Newport Seafood's house special lobster

Recipe from Vietnamese Home Cooking Enthusiasts, Facebook

Today, I attempt to make the house special lobster like the ever-so-popular Tân Cảng Newport restaurant in Santa Ana. With no access to fresh/live lobster, I have to settle for lobster tails at HEB. I bought a total of 10 tails and asked the HEB butcher guy to cut each lobster tails into 3 pieces. 

Recipe:
10 lobster tails (about 3lbs)
2 bundles green onion (chop thick/roughly)
2-3 jalapenos/serrano peppers (thick slices)
2-3 TBSP roughly minced garlic
Corn starch to generously coat lobster

Sauce:
3 TBSP oyster sauce 
1 TBSP fish sauce (Squid brand)
1 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP black pepper
2 TBSP sugar
1 1/4 cup water

Combine and set aside. I find that using hot water helps to dissolve the sugar easier.

Direction:

1. Clean lobster and drain well.

2. Prep and chop all above ingredients and set aside. 

3. Heat enough oil to about 350° for deep fry.

4. Coat lobster generously with cornstarch and deep fry in oil. Do not stir the lobster too much as you will lose the flour coating. Wait for the lobster to float to the top. That's when the lobster is cooked. Remove and leave in a colander to drain excess oil.

5. Heat a wok with 2-3 TBSP oil at med-high heat and stir fry garlic until fragrant. Add in 1/2 of green onion and 1/2 of jalapenos. Keep stir fry for 2-3 min.

6. Add in lobster and stir fry for another 2-3 min to coat well with the garlic.

7. Now add in the sauce mixture and stir fry to combine well. It will be saucy. No worries! 

8. Close the lids and cook for about 3 minutes or until the sauce reduces down. This will allow the lobster to absorb the sauce.

9. Add in the rest of the green onion and jalapenos and stir fry for another minute to combine. Done!

肥媽靚湯 Chinese Soups

Chicken Feet Peanut Soup

Chicken Feet
1 rice bowl of peanuts
眉豆 Black eye peas 
1 蜜棗Indian Jujube

Blanch the chicken feet, let it boil for at least 2 minutes

Add Cleaned chicken feet, peanuts, black eye peas and Indian jujube to pot. Add hot water and let it boil for 10 minutes. Lower to simmer and let it cook for another 2 hours.


Pork Bone, Carrot and Corn Soup

Pork bones
1 big carrot
2 corn (keep husk)

Blanch the pork bones.

Add pork bones, carrots, corn to the pot. Twist the corn husk into a knot and add to pot as well. Add water and let boil for 10 minutes. Lower to simmer and let it cook for 2 hours.


Chayote and Chicken Soup

Chicken wings (or chopped chicken)
Ginger (1 big chunk, a little bit more is ok)
Chayote - cut in big cubes
Fish sauce
Shao Shing wine

Heat pot, add a little oil, and add the sliced ginger. Stir fry for a bit. Add chicken and brown chicken in ginger and oil. Don't move the chicken around too much so it can brown.

Add chayote, fish sauce and shao shing wine. Add hot water. 

Let the water boil till the squash is soft and cooked.

Korean Short Rib with Minute Maid concentrate

From Vietnamese Cooking Group, Facebook

Per 4 pounds of the Korean 3 bone meat : ACTUALLY THE CHEAPER MEAT WITH MOST FATS IS PREFERRED I DON’T like lean. Fat is good!!!!

1.Use 2/3 bag of the lemon grass(xa) the one larger than sandwich bag.
2.Use 1/2 bottle of the #1 Korean CJ BBQ BULGOLGI that has the apple 🍎 🍐 (larger plastic bottle)
3.Use 1/2 bottle of the #1 Korean BBQ KALBI that has the apple 🍎 🍐 (larger plastic bottle)
4.add a pinch of Himalayan pink salt ( if you don’t want organic vegan or healthy go with the other kosher salt. I didn’t have so had to made do with plain table salt )
SALT WILL bring all the flavors out and the vietnamese term for it is Dam Da.
5.Last step is also the secret ingredient use Minute Maid country or Tropicana premium concentrate with the PULP.

