All posts by Nate

Nate is the Techie / Barbecue-y half of the House of Annie team. Born in Hawaii, his favorite hobby is surfing...WEB surfing that is. Visit my Google+ Profile
Asian, Fruit, Vietnamese

Hearts, eyes, and frog eggs

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Our Vietnamese neighbor’s son was having a birthday party, and we were invited to come over and join in the celebration. Even after stuffing ourselves with all the amazing salads, rolls, noodles, and fried chicken, we couldn’t say no to dessert – a lovely bowl of hearts, eyes, and frog eggs.

No, there aren’t really animal parts in this dessert. It’s actually made up of hearts of palm, dragon eyes (longan fruit), and what Annie calls “frog eggs” or biji selasih, (otherwise known as the seed of Holy Basil), swimming in a cold, sweet syrup.

It was so good, I had seconds, and thirds, and took home a container full to enjoy the day after. 🙂

I wish I knew where they got the Holy Basil seeds. I’ve only seen them sold in the Asian grocery as a drink. I wonder if the Indian store has them.

Aloha, Nate

Japanese, Noodles

Miso Ramen

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Annie found a packet of three servings of miso ramen at the Asian grocery, on sale for 3 bucks. These aren’t your typical fried and dried “Top Ramen” type packets with the overly salty spice powder packet. The noodles are fresh and the sauce is a wet paste. The preparation is straightforward – boil water, make broth, pour over warmed noodles.

To the soup bowl, I added in some frozen corn sauteed in butter, blanched bean sprouts, a barely hard-boiled egg, some slices of home made char siu, and garnished with nori and chopped green onions. I added a few dashes of shichimi chili powder to mine to spice it up a bit.

This really hit the spot. It was just as good or even better than Ramen Halu in West San Jose (supposedly the best ramen in the South Bay).

Aloha, Nate

Asian, Bakes, Yeast

Red Bean Buns

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Annie was inspired to make some red bean (azuki) buns after reading some Chinese dim sum and Japanese pastry recipe books she borrowed from the library. She’s made azuki bean buns before but this time she cut each dough ball into three smaller balls, filled those with the azuki bean paste, and placed the three balls into a muffin tin.

Here they are proofing in the tin:

After proofing, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 350*F for 12 minutes until golden brown.

They were great – the bread so light and just the right amount of azuki bean. It was hard to stop popping them, one by one, into my mouth!

The buns in the background that don’t have sesame seeds on them are baked char siu bao. Annie made her own char siu the other day, and then made a filling from that. (That’s another blog post…)

Aloha, Nate