Do Chua - Vietnamese Pickled Carrots and Daikon

Do Chua looking a little wimpy since it's a few days old

fresly made Do Chua - looking very fresh and firm

I made this for a vegan bahn mi that I made some weeks back when I was on a vegan diet.  These pickles are really crunchy, sweet and salty. I had some left overs so I decided to finish it off by serving it for lunch yesterday.  I got this recipe from Andrea Nguyen. Here is the link to her recipe: Pickled Do Chua. As Andrea says, the do chuas do get a  little tired after a couple of days. Mine were like 4 days old, I think.

Dakgangjeong...Korean Sweet and Crunchy Fried Chicken

 Ingredients

1 lb chicken tenders, cleaned and cubed
2-3 tablespoon potato starch or corn starch
cooking oil for deep frying

for the sauce

1 tablespoon Gochujang (Korean chilly paste)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice winegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic, about 2-3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon minced ginger, about 1" piece of ginger root

some chopped green onions and roasted sesame seeds

Directions
1.  First prepare the sauce ingredients. Mix up all the ingredients for the sauce in sauce pan and heat
     in up on medium heat until you can smell the aroma from the garlic and ginger. Turn off the heat
     and leave it to cool.
2.  Next coat the cubed chicken tenders with the potato or corn starch dust off the excess starch from
     the chicken.
3.  Heat up some cooking oil on medium heat for deep frying. When the oil is hot or reaches 350°F or      180°C, carefully drop in the coated chicken cubes and deep fry until the chicken is lightly brown
     and crispy.  Fry the chicken in batches to avoid the chicken cubes from being soggy.
4.  Drain the fried chicken cubes on a kitchen towel.
5.  When all the chicken cubes are fried, transfer them to a bowl and pour in the sauce. Mix well to
     coat each chicken cube. Finally add in the toasted sesame seeds and chopped green onions and
     mix well.
6.  Garnish with some extra toasted sesame and chopped green onions and serve with hot steamed
     rice.

What we had for lunch yesterday....

Yesterday all my kids were at home since schools were closed due to the hazy conditions.  I love it when all my kids are at home so I couldn't complain much about the haze!  This also means that I get some extra days of leave in the week and I don’t have to get up early in the morning, prepare their lunches, rush them off to school and them rushing out to pick them up in the mad traffic jam.  The kids tend to wake up late in the mornings so I get a good two hours of ME time. Anyways I decided to make Korean Dakganjeong, Seaweed Tamagoyaki with Do Chua-Vietnamese pickled daikon and carrots, served with steamed short grain rice for their lunch yesterday and they loved it.  Recipe to follow soon.

Instead of Mayo

Mayo was a love and hate thing for me. While I liked the creaminess of the mayo on my sandwiches and burgers, I hated the fact that I was eating raw eggs emulsified with oils, plus a whole bunch of preservatives and additives.  While shopping at the Whole Foods Market, I discovered a vegan mayo from Hampton Creek called "Just Mayo". This was a great substitute for the regular mayo and I was just over the moon when Costco started caring Just Mayo, a large 64 oz jar for just below $5.00.  While Just Mayo was a great vegan and non-GMO mayo it was made from Canola oil.  I have been using canola oil for many years but after reading some very negative reviews about canola oil and how it is actually bad for your health (by the way I have completely switched to organic virgin coconut oil and olive oil for my cooking and sunflower oil if I need to do deep frying), I have permanently switched to this vegan, oil free spread for my burgers and sandwiches. It is so creamy and yummy and I love the green vibrant color it adds to my food.   Yes...It is an avocado spread.  The recipe is pretty similar to guacamole, minus the chopped tomatoes and onions. I prepare this like one or twice a week and one batch can last for about 2-3 days in the fridge. The color will change slightly after a day or so because the avocado tends to oxidize but the taste it still great. Best of all it simple, healthy, easy and free of additives and preservatives. 

