any bread or roll of your choice into half.   Spread some butter on 
     the cut sides of the roll.  Toast the rolls in a skillet on medium heat with the buttered 
     sides on down. You can also toast the rolls on a non-stick pan without any butter for a 
     healthier version.
6.  Once the rolls have reached a nice golden brown color, remove from the rolls from the 
     skillet and leave it to cool for a few minutes.
7.  To assemble the sandwich, place some lettuce leave on one half of the roll and place the 
     cold shrimp filling on the lettuce leaves.  Top the cold shrimp sandwich with the other 
     half of the toasted roll and serve.

Nyonya Sambal Fish

deep fried red snapper

frying sambal paste

oil separating from the fried sambal

tamarind juice added to the fried sambal

oil surfacing to the top of the thickened sambal, indication that the sambal is ready

Directions

1 red snapper around 2 lbs, cleaned or any fish of your choice
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder

cooking for for deep frying the fish

blend together to form a fine paste:
15-20 red chillies
6 garlic cloves
1" galangal, sliced
1 lemon grass, sliced
1" ginger
1" cube shrimp paste or belacan
3 medium shallots, roughly chopped

3 tablespoon cooking oil use coconut oil for a fragrant sambal
1 heaping tablespoon of tamarind paste, mixed in 1 cup of water and strained
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
a bit of lime juice if needed

some finely sliced scallions or green onions or garnishing

Directions

1.  Make a few diagonal slits on both sides of the cleaned snapper.  Rub the snapper salt and 
     turmeric and leave it aside for about 10-15 minutes.
2.  Heat the cooking oil in a skillet on medium heat.  When the oil is hot, pat dry the fish 
     with a paper towel to remove any extra moisture and deep the fish on both sides until the 
     fish is crispy and golden brown on the outside. Remove and drain the fish on a paper 
     towel.
3.  While the fish is deep frying, you can start preparing the sambal. Blend all the 
      ingredients for the sambal until you get a fine paste.
4.  Heat the 3 tablespoon of oil in a pot on medium heat.  When the oil is hot add the sambal 
      ingredients and fry until the oil has separated and all the raw smell of the sambal is gone.
5.  When the oil has separated from the sambal, gently add in the tamarind juice and bring 
      the sambal to a boil. You can a bit more water if needed. Once the sambal has thickened 
      and you can see the oil surfacing on the top of the sambal, you can season the sambal 
      with the sugar and salt.  Add some lime juice if you like your sambal to be a bit on the 
      sour side.
6.  Place the deep fried snapper fish on a serving plate and pour the hot sambal over the 
     deep fried snapper and sprinkle some sliced scallions or green onions. Serve the fish     
     sambal with hot steaming rice.

My fish looked a little sad so I just decorated my pictures with daisies.

House Special Alaskan King Crab Legs

This dish is a speciality in almost all the Chinese restaurants here. The other day I found some Alaskan King Crab legs on sale and I bought it and kept in the freezer. Since today is Father's day it seemed to be the best reason for me to cook this house special dish, my style.

Ingredients

1 lb Alaskan King Crab legs defrosted
1 shallot, chopped finely
1" ginger chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 green chilly sliced thinly
some green scallions, cut into 2" pieces
1 tablespoon cooking oil

 for the sauce. mix together

1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
3 tablespoons of water

slurry to thicken the gravy

1 teaspoon corn starch, mixed with 1 tablespoon of water.

Directions

1.  Wash the crab legs and cut them into 2" pieces. 
3.  In a wok heat the cooking oil on medium high heat. When the oil is hot add the finely 
     chopped garlic, ginger and shallots and stir fry until it is aromatic. Add the sliced green 
     chilly and give it a stir.
3.  At this stage add the crab leg pieces and stir well.
4. Add the sauce mix, stir well and cover the wok. Let the sauce come to a boil and reduce 
    slightly.
5. When the sauce has reduced, pour in the corn starch slurry and mix well. When the sauce 
     thickens, add the scallions and stir it well.
6. Dish up and serve with hot steamed rice.

Nellore Royyala Veppudu

We went to an Indian restaurant in Little India for dinner yesterday and I must say that they serve really good South Indian Andhra style dishes. We ordered Royyala Vepudu and it was just simply amazing. After I got back home, I googled for the recipe and made this dish for lunch today. Everyone at home said that my dish was so much better and tastier than the one they ate at the restaurant :)

Ingredients

2 lbs shrimp - shelled and deveined
2 large red onions - diced
2 tbsps ginger-garlic paste
1 large handful of curry leaves - washed and drained
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoom paprika or kashmiri chilli powder for the red color without the heat
1 teaspoon chilly powder
1 teaspoon pepper powder
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1 tablespoon lime/lemon juice
2 heaping tbsps of shredded coconut - finely ground with a little bit of water to make a coconut paste
4 tablespoons cooking oil
salt and sugar to taste
a handful of coriander leaves - cleaned and chopped finely

Directions

1. Pat dry shrimp with a clean towel.
2. Heat oil in a deep bottomed vessel.
3. When oil is hot add in the diced onion and curry leaves. Add a bit of salt to expedite the frying.
4. Once onions are translucent and become slightly brown, add in the ginger-garlic paste and continue frying. Make sure that you keep stirring otherwise the ginger garlic paste will burn.
5. Once the raw smell of the ginger-garlic paste is gone, add in the shrimp and continue frying for about 4 to 5 minutes.
6. Turn the heat to medium and add in all the turmeric, chilli powder, paprika or kashmiri chilli powder, pepper powder and coriander powder.
7. Keep stirring until the raw smell of the chilli powder and the other dry powders are gone.
8. Next add in the coconut paste and keep stirring until the oil starts to separate. You will get a very nice aroma from the dish.
9. Pour the lime/lemon juice and garam masala powder. Add salt and sugar to taste.
10. Lastly mix in the chopped coriander leaves and serve with hot steamed basmati rice.

