I first heard of saffron when I watched TV shows on cooking competitions, seeing great chefs using saffron as special spice in their dish. I was so curious about these tiny red threads and I searched for more information about them. Then I decided to buy a box of saffron threads. It was rather expensive for a small box of around 50g, but each time only a small number of threads are used, so I think it is quite reasonable and that I will not finish a box like this too soon.
August 19, 2009 by Kokotaru
Filed under Asian Cuisines
There are many other ingredients used in this recipe, however, I never mind cooking this as most ingredients are always available in my pantry and, more importantly, cooking procedure is very simple. Still, we have an impressive dish to serve perfectly with steamed rice, or rice noodles.
I liked this chicken at first bite, but I think I liked the sauce more and wished that I had cooked more rice than usual so as not to waste even a drop of the sauce 
Glutinous rice is used very popularly in Vietnamese cooking. In festive events, dishes made from glutinous rice are indispensable. There are a large variety of glutinous rice dishes in Vietnam, most of them are inexpensive. Glutinous rice foods are all-time favorite choice for breakfast as well. Adults and children all like them a lot. Having just a small bowl of glutious rice for early breakfast can keep your stomach full and your mind awake until noon without feeling any fatigue.
This is just one of many kinds of glutinuous rice dishes made with dried pork sausage – or lap cheong in Cantonese. Lap cheong is a Chinese specialty, but now it is used in quite a number of Vietnamese food. In Vietnam, there are some varieties of this sole dish. This time I made the simplest one of all.
If you are interested in Japanese food, it is less likely that you’ve never seen these cute rice balls. Actually, these are not "balls" but they are shaped in triangles. They can be shaped in oval as well. And of course when you make bento – a meal in box, you can shape the steamed rice in any shape that you like in the way you want to "design" your bento. In Japanese, these rice balls are called "onigiri".
These onigiri are very simple to make. In fact, the moulds for making them are now available widely at specialty stores. I have seen these onigiri a lot in Japanese movies and films, howeve, this is the first time I tried making these rice balls. I don’t have the mould, so I had to shape them with hands. It is better and easier to shape the steamed rice when it is still very warm, so making the rice balls with bare hands is a little hard work though it is very interesting to play with the rice.
June 1, 2009 by Kokotaru
Filed under Soup, Noodle, Porridge
This is the other half of the pig heart I reserved. I cooked the pig heart in advance for safety, and keep them in the fridge until the porridge got ready. At that time I only needed to re-heat the pig heart before adding them to the porridge.
When I was small, my Mom often cooked this porridge for her childen when they fell sick. In Vietnam there are other kinds of fresh herbs that are good for our health and can be added to this porridge, especially for sick people, however, here I could have only two basic ones, which are fresh cilantro and green onion. Still, the taste of the porridge was still good.
