This is a weekday lunch staple. Since jwa and I both bring lunch to work pretty much everyday, if I do any cooking at night during the week, it’s most likely something to bring to lunch the next day. The original recipe was for beef, but I usually make it with chicken. The other night I tried some shrimp (about 3/4 of a pound) and that works really well too! In theory, you should really be able to use any one pound of protein that you want to here, but I can just vouch for chicken and shrimp so far.

Do all your chopping and dicing at once — mise en place! — before you start cooking anything (or while you are marinating).

You can make it have as much spice or as little spice as you like. I usually use 3 dried chilies and it comes out medium spicy. And a good substitute for Szechwan pepper is some hot chili oil, which can be drizzled in at the end to adjust the heat.

Kung Pao Shrimp or Chicken (or Beef!)
Adapted from a recipe by Tyler Florence
1 pound shrimp (shelled & cleaned & detailed) or boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice wine or sherry
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp peanut oil
3-5 dried red chiles, split (I used Thai red chiles)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tbsp grated ginger
1 tsp Szechwan pepper, toasted and crushed (or 1/4 - 1 tsp hot chili oil — mine was hot peppercorn chili oil — this kind)
2 green onions, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
1 red or orange bell pepper, cut in pieces
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp rice wine or sherry
2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar or balsamic
1 tsp sugar
1 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
1/3 cup roasted peanuts

Combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine/sherry, egg white and salt in a glass bowl. Add the shrimp or chicken and stir to coat. Marinate for 30 minutes, covered in the refrigerator.

Place peanut oil in a wok, swirling to coat the sides, and place over high heat. Add the chilies and cook until they begin to darken.

Add the garlic, ginger and Szechwan pepper (if using chili oil, add that at the end) and continue to cook to infuse the oil.

Add the green onions and bell pepper. Remove the shrimp or chicken from the marinade and add it to the wok, (discard leftover marinade). Stir-fry the shrimp for 2 minutes until almost cooked through. If using chicken, cook for 4-5 minutes.

Blend in soy sauce, rice wine, Chinese vinegar, sugar and chicken broth.

Dissolve the cornstarch slurry and add it to the sauce, stirring, to thicken.

Sprinkle in the peanuts and stir to coat. Add the chili oil to taste.

Serve over rice and enjoy. Or pack up for lunch the next day.

Okay, this is where I try to reverse-engineer a meal from out at a restaurant. How did I do? Pretty well! This is from wonderful meal that we had at the Aquarius restaurant in Santa Cruz last month, with jwa’s parents.

That amazingly tasty dish: California white bass with udon noodles, lychee glaze and miso-truffle broth. So, yeah, mine was similiar, but a little different. Swapped bass for halibut, guava for lychee, no truffles in broth and added veggies! I basically used the flavorings for the broth that I’ve used before making a miso soup (ginger, garlic, soy sauce, mirin). It worked well here.

Oh, I loved this. I want to make it again. I’d say the glaze is probably optional, and when I make it again, I might just skip it, but it was fun to try and come up with a replacement for the lychee glaze. Doesn’t even need it though, imho.

There are a lot of steps, but stuff is do-able ahead of time. You could easily make the glaze and the miso broth earlier in the day or even a day before.

Halibut with Carrot-Shiitake-Miso Broth & Udon Noodles
1/2 cup guava juice
1 tbsp jalapeno jello ha! jelly
10-12 shiitake mushrooms, stem removed & sliced
2 tbsp olive or peanut oil
3 cups chicken broth
2.5 tbsp white miso
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup finely grated carrot (I used a micro plane grater)
3/4 pound halibut halibut, cut into 2 pieces (two 6 oz pieces)
salt & pepper
cooked udon noodles (enough for 2 servings)
toasted sesame oil
chopped, fresh cilantro, sesame seeds for garish

Make the glaze - combine the guava juice and jalapeno jelly in a small pan and bring to a boil. Reduce until you have about 2 -3 tablespoons of glaze and it is all thick and syrupy. Remove from heat and cool.

Heat a pan over medium heat and add 1 tbsp of the oil. Add the mushrooms and saute until soft and getting a little color, 7-9 minutes. Set aside.

In a sauce pan, add the broth, miso, mirin, garlic, ginger and soy sauce. Whisk to combine and simmer until the miso dissolves and flavors start to meld, 10 or so minutes. Add the cooked mushrooms, grated carrots and green onions. Keep warm.

Cook the udon noodles in boiling, salted water. When done, drain and toss with a little sesame oil. Keep warm. I had mine in a bowl and covered with foil. I used frozen udon noodles, but you could also used dried.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Salt and pepper the halibut and then slather the glaze on the flesh side. Heat a pan over medium-high heat and add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Add the fish, skin side down, glaze-side up.

Cook for about 4-5 minutes, getting the skin nicely crisp. Then, move to the oven and roast for 5-7 minutes, until the fish is cooked through. While the fish is in the oven, rewarm the miso broth of needed.

Put it all together:

Divide the udon noodles between two bowls. Ladle in the broth and top with a piece of the halibut. Garnish with some sesame seeds and chopped cilantro leaves.