Bang Bang Shrimp my style

This is one of the must haves when we go to Bonefish Grill for eat out nights. In fact I think this is one of their signature dishes. Every time I have Bang Bang Shrimp I would think that this dish will be taste better if they added some masago (fish roe) in it. I could even taste this dish in my mind and the little egg roes bursting in my mouth..Mmmm.. had to make it to see if my version tasted as good as it had in my mind, I googled to find what ingredients were used in this recipe and came up with my version and guess what it was simply AMAZING! My kids just loved it.

.

Ingredients

1 lb medium sized shrimp, cleaned, deveined and butterflied
1 egg white
3 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon all purpose flour
a bit of water if needed
some freshly ground black pepper
cooking oil for deep frying

for the Bang Bang dressing

3 tablespoon mayonnaise (I used Kewpie mayo)
1 tablespoon Thai sweet chilli sauce
1/2 tablespoon sriracha sauce, I added more for extra heat
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar (can be omitted)
1 tablespoon masago or capelin fish roe

1 tablespoon finely sliced scallion or green onions
some tobiko (flying fish roe) for garnishing

Directions

1.  First mix all ingredients for the Bang Bang dressing in  a big bowl except for the sliced     
     scallions and tobiko and leave it aside.
2.  Next mix the cleaned and butterflied shrimps with the egg white cornstarch, all purpose        flour and freshly ground pepper. Add a little bit of water if the shrimps are too dry or you  
      can just leave it as it is. Keep it aside.
3.  Prepare a frying pan and heat the cooking oil on medium high heat.
4. When the oil is hot deep fry the shrimps in small batches. Once the shrimps are done, 
     remove them from the oil and place the fried shrimps on a kitchen towel. Repeat the  
     process with the rest of the shrimps.
5. Next add the fried shrimps and scallion into the Bang Bang dressing and mix well. Plate         the Bang Bang shrimps and garnish with some sliced scallions and top it with some     
    tobiko.

Note: You can purchase tobiko and masago from any Chinese, Korean and Japanese supermarkets.

Korean Fish Cake Eomuk

My daughter is off to college and I am missing her so much. I just wished that she was somewhere close enough for me to visit her over the weekend.  Feeling a bit empty inside and after cross mad with the boys for messing up the house, as usual, i started visiting some of my favorite cooking Youttube channels. I came across this fish cake recipe in Maangchi's youtube channel.  I had some of the main ingredients in my freezer and all I had to do was modify the recipe a bit based on what I had at home and fix this before the dad comes home from work. It took something like 15 minutes to make the fish paste and another 15 minutes to fry it. Pretty quick right. It tasted really good.

Ingredients

1/2 lb cod fish fillet or hake or any white fleshed fish fillet
1/2 lb shelled prawns and deveined
1/4 cup white onion
1 large egg white
2 garlic pips
1 tsp white pepper powder
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions

1. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blitz it for about 2 mins or until all the ingredients come to a smooth paste.
2. Heat up some cooking oil on medium heat. Take about 1/3 a cup of fish paste and flatten it over the back of an oiled spatula.
3. Start rolling the fish paste from the wider edge a bit by bit until it form a long roll and drop it gently into the oil.
4. Fry until the fish cake is cooked and evenly browned. Drain any excess oil on a paper towel. The fish cake will float when it is cooked.
5. The fish cake tastes good on its own without any condiments.

Simple Salmon Fried Rice

I saw this recipe from Nami of Just One cookbook one morning. This is such a simple and easy recipe with the ingredients just within reach but the taste is out of this wold. Simple but yet so tasty. I fixed the kids lunch in a jiffy. Thank you so much Nami, you recipe helped me a make a quick and delicious and also healthy lunch for my kids. I tweaked the recipe a little based on what I had in my refrigerator.

Ingredients 

some left over teriyaki Salmon, cut into medium sized cubes
2 cups day-old cooked rice (I used the Korean medium grain rice)
1 green onion, chopped
1 red chilly, sliced thinly
1 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp white pepper powder
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoon vegetable oil.

Directions

1. In a hot pan, heat 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. Pour the beaten eggs into the hot oil and quickly scramble the eggs. Transfer the eggs to a bowl.
2. In the same pan, heat the remaining oil and fry the chopped green onions and red chilly.
3. Once the green onions and chilly are slightly wilted and aromatic, add in the teriyaki salmon and stir well.
4. Next add in the cold rice and scrambled eggs, salt, white pepper powder and soy sauce and mix well. Stir fry the rice until all the ingredients are well mixed.
5. Dish the fried rice and serve.