Live prawns – those which are still swimming in the tank – were on promotion last week when I was shopping at the supermarket. I could not miss the opportunity to buy some live prawns home to make a really fresh dish of steamed prawns. Those live prawns always get my attention each time I go shopping since I like looking at live and fresh food a lot. But live and fresh foods, for the most part, are kind of luxurious stuffs in a country where most of the foods are imported from other countries.
These steamed prawns are very simple to make and very flavorful. It is a good way to make the best taste and texture out of live prawns. My mom often prepared this dish each time I visited home because I hardly could afford cooking this food here.
Ingredients for this dish are simple and typical in Vietnamese cuisine. You need live prawns, lemon grass stalks, lime leaves (or pomelo leaves are also possible), and fresh ginger root. For two of us, 15 medium-large prawns is enough. I recommend only live prawns for this steaming dish, otherwise the food is not goot any more and you may feel fishy taste out of the chilled / frozen prawns.
In the photo below are the prawns – which were still able to jump out of the steamer. Just combine the prawns together with shredded ginger, some lime leaves and shreded lemon grass. Remember to put some lemon grass into the water as well, so that during steaming time, the boiling water brings lemon grass fragrance into the prawns as well.
Prawns are very fast to cook, and make sure you do not overcook the prawns.
Serving these prawns with chili sauce – very simple but very tasty.
Summer has entered its harshest months in tropical countries. Everyday it is so so hot with dazzling sunshine from early morning till late evening. A bowl of salad like this is just wonderful to reduce the heat inside everyone’s body, because it is so refreshing.
I like to make this salad when it’s hot for another reason that it is very fast to make. When it is so hot in the kitchen, you don’t want to be in there cooking for a long time, or you don’t want to prep a lot of ingredients and make something complicated.
Just simple, palatable and refreshing! Those are the most important points in Vietnamese people’s meals during summer.
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This way of cooking asparagus turned out quite strange to my taste. I was not surprised by the dish for its amazingly deliciousness, still I enjoyed it to the last pieces. I liked the freshiness of the vegetables even after cooking, since both the asparagus and the bean sprouts were cooked until just tender. In my mouth, I could feel clearly the crunchiness of the vegetables. The roasted almonds were slightly fragrant and offered a little buttery taste and also added texture to the dish.
The dish should be served while hot or warm or it would lose the best taste when cooled.
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When I went shopping and saw the sea bass was just brought out of the water, I was so eager to look at them and see which one jumped the highest, then I supposed it was the strongest and freshest one. Sometimes such fresh and live fish are avaible at the supermarket, however, not anytime the price is affordable to me.
This time I was lucky as the price for one live sea bass was reasonable. So I grasped one and quickly cooked this dish. I filleted the sea bass, used the fillets in this dish and made the fish stock with the head and bone, then saved the stock for later use. Live fish like this always brings out great taste and flavor. Many people in my country, if heard about this, would think it strange because, there, when you go to the market, you only buy live fish, except for those caught from the ocean. The fish which are raised by people or caught in the rivers, the ponds must always be alive, otherwise no housewife will bother leaving an eye on them.
In this dish, the sea bass fillets are pan-fried first until just cooked. After that, the ginger, garlic, chili are fried to release the fragrance and combined with soy sauce and spring onion. This sauce mixture will be drizzled or poured over the fish. Cooking time is very short. Cooking method is simple. Ingredients are basic. Yet you will see clearly how live fish really taste like.
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It can be said that chicken is the most frequently used ingredients in my cooking. Simply because chicken is the most affordable of all kinds of meat. Almost every week, chicken is included in my shopping list. I often buy a whole chicken, breaking it into separate parts to use in different dishes.
Sometimes getting tired of the old flavor and the familiar way of preparing a chicken dish, I would read my books or searching about on the Internet to find a new flavor for my chicken dish. And this is a recipe I found from my book ‘Bowl Food’. This dish is full of Asian flavor. I often cook braised chicken with ginger and fish sauce. However, this time there are some changes in the ingredients, which makes the dish totally different in flavor. The flavors are richer and there are more to experience: the fragrance of ginger and especially the typical smell of star anise, the sweetness of honey, the tender saltiness of soy sauce. All bring in great taste to this simple chicken dish.
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I am not sure if you are suprised to see a bowl full of duck bone pieces like this one. For Vietnamese people, it is very comment to cut the whole duck into medium chunks and stewed them until the meat an the bones become very tender, even to be able to chew the bone. After long time of simmering over low heat, the good substances from the bones and the duck meat will be extracted and released to the broth, while the meats become very tasty as the fish sauce and ginger flavor have been absorbed inside.
Yes, it is very simple. The secret here is fish sauce and ginger. This dish is a good way of using up the left-over bone parts of the duck such as the wings, the neck, the feet, and the bones after you fillet the ducks. This dish offers a very inviting flavor. More importantly, it is very easy to make.
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