So good! I always forget how much I love miso in things! Must use more miso…

I like this recipe a lot because you can substitute with abandon. No fish stock? Use chicken or vegetable! No lime leaves? Use some zest. It continues on like that…I’ve made this once with all the right ingredients and once with a lot of substitutions and both turned out delicious. They didn’t taste exactly the same but this is a recipe that lends itself (imho) to experimentation and variation. Also, jwa, who generally dislikes fish soups/stews loved this. That’s high praise right there, people.

This last time I didn’t have any lime leaves, green onions or lemongrass. My substitutions: strips of lime zest, a little lime juice, chopped white onion and two herbal lemongrass tea bags. Stash Lemon Blossom, to be exact.

Oh and also this is a great use of frozen scallops. Scallops are very expensive and you need the fresh, dry-packed ones to sear. This recipe is nice in that the scallops are cooked in the soup, no searing involved. So, if you find good frozen ones that you like (the Trader Joe’s Wild Japanese Scallops have always been sweet and tender for me), this is a great budget scallop recipe!

Asian Scallop Soup
Adapted from a recipe for Scallop Soup by Capiral Pence!
5 cups fish, chicken or vegetable stock (I like using half vegetable/half chicken stock)
2-3 kaffir lime leaves (or zest and juice of 1 lime)
1 stalk lemongrass
1 tbsp olive oil
2 small carrots, julienned
1 zucchini, julienned
1 bunch green onions
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp ginger, grated finely
fish sauce to taste (1-3 tbsp)
1/2 can coconut milk (can be lowfat, if so, use the full can)
12 large scallops
1 tsp roasted chili paste (you can also use a little cayenne pepper)
8 oz udon or soba noodles, cooked
Garnishes: Any or all of the following — mint leaves, cilantro leaves, bail leaves, chili oil, peanuts

In a large saucepan over high heat, bring the stock, lime leaves or zest, and lemongrass (or tea bags) to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer and cook the broth for 5-10 minutes until the stock is infused with flavor.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Add the carrots, zucchini,l green onions, garlic and ginger. Cook until tender, about 3 minutes. If you are using chili paste, add it now.

Strain the stock through a sieve into the stockpot with the vegetables. Discard any solids in the sieve.

Add the coconut milk to the broth and bring to a light boil.

Add the scallops and simmer until just opaque and cooked through.

If you are using frozen scallops, don’t bother defrosting. Mine took about 6 minutes. You can always pull one out and cut it in half to see if it’s opaque.

Testing a scallop for doneness

Season with the fish sauce (I used about 3 tablespoons, but start with one and increase from there) and cayenne pepper, if using.

Place the cooked noodles in 4 bowls and top the noodles with 3-4 scallops and some of the broth. Garnish with the garnishes.

I found this recipe both delicious and frustrating. The flavor was very good and the meat eventually turned out great, but I made a recipe error early on and from there, nothing seemed to work as it was supposed to. Mainly, my cooking time was off. I believe this was because I forgot to take the chicken out of the fridge for about an hour before I started roasting it.

It ended up okay, because I just turned the oven up a bit (allowing the skin to get more golden and crunchy too) and gave it a bit more cooking time. This is also a recipe, where, if you have a different cooking time/oven temperature combination that you use regularly, you could just use these marinade/ingredients with your regular method of chicken roasting. I may do that next time myself.

Salad rolls! — recipe here.

We had this with some coconut rice and some salad rolls. Was super good!

Lemongrass Roasted Chicken
Adapted from a recipe by Mai Pham in The Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table
4 tbsp minced lemongrass (I used 4 stalks)
2 tbsp minced shallots (2 shallots)
2 tbsp minced garlic (4 garlic cloves)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp roasted chili paste
1 tsp kosher salt
1 whole chicken (about 3-4 lbs)
2 tbsp minced cilantro
3 tbsp Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup soy-lime dipping sauce

If you are going to marinate the chicken overnight, mince all your lemongrass except 2 stalks (using the bottom of the stalks). Leave this for the roasting. Otherwise, remove half of the lemongrass and set aside in a small bowl. Combine the remaining lemongrass, shallot, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce, chili paste and salt in a large bowl.

Add the chicken and turn to coat, tucking some marinade underneath the skin. Pour any excess marinade into the bird cavity. Cover the chicken with plastic wrap, then marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Bring the chicken to room temperature before baking. Okay, so I forgot that last bit. I think that’s why my chicken took longer too cook. Plus, I believe my chicken was closer to 4 pounds. Also, I found that all my marinade B-U-R-N-T on the bottom of the pan. I recommend adding about a cup of chicken broth or stock to the pan before you stick it in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the chicken, breast side down, on a rack in a roasting pan. Brush the back with a little of the vegetable oil. Bake for 40 minutes.

Here’s where I discovered my roasting issues: Turn the bird over and roast until the chicken is cooked and nicely browned, about 20 to 30 minutes more. My chicken was at like 120 degrees after 20 minutes and no where near brown.

