asian

Foodie Fridays: Hanoi

February 17, 2017 // Posted in Food I Ate, Foodie Fridays, Gallery, Photo Journal, Travel

February 17, 2017 | Posted in [post_category]

After traveling around Thailand for a week, my family collectively grew tired of eating Thai food. I thought I loved Thai, embracing papaya salad everyday, but I think the endless buffets (thanks to the pre-booked tours) quickly bored our palates. I never tired of mango & sticky rice though, but it never really occurred to me that Thai cuisine isn’t as diverse as Vietnamese cuisine. SHOTS FIREDDDD. Jaykay. Such a first world problem, right? It wasn’t until flying into Hanoi did I truly appreciate the cuisine of my peoplez. It’s exponentially more diverse than Thai food, especially due to its influence from its colonial French past & its Chinese neighbors. We’ve got similar desserts based in coconut milk & then we have these amazing cakes & pastries thanks to the French. We have dozens of various noodle soups, while Thailand only has a handful. While most other Asian countries embrace soy sauce in nearly every dish, Thai & Viet food is similar in that both cuisines embrace fish sauce, a highly pungent & salty fermented fish sauce. It’s often mixed with sugar, water, salt, & vinegar as a dipping sauce or dressing. Fish sauce (concentrated, not mixed) has always been my mother’s secret weapon in enhancing any meal whether it was spaghetti or Banh Canh Cua. Also, MSG. She used a lot of MSG, but the point is, whenever her meals needed a major kick in umami, she pulled out a bottle of fish sauce & measured out a tablespoon of it into her dish. Never fails.

We were excited to finally get our hands on some Vietnamese food, exciting our tastebuds with new combinations of flavors & spices we grew up with. I learned that Hanoi’s goi cuon tom (aka summer rolls) is made with a much thinner sheet of rice paper & honestly, it’s more annoying to eat & make. I love summer rolls. I make them at least 3 times a month, no matter the season, because it’s so healthy, fresh, filling, & low in calories. While Hanoi’s (Northern Vietnam) cuisine is much lighter than Saigon’s (Southern Vietnam), it still has some of my personal favorite dishes: Bun Cha & Cha Ca Thang Long. See all of our eats & travel photos below!

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Versatile Savory Rice Porridge

June 8, 2016 // Posted in Breakfast, Entrées, Food I Ate, Food I Made, Photo Journal, Recipes, Soups

June 8, 2016 | Posted in [post_category]

One of the most physically annoying things about aging is not the wrinkles & fine lines visibly showing–get on those anti-aging serums, stay out of the sun, use sunblock, moisturize daily, get ahold of some Asian genes, etc–but that agonizing pain in the back of your mandible. You know the pain I’m talking about, right? That jerk wisdom tooth who’s popping up to say, “hey gurl, sup?” & your response is, “BYE FELICIA, DISAPPEAR.” That pain. Yeahhhh, so since I can only pop so many pills of Motrin before I destroy my liver & overdose, all my food choices have been solely categorized under, “can I feed this to a baby?” and “cannot feed to baby.” Thank goodness for my random craving for cháo (also known as congee or rice porridge) a few weeks ago because it’s so easy to make & I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Also, it falls under the, “10/10 can feed this to a baby.” I mean, it’s not exactly healthy to be exclusively eating it because rice is not going to fulfill the essential vitamin spectrum for a healthy body, but look, my mouth hurts to chew so I’m going to choose to slurp on rice porridge. That’s where the versatility comes into play though! Dressing up porridge with your favorite ingredients will help you get over the general boringness that is porridge.

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The Spicy California Sushi Bowl Recipe, Get On It!

May 23, 2016 // Posted in Entrées, Food I Made, Gallery, Photo Journal, Recipes, Sushi

May 23, 2016 | Posted in [post_category]

TiffanyBee.com | Spicy California Sushi Bowl

It’s finally Spring, but New England kind of doesn’t care about seasons, so it’s already snowed a few times. But listen, I’m not here to talk about the drunk weather patterns of New England, I’m here to share a new recipe I’ve developed in partnership with Trident Seafoods, working with delicious surimi by Louis Kemp. Being a full-time student & working part-time is no easy feat, especially when you also need to find time to feed yourself & not break the bank. This is especially true for any working busybody or mom, so I came up with a recipe that y’all can bang out in 20 minutes or less!

