Steamed Snapper with Ginger and Scallion

Did I mention how much I love my instant pot? Yesterday, I have the craving for steamed fish, and went to the market to get a snapper.  After I cleaned and patted it dry, I marinated with salt and pepper, and added a few slices of ginger and scallion to the belly.  Then add a little bit of wine to get rid of the fishy smell along with a little bit of seseme oil.  Then I put in the microwave for 10 min, then pour away the water that came out from it. 

Ingredients:
-1 snapper
-ginger
-scallion
-salt & pepper
-cilantro and some scallion (for garnish)
-shallot & garlic

Sauce:
-soy sauce
-chicken broth or water
-sugar
-seseme oil
-garlic
-ginger

To make the sauce:
-Wok/Pan/ add oil and minced garlic/shallot (took some out and put aside .  You can put some to garnish the fish later.
-Add ginger
-Add chicken brother and water
-Add seseme oil and sugar
Note: the sauce should be sweet and not so salty.

Method: To steam the fish in IP, check out the steps below.
1. Put one cup of water in the instant pot.
2. Add the trivet and put the stainless steel plate with fish. (You might have to cut the fish in half to fit in the IP)
3. High Manual 12 min. Quick Release
4. Garnish with scallions & Cinlantros
5.  Then pour the sauce over the fish
6. Enjoy!


Here is my instant pot steamed fish in 12 minutes. YUM!

Lobster Tails at Safeway's

All of a sudden I have the urge for lobsters.  I went to Safeway's and made this.  Lobsters stir-fried with ginger and scallions. Yum!

Grilled Salmon

Teriyaki Salmon

Ingredients:
-4 pieces of salmon steaks or fillets (I buy 1 package of salmon at Costco's and cut into small portions.)
-Asparagus or mixed salad (depend if you want some green with your Salmon.)

Marinade:
1/2 cup of water
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of brown sugar (or honey)
1/4 cup of light soy sauce
2Tbsp. mustard (optional - Yellow or Dijon - If you have it, then great. If not, then don't worry about it.)
1 Tbp chilli flakes (I like a little kick in my Salmon.)
Pinch of onion powder
Pinch of garlic powder
1TB of sesame oil
salt & pepper to taste
1TB of sesame seed
1 TB of dark soysauce (to give it a nice color)

Note: The marinde should taste sweet and salty at the same time.

Method:
-Cut the salmon into steak size.
-Put the salmon into the plastic bag
-Add the marindate for 45 min - 1 hour
-Heat overn 350 degree
-Bake for 30 min
-Turn to Broil for the last 5 min to give it a nice crust and color

Note: You can use the left over marinade and make a sauce out of it.   Serve with Brown Rice or Salad or any kind of veggies.

Enjoy!

Salmon with special sauce

Yesterday I went to grocery store, and saw some fresh salmon. I want to make a fish dish with some sauce in it. However, I am not sure what kind of sauce? I have tons of organic cherry tomatoes at home, and need to get rid of them. After getting some instructions from one of the iron chef (MS. MA). She told me some of the ingredients needed to put this sauce together. I was so happy to hear that I can use my cherry tomatoes.

It was so yummy. My hubby loves it.


Ingredients:
3 pieces of Salmon
-marinade the salmon with salt & pepper
-fry the fish and pat dry with paper towels.

For the sauce:
-1 TB of olive oil
-1 cup of cherry tomatoes (slice in half)
-1 TB of sugar (you can add more to suite your taste)
-1 tsp of pepper
-1 TB of ketchup
-1 TB of oyster sauce
-1 TB of fish sauce
-some water
-1 onion, cut into wedges
-1 red onion, cut into wedges
-Scallions/cilantro for garnish.
-taramind soup base powder, lemon/lime juice or vinegar.
-pineapple, green pepper, yellow or red pepper (optional)

Method:

1. In the wok, Fry the Salmon and put aside.
2. In the same wok, add olive oil and throw in the cherry tomatoes.
3. Add sugar, pepper, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and ketchup
4. If the sauce is not sour enough, you can add some lemon juice, vinegar or taramind soup base.
5. Add the fried salmon back to the wok.
6. Let the sauce simmer on both sides of the salmon
7. Add the pineapple, green pepper in.
8. Throw in the white onion and red onion wedges
9. Garnish with cilantro or scallion

This would go well with rice.

