Nem Nuong Xa (Vietnamese Lemongrass Grilled Pork Patties)

My Nem Nuong and Nem Nuong Cuon (Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty and Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty Salad Rolls) has long been one of the most popular recipes on the blog. Just basic meat patties the way everyone makes it in my hometown. No food coloring to make it pink. No baking powder to make the meat bouncy. Just slightly sweet mini hamburgers really.

I've never thought of, nor wanted to, change the basic premise of the recipe until I came across the idea of adding lemongrass to the meatballs in "Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart." I used my recipe instead, of course. Then I remembered Kirk of Mmm-yoso's Tamarind Cooking School pictures from his trip to Luang Prabang, Laos.

Lemongrass pork-stuffed lemongrass skewers!

Guamanian Red Rice

The Crock Pot Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup) was just the tail end of a week of furious cooking. So I'll just blog backwards.

A while back, Canine Cologne of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High had posted a recipe for Guamanian red rice. I've never eaten Guamanian food before and was intrigued by the use of annatto seed powder to color the rice, rather than tomato paste like my Com Do Ca Chua (Vietnamese Tomato Paste Rice). Her secret ingredient, that she learned from an older Guamanian woman, was the use of roasted chicken base paste. Since I couldn't find the chicken paste, I had forgotten all about the recipe until Canine Cologne mailed me a tub. So nice and so unexpected! She had earlier generously sent me gourmet chocolates and handmade earrings!

Canine Cologne used celery leaves and chicken paste in her version. I didn't have any celery on hand, but, since I knew Santos of The Scent of Green Bananas lived in Guam, I checked her blog to see if she had another version. Sauteed bacon and onions, no celery. I had that. So I combined a bit of both recipes for my version. Since the chicken paste can be hard to find, I'd say it's optional. Or you could just roast a chicken and take a spoonful of the congealed juices, which is what it seems like to me. I bet the paste would be great with rice pilaf too.

When I originally made this, I added 2 tblsps of annatto seed to water and microwaved it to get the liquid red like I did with my Crock Pot Bo Kho (Vietnamese Beef Stew). Unfortunately, the rice turned out golden, and not red. So I added 2 tblsps of annatto seed powder and cooked it again and it came out reeeed! Use less if you don't want such a vibrant color.

Yaki Udon (Japanese Stir-Fried Udon Noodles)

Does it look like Christmas?

Well, it certainly felt like Christmas to me. Through my advertiser, Foodbuzz, I received a $30 credit to Asian Food Grocer. That gave me the chance to try out some Japanese grocery items that I normally wouldn't buy such as two types of mirin (Japanese cooking sake.), kombu (Japanese seaweed for making stock), and red miso paste (I have white miso paste in the fridge.). To round it out, I also got curry mix, udon noodles, yam noodles, Chinese black pepper sauce, and a tea cup with infuser and lid. Nice, yeah? Hey, it wasn't all free, I did pay $6.18 for the shipping. ;)

Actually, if you have trouble finding Asian grocery items where you live, I would recommend Asian Food Grocer. Most items were reasonably-priced, carefully packaged, and delivered within days at a reasonable cost.

Who Would Want to See a Movie About My "Foodie Life"?

Oh my.

Who would want to see a movie about my "foodie life"? But apparently there were enough of you who did that I was nominated for a Foodbuzz Blog Award. Yay?!

Tastebook Steals Bloggers' Recipes and Pictures

Does the photo look familiar? The writing should look familiar too.



That's because it's my Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef) photo and recipe. Reprinted without my permission.

Last week, Sis of The Cast Iron Kitchen made my recipe and in her search came across the stolen version. She quickly alerted me, unsure whether that was the right thing to do. Of course, it was! Thank you again so much for telling me.

So I followed user Robert's page and found a dozen of my recipes and/or photos that were stolen and reposted on Tastebook's site without any credit given. GRRR!!!

I promptly made copies of all the pages and emailed Tastebook support, feedback, and PR to remove the copyrighted material. All I got back was a generic auto-reply, and then once an email from support saying they're asking the user to delete the content. Not that they deleted the content immediately when it was obvious to anyone, comparing my blog post and what was submitted, that the content was stolen.