If you’re new around these parts, hi, I’m Tiffany & I’m addicted to sushi. It’s always my default craving, however very expensive, especially when I want to blow my wallet on omakase. I admit that sometimes all I want is just a California roll–invented by Chef Ichiro Mashita who wanted to appease his LA customers who were turned off by the nori (seaweed) in sushi by flipping the rice inside out–because it’s an inexpensive & reasonable alternative to raw fish. This is especially appealing if you’re pregnant or scared of raw fish, so embrace this tasty alternative, y’all! Louis Kemp Crab Delights are made from Alaskan Pollock—a highly sustainable white fish also known as the world’s biggest source of palatable fish, which is commonly used in imitation crab products—and real snow crab. Let me just smash cut to the chase since I know you just HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS I’VE MADE THAT ONLY TAKES 20 MINUTES TO MAKE, HURRY UP. It’s a deconstructed California roll in a bowl! Let me introduce you to my version of a quick & easy California roll fix for busy moms, millennials, people, everyone: the Spicy California Sushi Bowl. Spicy is always optional, but it’s essential in my household because the kick makes life more interesting.

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Winner Winner, Fishy Dinner

November 2, 2015 // Posted in Dips & Sauces, Entrées, Food I Made, Noodles & Pasta, Photo Journal, Recipes, Travel

November 2, 2015 | Posted in [post_category]

I’m happy to announce the winner of my Soapy Giveaway is, drum roll please, Tara of Aigoo-Chamna.net! Congratulations, Tara! Thrilled that you won & you most definitely deserve it. Tara is always one of the first people to read my posts & leaves thoughtful comments. Very pleased that she won, but it was all the more easier for her to win when a bunch of people got disqualified because they failed to do one simple thing: leave multiple comments on different posts. Womp womp! Oh well, their loss is Tara’s win. Visit her blog & befriend this friendly blogger! Thanks to all those who participated & be on the lookout for another giveaway in the future. I’m bound to have another one. 🙂

Let’s get on with my previous promise to share Vietnamese recipes, shall we? I bring you a delicious fish & noodle recipe from my peeplez. Cha Ca Thang Long (Grilled Turmeric Fish with Dill) is a very popular northern Vietnamese dish, which has a transliteration of “grilled chopped fish from Thang Long.” While we were sweating in Vietnam’s summer heat, my family went to lunch at a restaurant in Hanoi which only served Cha Ca Thang Long and it was quite excellent. However, I’ve had better in the comforts of my own home (& my mother’s cooking) & at Pho Quang Trung. It’s also comforting knowing you can eat fresh herbs raw without worry of parasites too, so there’s that. This recipe is not meant for those who don’t like seafood or fish sauce, because honey, fish sauce is the soy sauce of Vietnam. In other Asian cuisines, soy sauce is the base for many dishes, but in Vietnam, it’s fish sauce. It’s the secret ingredient my mom uses to make her spaghetti sauce full of umami goodness.

BONUS FUN FACT: Ancient Romans also used fish sauce in their spaghetti too, so don’t you judge my mother for adding her Vietnamese fusion ways into pasta.

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Finally, Another Sushi Recipe

September 10, 2015 // Posted in Food I Made, Photo Journal, Recipes, Sushi

September 10, 2015 | Posted in [post_category]

My first & only sushi recipe I’ve published was on the same day I held my first giveaway. The recipe was simple, vegan, & healthy, but I’ve finally made some sushi during the day & photographed it. It’s not vegan nor is it vegetarian, but it uses a sustainable fish, it’s baked, & it’s spicy. My regular prop table is covered with cold process soap things, so I apologize these photos aren’t as white & bright as my other ones. The real testament is whether or not FoodGawker gives this a thumbs up. This sushi roll has a small element of baking in it, but I promise it’s worth your time. Plus, any extra filling you have leftover can be used in a salad, atop noodles, or to make even more sushi. Hmm…now that I think of it, this would’ve been a better post if I also ran my much delayed giveaway. Next time…next time…while I can’t giveaway my food, I can giveaway some of my awesome soapy-Martha-Stewarty creations (room sprays, soap, bath bombs, etc) so…yeah. That’s worth a lot. Anyway, recipe link & some pictures after the jump!