Cha Ca Thang Long (HaNoi Style Sizzling Tumeric Fish with Dill)

As you know I have not been cooking for a while. Not sure what it is, but I have not been in the mood to cook. These days, I just try to put something easy together and call it "dinner". I know it's time for me to go back to real cooking when I saw this dish. Cha Ca Thang Long is one of my favorite, aka, Hainoi style turmeric fish with dill. I made this dish before but I used monk fish instead which i did not like that much.


As you can see below, this dish is accompany with a plate of noodles, banh da (vietnamese sesame rice cake), a platter of herbs, a bowl of garlic lemony fish sauce, roasted peanuts and of course slices of sweet onion, scallions, and dill.


The turmeric gives this fish a nice bright yellow color.


I used George Forman grill to cook the fish.


The olive oil, dill, onion, scallion, and turmeric gave this dish a wonderful flavor.

Here is a platter for hubby and I . He loved it so much and had three bowls for dinner. :-)


Yummy!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
3 lbs of fish (cod, halibut or talapia)
bunch of dill
bunch of scallion
2 sweet onion
peanuts
banh da (Vietnamese sesame rice cake)

Marinade sauce:
2 Tb of fish sauce
pinch of salt & pepper
3 tsp of turmeric powder
3 tsp of minced garlic (minced some more for frying the scallion, onion, and dill)
3 tsp of white portion of scallion
3 tsp of galangal
3 tsp of ginger
3 tps of sugar
3 tsp of mam ruoc (vietnamese fermented shrimp paste)
generous amount of olive oil

Herbs:
-Vietnamese mints
-Lettuce
-Vietnamese coriander (rau ram)
-Vietnamese perilla (tia to)
-pickled carrots.

Method:
1) Marinade the fish and the sauce for 1-2 hours.
2) Grill the fish in george forman grill, and put aside.
3) In another pan, add olive oil and minced garlic.
4) Add in the slices of onion, scallion, and dill (veggies dish)
5) Pour over the veggies dish over the grilled fish.
6) Serve with noodles, herbs platters, peanuts, and lemony fish sauce.

Yum!

Salmon Summer Rolls

I made this for dinner yesterday. Oh my gosh, it was so good. Do you want a Salmon summer roll? :-) It tasted awesome with garlic lemony fish sauce. And of course you got to have fresh organic herbs.


Here is a closer look at my dinner yesterday.


Yummy in the tummy!


Enjoy!

Maryland Steamed Blue Crabs

People usually steamed crabs with cider vinegar, old bay seasoning, and beer. I like mine plain because I want to taste the sweetness of the crab meat. There are many kinds of crab, but none can match the sweet taste great texture of the blue crab. I bought one dozen at the market today. These are live Maryland Blue Crabs.

They need to be washed before steam.


They are ready to be steamed.

After 20-30 minutes, they are done. Yummy!

Check out the pretty color.

Here is a closer look. Between my hubby and I , we finished one dozen crabs. They were delicious. I dipped mine with lime juice, salt and pepper.


Enjoy!

Vietnamese Broiled Talapia - Ca nuong

I love eating fresh herbs in the summer. Any dishes that consist of wrapping with rice papers and fresh herbs, I am there. Tonight dish is broiled talapia Vietnamese style. Check it out.


Talapia is quite cheap. They are only $1.99 per pound. I bought two.

Dry rub marinade: onion powder, garlic powder, tumeric powder, salt and pepper.

After 30 minutes, they are done.

I dressed them with scallions and olive oil and garnished with fried shallots and peanuts.

.
Fresh herbs


pickled carrots and daikon, scallions & olive oil and cucumbers.

They were so good.


Here you go, Talapia summer roll -)

Another one coming up.

I can eat this all day.


Enjoy!

Lobsters on sale

I am going lobster crazy today. One of the Korean store has lobsters on sale so I stopped by the store after work and got myself 8 lobsters. I must be insane :-)

I am not even sure what to do with them. I really need to come up with new cooking recipe for lobsters. If you have a good recipe, please let me know. Thanks!

Lobster for dinner

We saw some live lobsters at the grocery this morning and decided to purchase some for dinner tonight. I am making Cantonese lobsters with gingers and scallions.

