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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Tomatoes are my forever-loved veggie. Each week I always have to buy a large pack of tomatoes. In Vietnamese cuisine, tomatoes are used frequently in daily cooking, especially during hot summer, tomatoes are often indispensable in sour soups, which help relieve the heat of the summer.
However, I find tomatoes are best in winter when tomatoes are not only cheap but firm and red. The flesh of the tomatoes then is so "sweet" with less seeds. Here, I often see only two kinds of tomatoes. One kind is the normal tomatoes. The other is baby tomatoes such as grape tomatoes – which are called cherry tomatoes here in Singapore. The vine-ripen tomatoes are available at some specialty stores or some big supermarkets, however, they are not cheap and so not affordable for me.
To make this stuffed tomatoes, I used tomatoes of medium size and chose the ripe but firm ones. The soft tomatoes are vulnerable to break apart while braising. And the small ones like these also look lovelier than the large ones.
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 150g minced pork
- 10 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked to soften
- 2-3 black fungus (wood-ear), soaked to soften
- 1 egg
- 1 tbs fish sauce
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- several medium-sized ripe and firm tomatoes
- vegetable oil, as needed
- cilantro, to serve
Cooking:
- Rinse the mushrooms well. Reserve the soaking water. Chop the mushrooms finely.
- Rinse the black fungus well, then chop finely.
- Combine the pork, mushrooms, black fungus, egg, fish sauce, pepper and shallot.
- Cut out the top of the tomatoes and remove the seeds inside. Stuff the tomatoes with the pork mixture until all the fillings are used.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Fry the tomatoes, concentrate on frying the tops where the pork mixture is present. Fry until the skins start to dry.
- Transfer the fried tomatoes into a saucepan. Add the reserved mushroom-soaking water. If you like, you may add some dried mushrooms and cilantro roots into the saucepan. Braise the tomatoes over medium-low heat for about 12-15 minutes.
- Serve hot or warm with cilantro.
I was first introduced to this chicken dish by my fiance. Before we knew each other, he sometimes cooked and chicken was one of his most frequently used ingredients. For him in particular, chicken was not easy to cook but also a most affordable source of meat protein.
After i knew him and when I started to cook with him frequently, he taught me to cook this chicken dish, which he was very "skillful" at and proud of. That’s how I knew about the dish.
The simmered chicken I presented today is not exaclty what I was taught. After cooking the dish for several times, I started to change the dish a little bit. The original simmered chicken was without carrot and cilantro. The dish was plain in grey color, which did not look so appealing. I tried adding the carrot so that I would have more … veggie to eat at the same time with the meat. I also believed that the carrot not only adds the texture and color but also the essence from the carrot would make the dish a little sweeter in taste. Finally, I used some cilantro not only to garnish but also to realize that fresh cilantro does promote the dish to a higher level, which makes the dish more complete.
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With this braised dish, it can be flexible in the way you choose what kind of veggies you want to cook, with the small condition that the vegetables should have something in common such as the texture or the taste. For example, the veggies that have the sweet taste, or become tender after short time of cooking can go well with each other in this dish.
The quantity of each ingredients may vary as well depending on how much of a certain veggie you want to eat more or how much of each veggie you are having in your fridge, and you can adjust accordingly.
I love this dish for its mild sweetness in the taste and the tender texture of the veggies. It is best served with steamed rice.
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The very creamy mushroom sauce goes really well with these spiral pasta.
Ingredients: (serves 2)
- 200g dried fettucine
- 25ml olive oil
- 300g button mushroom, sliced
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 2 tomatoes, peeled and seeded, diced
- 2 tbs tomato puree
- 50ml white wine
- 100ml thick cream
- 1/16 tsp ground nutmeg
- flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- salt, pepper
- grated parmesan, to serve
Cooking:
- Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and keep warm.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add tomatoes and tomato puree, cook until just boiled then stir in the wine. Cover with the lid and simmer until the mixture is thickened.
- Add cream, nutmeg and parsley to the sauce. Cook until heated through. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour the sauce over fettucine and sprinkle with grated parmesan.
If you love vegetables, and if you like to eat something light yet full of flavor and texture, then this vegetable ramen is a wise choice. Just as it is named, this noodle soup is served full of vegetables of several kinds, which combine altogether to bring about different senses of the texture for the whole dish.
Ramen is the name of a popular kind of noodle in Japan. You can buy ramen as fresh or dried. I only could get the dried ramen, which required boiling until al dente before serving.
Not only giving diversed textures, the vegetables also add the sweet substances to the broth. If you are on a diet, or if you are a vegetarian, this noodle soup will satisfy your need. This is another favorite recipe of mine that i found from my book ‘Bowl food’.
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Enjoy this dish of pork and mixed vegetables for a diversed texture of the different ingredients.
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