It’s been very cold in Hanoi these days, and I felt like having something hot and crispy, not minding if it is greasy as any dish of this kind is so suitable for these days’ weather. And it is greater to enjoy a bowl of this sweetcorn fritters with my hubby while watching our favorite movies.
It only needs a little preparation in advance for the fritter batter should stand in the fridge for several hours before you can combine it with sweetcorn kernels, then your fritters will taste so good. I followed the recipe from the book "Professional Cooking" by Wayne Gisslen. However, as it is high in calories and fat, I do not suggest to have these fritters often, especially when we just sit and relax as couch-potatoes.
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In the past, when I didn’t like the taste and flavor of bell peppers, until I learned to cook them myself in a proper way and I became a fan of bell peppers. I hardly eat them raw (like eating an apple), but when they are chopped and mixed in salad, I really appreciate the freshness, juiciness and crispiness of those small bits. When cooked in stew dishes, their taste is so palatable and easy to eat. My sister used to refuse any dish with bell peppers, but then I cooked her some pasta dishes with bell peppers and she adores bell peppers so much now.
As much as I like bell peppers, this is the my first time trying the taste of roasted bell peppers. The taste is so good, so sweet and a gentle smoke smell enhances the taste. When it comes to this salad, the sweet taste blends with the fragrant sourness of balsamic vinegar to bring out a very special flavor. This is another dish that leverages the taste of bell peppers.
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I got this recipe from my cookbook "Culina Mundi". The book features selected dishes among the most popular dishes of world’s cuisines. This salad is originated in Cuba. Finding the recipe is easy to follow, and that I like having pineapple in the food I eat, so I made up my mind to make this salad for dinner.
With salads that use mayonnaise to combine the ingredients, I often prefer to chill the salad before serving. I find having a cool salad more palatable. This salad, in particular, introduced to me a new taste and new experience about the world of salads. It was not so amazing to say "wow", but I liked it.
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I am not sure how to categorize this soup as I learned them in one of my Western cookbooks for party foods. But two ingredients, tofu and soy sauce, are typical in Asian cuisines. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter as long as the food is delicious and has something special to remember and persuades you to cook and eat it again.
This soup is definitly very simple, but the taste and flavor is not just boring. When having this soup, I felt the purity of the food and the peace of the meal. Tofu and vegetables are always our favorites and inspirations in every day meal.
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Recently, if you notice, I’ve made several dishes from bread slices, sometimes called toast or bruschetta. A local magazine in Vietnam ordered me to make some foods suitable for breakfast. Thinking that bread always makes fast and yummy breakfast, sometimes very healthy breakfast too, I decided to make some foods with bread. By coincidence I’ve been practising making baguette (all by hands and human’s strength, though not mine! I asked for my fiance’s help to knead the dough or the dough is too heavy for me and I don’t have a strong mixer), so I often have day-old baguette left in my pantry.
However, the magazine used them as items for Finger Food category and they asked me to make other foods to fill up the breakfast category 
Anyway, I’m glad that in one issue, I had 8 different dishes featured and introduced to readers.
We love these mushroom bruschetta as mushrooms were very fresh and tasty served on crispy baguette slices. The combination of bacon and mushroom was just great.
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Making this noodle requires quite a number of ingredients, however, the cooking method is very simple. It is quick to make this kind of noodle salad and you’ll get a very healthy meal.
This noodle is refreshing with the juiciness and crunchiness of bell peppers. The flavours of lemon grass, lemon juice and cilantro are strong with the mild sour taste. At first bite, it turned a bit sour for my taste, but the more I ate, the more I liked the taste.
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This is a totally new experience to me. I’ve never known about a dish called "medley" before. It is just that when I searched for a recipe to use up the sweetcorn I stocked in my fridge last week, I came across this recipes from my "Taste of Home" magazine collection. "Corn medley" is the name to this dish. Realizing that it is very simple to cook this medley, so I decided to make the dish without much understanding about the word "medley" and why the dish is called that way.
The medley offerred me a new experience of taste and flavor. Eating them alone is satisfying enough. But now I still have no idea what kind of dishes they can pair with to serve together. Since when we ate them with rice (yes, Asian people eat steamed rice almost everyday), they didn’t seem to go so well together. So we finished the corn medley alone and of course, served rice with a meat dish.
Anyway, now I knew another recipe to cook sweetcorns. I also had a mere idea about what a medley dish is like when I realized that there are some more medley recipes in my cookbooks. The dominant texture of the dish is the juiciness and crisp-tenderness of the sweetcorns, combining with the softness of green pepper and tomatoes. The flavor is strengthened with ground cumin. The medley is a little sweet as the corns themselves are already sweet and sugar is also used in cooking.
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Hey, this is the first "salsa" I’ve ever made. It is similar to a salad, but this is the one with the actual "salsa" in its name that I made. I didn’t often eat salad with fruits, except for green mango or green papaya which has pure sour taste or plain taste and offers mostly the texture to the salad. This salsa has a distinctive sweet and sour taste of the mango plus its fragrance.
When I read the recipe in my book and saw the picture, the mango is yellow-orange like this. There is no remark about which kind of mango should be used. So I just used the kind I often buy to make this salsa.
The first impression of this salsa is its refreshing effect. As the salsa is chilled in the fridge until it is cold enough to serve, at the very first bite, I could feel the heat in my body reduced, especially on these hot days. Both the mango and tomato flesh are still firm yet juicy. Coriander leaves add more flavor to the salsa.
It is a new and interesting taste to me. It is advised to serve this salsa with tortilla chips. But no way I could buy or make them. So I had the idea of baking some wonton cups, at least I had something crispy to enjoy the salsa too.
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