This dish is simply delicious. Want to try a piece? They would go great with beers.

They are really fresh.

I have no gut to chop up the lobster. This is my hubby's job.

Below is the recipe.

http://trucvy-zoe.blogspot.com/2008/08/cantonese-lobster-with-ginger-and.html

Baked mussels with ginger and oyster sauce

I bought a bag of New Zealand mussels today, and decided to make this dish. It's very tasty and go great with beer. I got this recipe from one of the member of Vietfun (Cat Nhi). Baked mussles with ginger and oyster sauce is delicious. You got to try it.

Here is a closer look.

Ingredients:

1 bag of mussels (I used New Zealand), scrubbed and beards removed.

Spring onions (white portion - trimmed and cut into 5cm lengths; green portion- cut into small pieces)

Ginger root, cut into thin small strips

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

peanut , chopped

2 TBS of olive oil

1 & 1/2 stick of butter ( I used Imperial - Cholesteroal free). Melt the butter in microwave.

Sauce:

1/2 cup of water

1/2 tsp of corn starch

3TBS of oyster sauce

1 TBS of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

olive oil

Method for premixed sauce:

1. Heat the oil in the cleaned pan , and add the green portion of spring onions in for 2 minutes and pour it out to a bowl.

2. In the same pan, add garlic, add all the sauce ingredients in until boiled.

3. Add the ginger, white portion of the spring onion in for 3 minutes to create a rich sauce.

Method:

1. Rinse and drain the mussels and put into a baking sheet.

2. Place in 375 degree oven and bake until the shells open.

3. As the mussels begin to open, immediately remove the other half of the shell.

4. Discard any mussels that have not opened.

5. Scoop a little bit of butter in each of the mussels.

6. Add in the pre-mixed sauce.

7. Put mussels back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

8. Take it out the oven, and garnish with the green portion of the spring onion.

9. Put chopped peanut on top.

Enjoy!

Ginger and Scallion Crabs & Beer-Steamed Crabs

Hubby and I went to grocery and bought some live crabs this morning. They were delicious. I made two different kinds. For the first batch, I beer-steamed them, and for the second batch, I stir-fried with ginger and scallion.

Beer-steamed crabs.


Ginger and scallion crabs. Check them out!

We cleaned them and removed some of the non-edible stuff.

We had to fight with one of them before we cooked them. They were quite aggressive if you ask me. This one refused to go in the pot.

See how it reacted when we wanted to pick it up and put in the pot? I think it was trying to say, "Don't you dare touch me."

Finally, we won. After the crabs had been cleaned, we chopped them into smaller pieces and pre-fried.

These ingredients will be needed to stir fry.

In a pan, I added some olive oil and threw in all the ingredients above.

I added in the fried crabs.

Next, I added the pre-mixed sauce. (oyster sauce, white pepper powder, water, sugar, sesame oil, and fish sauce). And the scallions was also added.

Then I garnished with cilantro.

Here is a close up picture of the ginger and scallion crabs.

This dish will go well with beer . Enjoy!

Ingredients:

10 - 12 crabs (about 1 1/2 - 2 pounds)

small chunk of ginger (peeled and sliced into 10-12 pieces)

7 stalks scallion (cut into 2-inch length)

3 tablespoons corn starch (for frying)

2 tablespoon of shallots

2 tablespoon of chopped garlic

2 tablespoon of scallion (white portion only)

1 tablespoon cooking oil

Oil for deep frying

Sauce:

2 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 dashes white pepper powder

1 teaspoon sesame oil

4 tablespoons water

3/4 teaspoon corn starch

1/8 teaspoon fish sauce

Method:

Mix the sauce and set aside.

Clean the crab and cut into pieces.

Pat dry with paper towels and put into a big bowl.

Add the corn flour to the bowl and lightly coat the crab pieces with it.

Heat up a wok and add cooking oil.

When the oil is heated, drop the crab pieces and deep fry.

As soon as they turn red, dish out, strain the excess oil and set aside.

Heat up a wok and add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil.

Add the garlic, shallot, chopped scallion, ginger and stir-fry until aromatic.

Put the crab pieces into the wok and quickly stir a few times before adding the sauce.

Add the chopped scallions, toss the crab in the wok a few times until well coated with the sauce, dish out and serve immediately.