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!

To make these delicious vegetarian “Scallops” I made a thick miso and butter broth, reduced it down, and braised my mushrooms in it which really brought out a nice umami flavor since the mushrooms absorb so much flavor. Then dredging them in a little rice flour and pan searing them in a cast iron skillet produced a nice brown, caramelized edge. I further reduced down the miso broth and added some chopped cilantro and drizzled it on top of the “scallops”... mmmm.

See post for recipe and more photos!

Learn how to pick fresh chinese broccoli (also known as Cai Lan), how to keep it bright green & glossy when cooking, and how to prepare your own restaurant style oyster sauce for that ooey delicious drizzle. You can also use the same method and instructions below for regular broccoli, bok choy or broccoli rabe as well! MMmmm

Making kombucha is fairly easy. Below are some of my personal brewing tips and my easy to follow chart and guide for making perfect kombucha.

Sauerkraut is super easy to make and it’s only two ingredients, cabbage and salt! We added garlic and siracha just to add a little asian kick to make this more of a krout kimchi (aka krout-chi) but you can use this technique and recipe (without garlic, siracha) for a more basic/traditional sauerkraut.

These meatless kimchi dumplings pack in a lot of flavor and can spice up a boring ramen packet! I made these dumplings and just parboiled some bok choy, bean sprouts, and added some kimchi and some of my Sate Sauce (ớt sa tế) sauce to the top! Yum!!