Annie made pan-fried tilapia fillet for lunch and the kids liked them so much she made it for dinner too. The tilapia was seasoned with herbs de Provence, granulated garlic, paprika, s&p. The corn, onions and summer squash were sauteed with garam masala. Baked Okinawan sweet potato needed no seasoning.
A light, colorful, and healthful meal!
Aloha, Nate
Back in Honolulu, Annie and I used to go produce shopping almost every Saturday morning in Chinatown. By lunchtime we were famished. If we didn’t have other plans, we’d often stop in at Mei Sum on Pauahi and Smith Streets. You could get pretty good quality dim sum at a more reasonable price than the fancier places like Legend in the Chinese Cultural Plaza.
Nowadays, dim sum is more of a “once in a blue moon” deal. There are some good places to eat in Milpitas and Cupertino, not to mention faraway restaurants like Koi Palace in Daly City. We’ve tried out other dim sum places (Hong Kong Saigon in Sunnyvale and East Ocean in Alameda) but our go-to dim sum restaurant of choice is Dynasty on Story and McLaughlin right here in San Jose.
Continue reading Dim Sum @ Dynasty Restaurant (San Jose)
Pasta has been one of my comfort foods going back to small kid time when we used to add bottled Ragu sauce to ground beef and ladle it on a big bowl of spaghetti, then top it with torn up Kraft American cheese slices. The ingredients have significantly improved in the House of Annie (as demonstrated by her recent Linguine alla carbonara). This time, she decided to kick things up a notch.
Instead of the regular bacon, Annie used pancetta. She also used shallots instead of onions. The cherry tomatoes were picked fresh from the garden, as was the basil chiffonade
How do you “kick up” your pasta?
Aloha, Nate
In a previous post we did gyoza which was cooked by thrice boiling it in a big pot of water. The boiled dumplings are then eaten with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce or enjoyed with a steaming bowl of noodles. That’s not the only way to eat gyozas though – you can pan-fry them as well.
Put a little oil in a med-hot pan, arrange some gyoza flat-side down and start frying until you hear a sizzle. Then add some water to the pan until it comes up to 1/3 of the height of the gyoza. Cover the pan and cook until the water has evaporated. Let the gyoza crisp up for another minute, then remove from heat.
You can either scoop them out with a spatula (be careful not to break the skins) or turn them over onto a plate.
I like eating pan fried gyoza because the flavor is not lost in boiling water. Instead, flavor is created from concentrated, caramelizing gyoza juices. You don’t need any dipping sauce this way.
Here’s a video of the gyoza-making process
What’s your favorite way to eat gyoza?
Aloha, Nate