To celebrate my parents arrival and AAPI Heritage month, I wanted to make my parents dinner since they always cook for us and it gave me a chance to and talk to them more about our family’s heritage.

I took a twist on a Vietnamese lemon grass & steamed mussel recipe I had and swapped out the chicken broth for a butter wine sauce.

The result? Delicious, the Vietnamese herbs with the cooked down white wine and butter was such an amazing pairing, it was very smooth, familiar, and aromatic (Think Vietnamese purple basil, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, chives, jalepeno, red chili, siracha, cilantro and fish sauce cooked down with steamed and buttered mussels...) 😍.

This is my arrabbiata & organic egg shakshouka (jar hack). Sans-ramps it’s usually a breakfast staple in our house when we have guests. Sub out the ramps for fresh basil, parsley, or feta cheese!I usually make this from scratch and pick fresh tomatoes 🍅 from our garden but until I have fresh tomatoes this is my quick hack is using @traderjoes arrabbiata sauce. It’s literally the best you can find jarred and you know I’m not the type to buy much pre-made sauces.

Thit Nuong- Sometimes I like my bbq pork served in a rice noodle bowl with fish sauce and sometimes I like them real sticky and sauce’y and served with rice.Sauce’y tip: save the juices meat marinade and simmer for a few minutes, reserve the sauce, and brush mid grilling or cooking and/or lather on upon plating for extra sticky & sauce’y pork chops🤤!

Authentic traditional style Vietnamese Pho- this family recipe is so comforting. My dad always loved using short ribs but I love these huge cuts of short ribs from my butcher at The Meat Wagon in Kingston.

This Pho uses oxtails, beef bones and short ribs to create a rich and luxurious stock. My dad loved using oxtails in his pho if it he could find it. Adding oxtails in addition to beef leg bones makes the broth really deep in color (a vibrant hazelnut color instead of a more transparent or clear broth) and it intensifies that beef-y broth factor!

Quickie ramen- When the perfect egg meets perfect timing!

Is there anything better than a flavorful soy egg with the perfect runny/jammy yolk in your ramen?

Quick ramen with blanched mustard greens, a few slices of char sui pork, and those pre-made perfect soy eggs (Trung Ngam Tuong).

I’ve been eating and testing a lot of recipes lately so I’m going to adopt Meatless Monday’s to dedicate to vegetarian and/or vegan meals!Are you a team “tonkatsu” or chicken “katsu”? I used to love ordering this at Japanese restaurants all the time but this time I wanted to make something similar but with tofu!

So I’ve been making my parents Caramelized Vietnamese Pork Belly with Eggs a few times now but what I love about the Taiwanese recipe is the use of added aromatics like star anise, cinnamon, and bay leaves.

Vietnamese pickled eggplants super easy to make and take about 3-4 days to ferment. You can find these round eggplants called “kermit” or white “cà pháo” at the asian markets. They can also be referred as south macrocarpon, gboma or African eggplant.

“Thai” eggplants during the summer months and they are the size of small golf balls. Traditionally the white or Kermit Eggplants are the ones that we used growing up but all I could find were the Thai variety which still turned out pretty darn nice!

Another classic family favorite, Do Chua, which adds that pickled sour and sweet crunch to the infamous Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich 🥪 and is used in a variety of other dishes as a condiment or garnish as well.

How to make a 50 cent ramen pack into a quickie restaurant level ramen.  This is literally made with an instant Maruchan ramen pack!

The key for me is to first get a super concentrated thick broth which will make your noodles rich in flavor and will also stain the noodles a gorgeous brown color packed with lots of flavor!

PS- I also topped these off with some handmade kimchi dumplings, see previous post on my blog for kimchi dumpling recipe (see recipe -here-)!  I’ve only recently been using a little tomato paste for color and that a little acidic umami taste but feel free to omit! 

Growing up my dad used to make these pickled mustard greens all the time. In Vietnamese culture we would have these pickled sour things to accompany very salty meats. I never really realized but we ate these when we were kids so I guess my fermented infatuation started off very young!

Growing up my dad usually grilled Vietnamese pork ribs but every once in a while we’d get beef ribs. They were much more expensive than pork ribs so we didn’t have them often. They’re prepared the same way too and when you throw it in a vermicelli noodle bowl it was so so good!