A week later, I checked and the previous links were gone. But, I found 10 more of my recipes and/or photos stolen by Serenity and Mimi. GRRR!!! I also found stolen content from several other blogs.

Why does this matter?

First and foremost, I spend a lot of time cooking, photographing, editing, and writing content for my blog. That another website allows users to steal my content is completely reprehensible. Since Tastebook is a user-submitted site, then it needs to police its content. Period.

Each of my recipes have had hundreds of pageviews on their website. In simplest terms, that means people are not looking at my website but theirs in order to get the recipe. In many cases, without attribution, people even think my recipes and photos are Tastebook's. In other cases, since the whole point of their website is for people to pay to collate the recipes into a book, then Tastebook is literally making money off my work.

This needs to stop now. It's not just Tastebook, other aggregate sites do the same thing and I'm sick and tired of it. They're all violating bloggers' copyrights and they all need to police their content.

You wanna know why I've lost energy to blog? This is why. Keep scrolling down. There's a damn lot of my recipes that were stolen.

Goi Ga Bap Cai (Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad)

Since I was updating my Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup) and Goi Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Salad) recipes, it was super-simple to turn the salad into Goi Ga Bap Cai (Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad).

Lumpiang Prito (Filipino Fried Spring/Egg Rolls)

When Marija of Palachinka, host of the beef round-up of Weekend Wokking, declared SPROUTS as the secret ingredient for this month's challenge, I wanted to do more than my usual preparation -- a simple stir-fry or tossing them into a bowl of soup.

I had been craving Cha Gio (Vietnamese Egg Rolls) for a while and figured it was a good a time as any to do a slight variation by making lumpiang prito (Filipino fried egg rolls). Of course, I turned to Marvin of Burnt Lumpia to get the basics. The Wikipedia lumpia entry was pretty useful for explaining all the different kinds of lumpia.

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Vietnamese Goat in 7 Courses (De 7 Mon) at Binh Dan Restaurant - Westminster (Little Saigon)

Thirty-four years ago, the Vietnam War ended when Saigon fell on April 30. Little Saigon in Orange County, California is the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam. There are now more than 11,000 Vietnamese-owned businesses in Orange County offering almost every kind of service and serving almost every kind of dish.

In a non-descript strip mall in Westminster lies Binh Dan Restaurant. The specialties at Binh Dan (Vietnamese for commoner) are mon nhau (Vietnamese for drink-friendly food) and de 7 mon (Vietnamese goat in 7 courses). Nothing fancy here. Basic working-class food.


Goat can be an acquired taste for many people. At Binh Dan, the goat is locally sourced, coming from the owners' father's farm in Riverside County. The cooks are known for removing the gamey taste from the meat. I've been curious to try this restaurant ever since reading Kirk of Mmm-yoso's visit. With Foodbuzz's 24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Posts to foot the bill, I invited a few of my more adventurous eating friends - kevinEats, Pepsi Monster, Danny of Kung Food Panda, and Aaron of Destination Eats, who specifically said he likes gamey meats. I told them the 7 courses of goat was on the menu, with perhaps a side order of de vu nuong (Vietnamese grilled goat breast/udder).

My main concern when introducing others to unfamiliar dishes or cuisine is that the person doesn't balk at trying anything, including udders. I said it! Well, technically breast is a correct translation too, but if they're game when I utter "udder" and "blood pudding" then they can hang with me. ;)

Japanese Flavored Salts

The oldest '88 returned from studying abroad in Japan and brought me these flavored salts. How nice of her to remember me! She said she figured I'd want something food-related. But ummm... what do I do with them?

Chicken Enchiladas with Nutella Mole Poblano

It's World Nutella Day!

I wracked my brain trying to come up with something clever for this year's recipe. Did I want to do something sweet? Perhaps something savory? How best to showcase my love for the Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread?

At a loss, I resigned myself to sitting this year out. So I busied myself making my basic lemon, salt and pepper baked chicken. Then as I stripped the leftover chicken from the bones, I figured I'd save some of the shredded chicken for enchiladas. Instead of ordinary enchiladas, how 'bout I try my hand at making Mexican mole?

*Lightbulb.*

And instead of mole with Mexican chocolate, I could use Nutella!