Ingredients

1 medium sized ripe Hass Avocado, 
juice of half a lime
1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1 green chilly (jalapeno or serano) for some heat but totally optional
1 tablespoon of cilantro leaves, chopped
about 2 - 3 tablespoon of water, can be substituted with extra virgin olive oil

Method

1.  Wash and dry the avocado.  Slice around the avocado seed and gently twist the avocado     
     to split it.
     open. Remove the seed with a spoon and remove the flesh.
2.  In a food processor, add all the ingredients except for the water.  Pulse for a few second 
     and add water or olive oil,  one tablespoon at a time until you reach a smooth and 
     spreadable consistency.
3.  Store in an airtight container and refrigerate it.  Spread it on toasted sandwiches, wraps          or burgers.

Celebrating My Daughter's Teen Birthday

We moved back to our house around mid September. So I have been pretty busy unpacking the boxes, checking for damages done to our shipment and worst of all finding places to put all our stuff away.  Our house is like 80% ready so I was able to spend a bit more time on my daughter's birthday cake.  I know that she likes her cake to be very special so I made a six layer salted caramel chocolate cake. The cake was of course a chocolate cake layered with salted caramel and chocolate frosting and topped with chocolate ganache.  I decorated the cake with fondant roses.  This was my first time making fondant roses and it wasn't really that bad. Thanks to this boy on Youtube who shared a very simple way of making fondant roses without any tools. Here is the link to his Youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjyEU6fxixQ. 

Removing the fondant roses from the cake

My Youngest Turns 8

 Mav watching TV while mom was busy with the cake and party

Yes. Eight is a big number for him. Last week we celebrated my youngest's eight birthday.  He was very excited about this day and he wanted a strawberry cake with Oreo and it had to look something like the cake I had once done for my second son, about 4 or 5 years ago. I was quite surprised that he could remember something that I had made almost 5 years ago. 

When my second son was 12 (I think), I made an Arsenal edible image cake. I designed the Arsenal edible image and got it printed out from one of the cake supply store.  This time I did not have time to design or order the edible image. So I opted out for some football figurines with the goal posts that I got from Bake With Yen.   

With really no plan in my mind I just went to the store and bought some Betty Crocker Strawberry cake mix, some Oreo biscuits and some cream cheese. This time though I wasn't going to cut out and save the Box Tops which were printed on the Betty Crocker cake box. 

The cake was of course a strawberry flavored cake with cream cheese frosting, topped with whipped cream and piping jelly and adorned with Oreo biscuits.  We planned a small party for him in our serviced apartment but since there was no cake mixer but just a hand whisk and an oven (thank God for that), I managed to come up with this cake for him.  My hands got the long deserved work out.

Happy 8th Birthday Mav...We love you so much.. :)

Super Moist Chocolate Cake

This is the chocolate cake that I baked for my daughter the day she left for college.  Since I packed most of for her, my second child, my son who has a sweet tooth just like mine was pretty upset that he didn't get much to eat. So today I'm baking this chocolate cake again just for him.  

Ingredients

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup of cocoa powder, unsweetened ( I used Van Houten Cocoa Powder)

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups castor sugar or granulated sugar

1 cup full cream evaporated milk

1 cup butter or vegetable oil, melted

1 cup warm water

3 large eggs, at room temperature

some chocolate topping and chocolate rice to the topping

Method

1.  Preheat oven to 320° Fahrenheit or 160° Celsius.  Use top and bottom heating.

2.  Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl and keep it 

     aside.  This makes the dry ingredients.

3.  In another bowl, mix the melted butter or vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, evaporated milk, 

     warm water and mix well.  This makes the wet ingredients.

4.  Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the dry ingredients are just 

      incorporated with the wet ingredients.

5.  Pour the cake batter into a 8 inch cake tin that has been greased and lined with 

     parchment paper.  Knock the cake tin on the counter top for a 2-3 times to remove any 

     air bubbles.

6.  Bake in  the center of the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until done.

7.  When the cake is cool, remove from the cake tin and pour some chocolate topping over 

     the cake and decorate the cake with some chocolate rice.