Sticky rice (cooked with water and coconut milk) on a green glass breakfast plate. A bit of lightly thickened coconut sauce has spread a little. Thinly sliced mango pieces cover the rice in a half-arse star points form. Although my plating talents lack any talent, this still looks nice; which really is all about the colour contrasts of green plate, yellow/orange mango, and white rice.

A new Andre Nguyen recipe: Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango.

It's mind-blowing good.

#AndreaNguyen
#StickyRice
#Mango
#Coconut

16 freshly shaped dumplings resting on a tray lined with baking paper. This is supposed to be the 'boat shape' and even mine look (very) vaguely boat-shaped. Though they look more like 16 vulvas. Mind you, they certainly don't look like tiny doughy crucified Saviours (or Easter Bunnies). They tasted nice though.

I made these earlier today.

I had forgotten it was Easter but they don't look very Jesus-y, or Bunny-ish.

Is there a Vulva Day?

#Dumplings
#AndreaNguyen

On the left side of the plate, there are yesterday's leftovers: a grey and white(ish) and green and tired-orange mess. It tasted nice enough, one day old and microwaved, but it could use a bit of help, so on the right side of the plate is the tomato with egg. The tomato juices have made the egg white kind of yellow/orange. Anyway, the two dishes together changed the whole from 'nice' to 'really nice'. Extra tofu info. Because I wanted to eat yesterday's dish then, I used long shelf life tofu instead of making my own (which I normally prefer.) Because the cut tofu had to sit in very hot water for 20 minutes, this tofu did really well in this dish. It even tasted very nice after microwaving it today. For some dishes I can absolutely recommend this lazy arse tofu.

I used up only half of yesterday's leftovers today. That was the shrimp, tofu, bok choi and rice dish, an Andrea Nguyen recipe. I added some tomatoes and eggs and prepared them the Fuchsia Dunlop way.

A very nice meal.

#AndreaNguyen
#FuchsiaDunlop
#Foodsky

A small plate filled with food, shot from above. Not much excitement in terms of colour: green veggies, pink shrimps and white rice and white tofu. Basically, it's a simple stir-fry with these ingredients: - bok choi - firm tofu - shrimps - frozen peas - rice Additions like ginger, spring onion, shrimp stock, a slurry of potato starch, water & sesame oil, plus a simple add-in sauce of salt, sugar, rice wine and soy sauce. First you stir-fry the bok choi in neutral oil, add a bit of rice wine and put in a bowl. Then, having wiped the wok clean, you really heat it, then you add oil and then some ginger and spring onion, then you add the shrimps, stir, add more ginger & spring onion, add tofu pieces that have sat in a pot with just-boiled water for some twenty minutes, add peas, add shrimp stock and that sauce, let that simmer for five to ten minutes, then stir slurry through it and you're done. I had it with microwaved sticky rice.

A spoonful of food, on its way to my mouth. On the spoon a bit of everything; rice, tofu, shrimps, peas bok choi and a coating of sauce. This is meant to be served in three bowls: - the bok choi - the shrimp and tofu - the rice. Because I am a total barbarian when it's just me, I first stirred the bok choi into the shrimp & tofu and then added and stirred in the rice. Sue me.

An Andrea Nguyen recipe, so, it's very good.

Like in lots of Asian dishes, it's the 'mise en place' that is most important: have all your (premixed and cut) ingredients in little bowls around the wok.
If you do that, these dishes are very easy

(More details in alt text)

#Wok
#AndreaNguyen

Shot from above of the layer of microwaved rice on a green glass plate. I put douchi and dried mushroom in the bowl from the start, so it looks a bit brown, and the mushrooms are showing.

The second layer, of shaved mung beans, lies on top of the rice. They are white-yellow. First you boil the mung beans and when the water is gone, you mash the now soft beans till you can form a ball with it. You let that rest at room temperature, uncovered, for about an hour (till the outside is hard). - Half an hour before the mung beans are ready, you make your sticky microwave rice. (I added douchi and dried mushrooms, because: why not?)

An added layer of fried onions goes on top of the mung beans. They are pale golden (or more prosaically: grey-brown) beneath you see some yellow of the mung beans and some brown on the edges, where rice peeps out. Oh, I forgot: I shaved the ball of mung bean with a potato peeler. A simple but very satisfying dish.

A little bowl with mushroom salt. The bowl is aluminium and shiny; the salt is a dull grey. I ground some of my homemade dried mushroom powder with coarse sea salt, as condiment. I didn't use much, so I will put the rest in a small air-tight box.

This is a recipe Andrea Nguyen posted on her blog 'Pass the fish sauce'. If you like to make Asian food (with emphasis on the Vietnam kitchen) you should follow it.

This is called 'Hanoi style sticky rice with mung beans'.