I decided to make mole poblano since that's the version I've eaten the most. According to Wikipedia, mole poblano comes from the Mexican state of Puebla and is made with chili peppers, ground nuts, spices, chocolate, salt, onions, and garlic. A little Googling turned up David Lebovitz's Chocolate Mole Recipe, which was comprised of ingredients I already had in my pantry. A little tweaking here and there, and surprisingly, except for being a little sweeter than some moles I've eaten, the smooth hazelnut-chocolate taste of Nutella blended in quite nicely with the almonds, chili peppers, and spices in the sauce.

Mashed Okinawan Purple Sweet Potatoes

Remembering how much fun it was when I made Purple Aloo Gobi (Indian Potatoes and Cauliflower), I decided to use Okinawan purple sweet potatoes again as a side dish. The almost purple-black color of the sweet potatoes became this glorious purple after mashing with butter, milk, and sour cream.


Despite its appearance, the Okinawan sweet potato is not related to ube, the popular Filipino yam used in many desserts. What's the difference? Well, one is a yam and the other is a sweet potato. :P Americans use the words interchangeably, but in fact, a sweet potato is not a yam, a yam is not a sweet potato. They belong to two different scientific families.

Buta No Kakuni (Japanese Braised Pork Belly)

As promised, fall-apart tender Japanese braised pork. So tender that I had difficulty slicing without the meat falling apart.



While serving ramen with char siu (Chinese barbecued pork) was tasty, I wanted to go all-Japanese the second time around when I made shichimenchou (Japanese turkey) ramen. I remembered Kirk of Mmm-yoso's recipe for buta no kakuni (Japanese braised pork). It's apparently based on the Chinese version, and looked amazingly similar to thit kho (Vietnamese braised pork). Even down to the hard-boiled egg.

So I decided I would largely cook the buta no kakuni the same way I would the Vietnamese version, subbing out such Vietnamese ingredients as the caramel sauce and fish sauce for Kikkoman soy sauce and grated daikon. Kirk's use of the grated daikon was ingenious. The meat was so incredibly tender.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Cranberry/Pumpkin Butter/Walnut Filling and Maple Icing

All these pumpkin recipes must have been sitting in my queue waiting and waiting for the PUMPKIN edition of Weekend Wokking! Pumpkin is the secret ingredient as picked by Ivy of Precious Pea, host of the coconut round-up.

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls with cranberry/pumpkin butter/walnut filling with maple icing.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Browned Butter Sage Sauce

I cheat and use wonton wrappers to make ravioli. But perhaps after seeing these results, you'll find that acceptable?


Yummy pumpkin filling.

Sprouting Potatoes? Homegrown Fingerling Potatoes!

I had some potatoes that had sprouted after I had forgotten about them. Instead of tossing them into my compost bin, I remembered a post from last fall when Zoey of Perennial Passion planted sprouted potatoes and got a mini-harvest of baby potatoes.

So that's what I decided to do. I just had plain old russets.

Bun Cha Hanoi Nem Ran (Vietnamese Hanoi-Style Rice Vermicelli Noodles with Grilled Pork Patties and Egg Rolls)

After the flurry of various curries and cooking from Malaysian food packets, I had a serious craving for good old Nuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce). I made Nem Nuong and Nem Nuong Cuon (Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty and Vietnamese Grilled Pork Patty Salad Rolls), but thought I'd turn it into Bun Cha Hanoi Nem Ran (Vietnamese Hanoi-Style Rice Vermicelli Noodles with Grilled Pork Patties and Egg Rolls) since I haven't posted that recipe yet.


This isn't so much a recipe as an assembly list.

Sup Mang Tay Cua (Vietnamese Asparagus and Crab Soup)

So now that I've taught you how to make Canh (Vietnamese Soup Broth), it's time I finally shared my very favorite Vietnamese soup -- sup mang tay cua (Vietnamese asparagus and crab soup).


This recipe is in no way as remotely as good as my mom's, but it'll do in a jiffy. Make a big pot. I can (And have!) happily eat three big bowls of this and call it a meal.  