Again, probably because my bird was not room temp to start with and it was a bit bigger than 3 pounds. So, here’s what I did — I turned the oven up to 400 degrees F after the 20 minutes at 350, breast-side up. After this tweak, I’d say my chicken took about 20 more minutes to finish roasting. I also added the described-below lemongrass and cilantro paste to the bird at this time, when I turned the oven up.

The original recipe said, about 10 minutes before the chicken is done, combine the remaining 2 tablespoons lemongrass with the cilantro and oil. Brush the mixture on the bird, then continue to roast until it is done and the juices run clear. Here, my oven was hotter and the lemongrass-cilantro was on the bird for probably about 20 minutes. It got nice and brown.

This is how I will do the bird in this recipe next time:

350 degrees F for 40 minutes, breast-side down. Then, flip bird and turn oven up to 400 degrees F. Give it about 15 minutes, then slather on paste. Then another 20 or so minutes to get that all brown. If your chicken is room temperature and/or closer to 3 pounds, this will take less time. Remember, a meat thermometer is your friend here, so monitor the temperature and adjust the cooking time as needed.

After it comes out of the oven and the breast meat is at least 160 degrees F and the dark meat is at least 170 degrees F, let the chicken rest 10 minutes before carving. Serve with Soy-Lime Dipping Sauce, any pan juices and rice.

Soy-Lime Dipping Sauce (No pictures, but it was great!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 fresh Thai bird chilies, diced finely (or an appropriate amount of chili paste, which is what I used)
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
juice of 1 lime,
with pulp
2-4 tbsp hot water

Combine all ingredients. Stir until well blended. This sauce will keep up to 3 weeks if stored in the refrigerator in a tight-lidded jar.

First off, this is funny — my friend Christy just posted about her salad rolls too! The ones she made look great and she has much better pictures of her “rolling station” than I do. The main difference seems to be that some of her sauce type ingredients are on the inside as well, tossed with the noodles, which sounds like a great idea. My inside ingredients are just plain but wow — this dipping sauce is really tasty!

I’ve actually made these twice in the last month — once with shrimp and once without. I deviated from the original recipe by not using pork and by using spinach instead of a different type of lettuce. I also omitted the bean sprouts. This is one of those recipes where (if you’re not trying for authenticity), you could probably put a lot of different combination in the wrappers and be really happy with the outcome.

I found this on the Splendid Table web site, which is becoming a nice resource for me when I remember to poke around there.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls
Adapted from From The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking, by Mai Pham — I totally want this cookbook!
12 medium-size raw shrimp with shells
8 (12-inch) round rice papers (keep extra on hand just in case you tear some)
1 bag baby spinach (you won’t use the whole bag)
1/4 pound rice vermicelli, cooked in boiling water 4 to 5 minutes, rinsed, and drained
1 red or orange bell pepper, cut into thin strips
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup fresh thai basil leaves

Cook the shrimp in boiling salted water until just done, about 3 minutes. Shell, de-vein, and cut in half lengthwise. Refresh in cold water and set aside.

Just before making the rolls, set up a salad roll “station”. Fill a large mixing bowl with hot water. If necessary, keep some boiling water on hand to add to the bowl if the temperature drops below 110 degrees. Choose an open area on the counter and arrange the following items in the order used: the rice paper, the hot water, a kitchen towel or cloth napkin for working on, and a cutting board or plate to hold all the stuffing ingredients.

Working with only 1 rice paper sheet at a time, dip the sheet, edge first, in the hot water and turn it to wet completely, about 10 - 15 seconds. You will be tempted to leave it on the water for more much longer. Don’t do it. It won’t feel that pliable when you first take it out of the water, but after you finish layering all the ingredients, the wrapper will be nice and soft.

Lay the sheet down on the towel/napkin and stretch the sheet slightly to remove any wrinkles. Line the bottom third of the wet, pliable rice sheet with 3 shrimp halves, cut side up. Make sure the ingredients are neatly placed in a straight row. Place some spinach on top of the shrimp. Next, top with a little vermicelli, bell pepper strips, cherry tomatoes and 2 to 3 basil leaves. I even added a little grated carrot here. Make sure the ingredients are not clumped together in the center, but evenly distributed from one end to the other.

Using your second, third, and fourth fingers, press down on the ingredients while you use the other hand to fold over both sides of the rice paper. (Pressing down on the ingredients is particularly important because it tightens the roll.) With fingers still pressing down, use two thumbs to fold the bottom edge over the filling and roll into a cylinder about 1-1/2 inches wide by 5 inches long. Finish making all the remaining rolls.

To serve, cut the rolls into two equal pieces and place the cut rolls on an appetizer plate. Serve with Vietnamese dipping sauce on the side. If you like, garnish the rolls with mint or cilantro sprigs.

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce
Makes 1-1/2 Cups
2 small cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 tsp chili paste
1 fresh Thai bird chili, chopped (optional — I didn’t use)
1/4 cup fish sauce
2/3 cup hot water
2 tbsp fresh lime juice with pulp
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp shredded carrots

Place garlic and chili paste in a bowl and mix briefly.

Combine the garlic mixture with the remaining ingredients. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Ladle sauce into serving bowls and float the carrot slivers on top.