More in alt text.

#VietFood
#MungBeans
#MicrowaveRice
#AndreaNguyen

A closeup of eight raw potsticker dumplings on a small lined baking tray inside a big freezer bag. I freeze them individually, because that makes defrosting easier. In a few hours they will join the ones I made two days ago in one freezer bag.

Seven fried & steamed dumplings on a plate, with a small bowl of dipping sauce in the middle. With the bottoms up, because otherwise that crispy bottom will decrispify. You first fry them for about two minutes in a bit of vegetable oil, then you add water (no more than 80ml/gr) and let that steam for about eight minutes, with a lid on. When (almost) all the water has evaporated, fry for another two minutes.

Closeup pic with the tops showing (for the pic.) They look a bit like little boats, with the filling in the middle and nicely domed up.

Closeup of one dumpling bitten almost in half. A nice shot; you see part of the crispy bottom, a good bit of the filling and a glimpse of the thin steamed wrap. Mind you, the plan had been to freeze all of these but I had been so busy with all kinds of chores in and around the house that I started rolling out and filling the dough pieces around 15.00 and only then realised I hadn't eaten anything all day. So I ended up eating some, and in a few hours I'll have a big mug of yesterday's soup.

More potstickers.

My third go at them and these were excellent.
So that's very encouraging - and that's mostly thanks to Andrea Nguyen's excellent 3-hour online class.

(More in the alt notes.)

#AsianDumplings
#Potstickers
#AndreaNguyen

Six dumplings sitting on a green glass breakfast plate. They're lying on their side, because otherwise the crisped up underside would become soggy. These dumplings were first fried with a bit of neutral vegetable oil. Then water was added to the skillet, after which the dumplings steamed for about eight minutes, with a lid on.

The six dumplings turned the right side up again, to show the various shapes I experimented with. Let's leave it at stating that I won't win any dumpling presentation prizes any time soon. They didn't leak though; and the rest is glittery noise, as far as I'm concerned.

I hold up a half-bitten dumpling. It looks like a half-bitten dumpling. There's really nothing more to say about it.

Yesterday I followed an online dumplings making class, held by my tofu guru, Andrea Nguyen.

I made some today, even though my organic all purpose flour has more protein (11.9) than ideal (10.5 to 11).

My dumplings ended up too chewy but okay.

Now to find the right flour.

#Dumplings
#AndreaNguyen

A metal-looking square serving dish with blanched green beans on it; the beans are covered with the shira-ae (blitzed tofu.) Black sesame seeds have been sprinkled on top.

Which meals (once) made a huge impression on you?

Post 20 pics of meals, one per day.

Day 16

Shira-ae with vegetables

Recipe:
www.seriouseats.com/andrea-nguye...

#Foodsky
#Challenge
#AndreaNguyen
#SeriousEats

I'm holding up a bowl of sticky rice. In the background my cat (who was eating from his bowl) has just smelled the egg and is looking back/up at me. He likes the smell of egg better than that of kibble. Visible in my bowl: rice and bits of yesterday's ham and fried egg and peas and corn. It's a more crowded bowl than usual.

I'm in my reading/editing chair, eating the rice. Visible, immediately in front: the rice bowl with spoon. Behind that my legs and knees that I have drawbridged up. Behind my right knee, on the tea table, my cat sits straight up, looking at me with annoyance/bewilderment/deep-sense-of-betrayal. He ain't a happy camper. Oh, on the left, on the floor, is the cat's abandoned and more than half-filled bowl of dry kibble. When there's egg in the air, the kibble doesn't get a look-in.

Sticky rice & stuff + 'Oy! What about me?!' cat.

#StickyRice
#AndreaNguyen
#Catsky

A bowl with sticky rice. I made it with dried mushrooms, homemade ginger powder, a bit of salt, plus a scrambled fried egg and spring onion green. In the background my cat is eyeing the bowl enviously. He's not in it for the rice but he loves the smell of egg. Weird little critter.

I hold a spoon up, and the rice sticks to the spoon. Sticky rice indeed; also visible: bits of mushroom, onion green and egg. (The cat has moved further away and sits with his back demonstratively turned my way.) You rinse the rice and let it sit in a sieve for a few minutes. Then you put it in a bowl, add water and let that sit for 15 minutes. This is when you add things like dried mushrooms, salt and spices. Microwave three minutes with a domed microwave splatter cover. Stir the rice. Microwave four more minutes with cover. Rest for five minutes with a lid on top, and eat.

Today I learnt how you can prepare sticky/glutinous rice in the microwave.

It's the 3+4+5 method.

More about that in alt text.

This was my first try in an old & slow microwave and it still tasted very good.

#AndreaNguyen
#StickyRice
#FoodSky