Day 18: In-N-Out Burger and the "Hidden Menu"

This post is for my non-Californian readers. You might have encountered In-N-Out Burger in Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation." He cites In-N-Out as an example of what fast food can be. The beef is fresh, never frozen. Food isn't cooked until you order, which sometimes results in long lines during peak times. And the employees get full benefits and higher than average wages compared to other fast food chains. This is the menu.


Or you might have heard of In-N-Out as the burger chain Paris Hilton was headed for in 2006 when she got pulled over for a DUI. In 2003, Angelina Jolie cut out of the Academy Awards ceremony early to stop off at In-N-Out on the way home. In a 2004 interview with Los Angeles Magazine, Julia Child was said to have requested an In-N-Out burger while in the hospital recovering from knee surgery.

The company, which started in 1948, is still family-owned so it's been growing slowly. Only within the past decade did In-N-Out start expanding beyond SoCal. And even now, has only expanded to Arizona and Nevada. But In-N-Out has long had a "hidden menu," that's not so hidden anymore.

Chocolate Mochi with Nutella Filling

Huge disclaimer: I've never made mochi (Japanese sticky rice cakes) before. Although I've always enjoyed Fugetsu-do Sweet Shop's soft and chewy mochi. I've wanted to try their chocolate mochi too but at 6 small pieces for $4, just couldn't justify the expense. I thought they were hard to make until I saw Melting Wok's post months ago about nuking mochiko (Japanese sticky rice flour) in the microwave for 5 minutes. She made it look so simple. I knew I'd make it at some point, I just didn't know when. Then in mid-December, Nikki Polani was kind enough to send me a large container of cocoa. Mochi + cocoa = chocolate mochi. And then with World Nutella Day coming up on February 5, I had an idea for the ultimate recipe. Mochi + cocoa + Nutella = chocolate mochi with Nutella filling. Apologies for the indelicate appearance, but rest assured they tasted much better than they looked. Chocolate Mochi with Nutella Filling Adapted from the chocolate mochi recipe from Koda Farms Blue Star Brand mochiko For about a dozen mochi, you'll need: 1 1/2 cups mochiko (Japanese sticky rice flour) 1 1/2 cups water 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup cocoa Nutella Mix 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup cocoa and set aside. In another bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups mochiko and 1 1/2 cups water, cover and microwave for 5 minutes. You'll get a rather wet-looking mixture like below. Stir to make sure the mochiko is evenly distributed. Then add the cocoa mixture 1/4 cup at a time and mix until the cocoa is evenly distributed. Keep stirring to make sure everything is smooth. Cover and put the mixture back in microwave for another 5 minutes. You'll end up with a mixture that looks like very thick cake mix. Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes or so, until slightly cooled. You want to work with the dough while it's still warm. Oil or flour your hands with mochiko and pat the dough into flat discs. I tried both methods, floured on the left and oiled on the right, and it was still a messy process either way. Spoon a dab of Nutella into the middle of each mochi disc. Then gather the ends and fold into a ball. Place mochi balls on candy cups for serving. Mochi doesn't keep very well. So either eat them all the day you make them (As if that'd be a hardship!) or wrap in plastic and they'll keep for a few days at room temperature. After that, the mochi will get too hard and start molding. Enjoy! I'm submitting this recipe to World Nutella Day hosted by Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy, Michelle from Bleeding Espresso, and Shelley from At Home in Rome (in spirit). Check back with them on February 5 for a round-up of Nutella recipes from around the world. Who made my recipe for chocolate mochi with Nutella filling? FoodahoLiv and Mochachocolata Rita both made this recipe for a Valentine's Day party. Other Nutella recipes: Egg rolls stuffed with bananas and mangoes with Nutella dipping sauce Bananas, Nutella, and peanut butter sandwiches. ***** 1 year ago today, the "5 things about me" meme.

Ggakdugi Kimchi (Korean Pickled Daikon Radish)

Recently, I bought two gigantic daikons from the Alhambra Farmers' Market for only 50 cents apiece. It was too good of a deal to pass up so I figured I'd use the opportunity to experiment and make ggakdugi kimchi (Korean pickled daikon radish). I basically used the same method as my Baechu Kimchee (Korean Pickled Napa Cabbage) recipe for the spicy version. And for the non-spicy version, I made a sweet pickle like what I ate at KyoChon Chicken. Although, you'll need to brine all of the daikon, just the same.