6.Make sure you massage it in deep and let the marinate seap and soak in all submerged under the marinate overnight.
7.In the morning take 1 small piece microwave to see taste. I guarantee taste is spot on perfection. This is different from american seasoning with mainly salt and pepper. Try it like this don’t MODIFY what is PERFECT .
8.Grilled on wooden charcoal if not regular charcoal but gas grill doesn’t give that great flavor.
9.ENJOY🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 Bon appetit

Irene Kuo's 1-2-3-4-5 Spare Ribs

Recipe from Irene Kuo

"This is a lighthearted title for an extremely easy and delectable dish—the 1 to 5 referring to the simmering ingredients. The sauce-coated meat is succulent, with a deep sweet and sour flavor. The dish serves 2 or 3 amply when accompanied by rice and a stir-fried leafy vegetable or a crisp salad. The ribs are also good as an appetizer." —Irene Kuo 

For Beef Shank: Her immediate response was: 1-2-3-4-5 beef, a shank simmered with rice wine, vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and water. The “1-2-3-4-5” corresponded to a Chinese soup spoon ratio of ingredients in the order that she’d rattled off.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds meaty spare ribs (ask the butcher to slice them into individual ribs and cut each rib crosswise into 3 pieces)
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons water

Directions

Put the ribs in a skillet or saucepan and set it over high heat; add the rest of the ingredients and stir to mingle. When the liquid comes to a boil, adjust heat to maintain a very gentle simmering, and cover and simmer for 40 minutes. Stir and turn the spareribs from time to time. Uncover and turn heat high to bring the sauce to a sizzling boil; stir rapidly until the sauce is all but evaporated. Serve hot. Note: It’s best (and easiest!) to ask your butcher to do the cutting, but if you find yourself with whole ribs, you can either carefully chop them yourself with a sturdy cleaver, meaty side down, or leave them whole. Left whole, they’ll be harder to stir and coat evenly and might look a little funny as the meat shrinks up on the bone, but it works fine in a pinch.

*Insider Family Tips
The recipe from The Key to Chinese Cooking was dead simple except for the part about chopping the spare ribs through the bone into small pieces. Jim pointed out that Irene always used a heavy knife to prep whole chicken and small-boned cuts of meats. But what happens to lingering bone bits?

Her tip to her son was this: Wipe away bone fragments with a cloth or paper towel, and as needed, snip off sharp edges where bones have splintered.

Knowing my cleaver limits and wanting to avoid disasters, I headed to my local butcher, picked out a rack of St. Louis–style ribs and had him saw it through the bone into narrow strips. Then it was just a matter of cutting the rib strips into individual riblets and adding everything to a saucepan. I chose a low 2 1/2–quart pan that would allow the riblets to evenly cook in one layer.

The sherry, soy sauce, cider vinegar, and sugar lent an incredible combination of flavors: bitter, salty, sour, and sweet. The water facilitated initial cooking, but at the end of the line, the pork released its fat to gently fry the flesh and concentrate the seasonings around the dark-and-handsome riblets.

It was transformative to say the least—minimal-ingredient cooking at its best.

Bulletproof & Versatile
The genius of this recipe lies in its elasticity. For example, if you forget to have the butcher cut the ribs, they’ll be harder to stir in the pan. The meat shrinks up so much around the bone that they’ll resemble high-water pants. But even with an oversight like that, the ribs will still taste fine.

For the dry sherry, use a Fino or Amontillado style. You can also use Shaoxing rice wine, which wasn’t well known in America in 1977, when Irene’s cookbook was published.

Chinese dark soy sauce has a touch of molasses to impart a rich mahogany color to dishes. Pearl River Bridge is my go-to brand. When it’s not available, substitute a 2:1 ratio of full-sodium soy sauce (such as Kikkoman) to molasses.

Tea Eggs 茶葉蛋

Recipe from Chichihehe

Ingredients:

• 10 to 15 or so eggs, hard boiled, shells gently cracked, not pealed*
• 4 c. (1 L.) of water
• 1 T salt
• 2/3 c. (150 ml) soy sauce
• 1/2 oz (15 g.) Oolong 烏龍茶 or black tea 紅茶
• homemade spice mix/pack**, see options below

Spice Option 1: 5 spice 五香滷水滷包 (the complicated option)

• 3 g. 花椒 sichuan peppercorns (~1 t)
• 2 g. 丁香 whole cloves (~1/2 t)
• 2 g. 小茴香 fennel seeds (~1/2 t)
• 6 g. 八角 star anise (~4 pieces)
• 4 g. 桂皮 stick cinnamon (1 stick)
• 4 g. 甘草 licorice root (~4-5 pieces)

Spice Option 2: Basic (the easy one)

• 2 slices of ginger root
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• 3 star anise
• 2 or 3 pieces of dried tangerine peel
• 1 t of sichuan peppercorns 0r cracked black pepper

Method:

1. Put the eggs, water, salt, soy sauce, tea, and spice mix/pack into a non reactive pot. Make sure all the eggs are covered by the liquid and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
2. Turn off heat leave all the ingredients in the pot and let the eggs soak for at least 2 hours (I prefer 5hours or more).
3. Serve the eggs or store them in the fridge in the liquid. (The liquid can be frozen and reused)

notes *Boiling eggs. I prefer the following method; put eggs in a pan with enough cold water to cover by 1 inch. Turn heat to med-high bring eggs to a boil and turn off the heat and let the eggs sit in the water for 10 minutes. Drain and run under cold water. When cool enough to handle gently crack the shells with the back of a spoon… Also as you will notice by the following that the Taiwanese seem to boil their eggs a little differently; They use 10 eggs, 1 L of water, 2 T of salt and boil according to the following directions: 將雞蛋，水，鹽一起放入鍋中， 開小火慢慢煮滾，滾約 3分鐘後再將雞蛋取出用冷水沖涼。I didn’t really notice much of a difference in the outcome.

** Spices can be put into a spice bag or a large mesh tea ball for convenience, but this is not absolutely necessary.

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

Recipe from itsmydish

Ingredients
2 cup of ground pork
1 box of tofu (medium to firm)
½ cup of chili bean sauce
1 tsp of Sichuan pepper powder (optional)
1 tbsp of sugar
1 cup of broth or water
1 tbsp of cornstarch
1 tbsp of water

Instructions
Mince garlic and ginger

Dice tofu

Heat up a pan with medium heat, add 2 tbsp of oil, stir fry garlic and ginger until aromatic

Add 2 cups of ground pork, stir fry ground pork until it is cooked

Add ½ cup of the chili bean sauce, stir fry until the color is even

Add Sichuan pepper powder (optional)

Add 1 box of diced tofu and 1 cup of broth or water

Stir carefully by pushing toward the center, bring to boil

Make the cornstarch slurry by mixing 1 tbsp of cornstarch and 1 tbsp of water

Garnish with green onions

Taiwan braised pork - 台式肉燥飯

Recipe from Candice-kitchen.blogspot.com

材料：(2人份量)
免治豬肉………1盒(約600g)
紅蔥頭(切小粒)……..約6粒
蒜頭(切小粒)….........….1粒
雞蛋……………….........1隻
鹽(如需要)……………少許
蔥粒(裝飾用)………....少許
白飯…………………....2碗

調味料：
萬字醬油………......…2湯匙
老抽……………........半湯匙
紹興酒…………….….2湯匙
冰糖…………….....….1小粒
白胡椒粉………........…少許
水…………………約150 ml


1) 把免治豬肉洗淨後，隔乾水待用

2) 紅蔥頭及蒜頭切粒待用

3) 下油，油起煙，以中小火爆香紅蔥頭

4) 爆香紅蔥頭後，盛起待用

5) 下油，以中小火爆香蒜蓉粒，再放入免治豬肉

6) 一齊炒勻至豬肉變色熟透

7) 放入調味料內的所有材料：

• 萬字醬油 Kikkoman soy sauce
• 一小粒冰糖，可自行調較甜度及試味
• 紹興酒
• 水約150 ml (如果喜歡醬汁稀一點，可多加50 ml至100 ml的水)
• 老抽
• 白胡椒粉

8) 醬料材料拌勻後，把醬料以中火煮滾

9) 加蓋以中小火煲約10-12分鐘至醬汁變成「杰身」

10) 最後加入已炒好的紅蔥頭碎拌勻

11) 把醬汁煮至自己喜歡的濃度，加入少許的鹽調味後肉燥醬汁就完成，記得先試味！我喜歡這個濃稀度，帶點醬汁，但又不會過稀，才是最好吃！

12) 用滾水煲熟雞蛋約5分鐘

13)  預備熱騰騰的白飯，雞蛋切半放上飯面淋上肉燥醬汁，灑上蔥花，非常簡易就完成咯！