Taiwanese Stir-fried Squid Soup

I am excited to announce that Random Cuisine has now its own domain. It never crossed my mind of having my own domain as I consider blogging as a hobby, but after three years in the blogging world, it feels right to own one. Anyhow, you will notice that the address bar now reads http://www.randomcuisine.com instead of http://victor-recipe.blogspot.com. If I made the changes appropriately, my old URL will redirect you to my new URL, so you don't need to make any changes.

Ok, now for an anecdote... I know my Taiwanese friend Chris for over four years. We first met when we were knife salesmen the summer before I started my Masters degree in Physics. Since then, we have been cooking together almost every Sunday to test out new recipes and share our food knowledge. He grew up in Taiwan and has traveled around Asia. He is my encyclopedia for Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese cuisine. He loves to tell interesting stories behind each dish.

This stir-fried squid soup is a classic street food in Taiwan. It is weird to see stir-fry and soup in one name, but it has to do with the cooking method. The aromatics are first stir-fried in hot oil to release its fragrance, then these aromatics provide a flavour profile to the soup. Like most Asian dishes, flavours are balanced by the appropriate amount of sweet, sour and salty ingredients. This is one soup you will definitely enjoy.

Serves 2
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup carrots, sliced
4-5 slices ginger, julienned
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 green onions, chopped
2 squid tubes, cleaned and sliced
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 Chinese red chilli pepper (or any chilli pepper), seeded
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp black or white vinegar
1 tbsp white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten (optional)

Procedure

1. In a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Sauté carrots for 2-3 mins. Add in ginger and garlic, cook until fragrant, about 1 min. Add in squid and sauté for 1 min.

2. Pour in hot water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

3. Add chilli pepper, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Cook for about 5 mins until squid is ready.

4. Stir in beaten egg and basil leaves. Serve.

Salmon en Papillote with Maple Syrup, Ginger and Mango

I'm back from my trip to UK. In fact, I was back since the beginning of August. I was just overwhelmed with work and I'm a bit behind with my research, so I'm catching up slowly... I also get distracted by the numerous summer activities and events in Montreal. If you visited Montreal, you would understand why...I received numerous e-mails and tweets about when I'll be publishing my next recipe. I have been pressured quite a lot by co-workers too, so you're not the only ones... I'm so fortunate to have such loyal viewers and I greatly appreciate it.

The Highlands of Scotland in a nice sunny day.

You might wonder what I did in my three-week vacation in the UK. I visited over 30 cities which includes Wales, England, Scotland & The Highlands. When I'm in a foreign country, I hunt for the best places to eat and acquire as much knowledge about their food culture. Expect some posts about my food adventures in the following weeks.

Yes, this is Stonehenge!

I received a request a week ago from my brother's friend who wants me to make a salmon dish which is savory and, at the same time, original. When I deal with salmon, I immediately think of "en papillote", a classic French cooking technique in which the fish is steamed inside a sealed pouch with fresh herbs, seasonings and aromatics. My favourite marriage of ingredients is maple syrup, ginger and lime which gives a contrast of sweet, tangy and citrus flavour to your dish. Simply licking your mixing bowl, you'll be amazed of this combination. I added some mango and coriander for some freshness to the salmon.

What is your favourite salmon dish? If you have already published a salmon recipe on your blog, feel free to post your link on the comment section. I would love to read it!

Note: I presented both ways to make a pouch. Both methods are as good, I didn't see any difference in terms of doneness and flavors.

Serves 4
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Oven Time: 15 to 18 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 salmon fillets, skin on or off
salt and pepper to taste

Garnish
3 tbsps maple syrup
1 tbsp ginger, grated
2 tbsps lime juice
2 tbsps coriander, chopped
2 scallions, finely chopped
2 mangoes, cut into cubes

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a medium bowl, mix maple syrup, ginger, lime juice, coriander and scallion.

3. Add in the mangoes and, with a spoon, gently coat the mangoes with syrup mixture.

2 options for the pouching:

4. Cut parchment paper in a heart shape. Add a tsp of olive oil in the middle of one side of the heart. Place the salmon skin side down, add 1/4 of the mango garnish on top of the salmon.

Fold the other half of the paper, starting from one end of the heart, crimp the open edges to seal them by making a series of small folds.

OR

4. Lay a foot-long parchment paper. Repeat the above process for the salmon. The pouch should look like a calzone.

5. Place salmon pouches on a baking pan and bake for 15-18 mins.

6. To serve, place the pouches on serving plates, and let each person cut open his or her own pouch. Bon apétit!

Shrimp Pad Thai

Thai cuisine provides such wonderful and harmonised flavours, a perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy taste in most Thai food. You must have seen pad thai in the menu of Thai restaurants and in fast food joints. It is no surprise that this dish is one of Thailand's national dish. Pad Thai is basically a rice noodle dish cooked in a bit of sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and chilli flakes. Some proteins are also added such as shrimps, eggs, cubed tofu or tempeh, chicken, and beef. A garnish of crushed peanut and coriander/parsley leaves are added to complete the dish.

Pad thai is quick and easy to make, it is hard to mess it up. A good tip is to stir and toss constantly while cooking to prevent the noodles from sticking to the wok. You must have tried pad thai at least once, what would you put in your pad thai?

Serves 4
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

8 oz. Thai rice noodles
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 blocks firm tofu or tempeh, cut into small cubes
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp tamarind or red wine vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1/2 lb shrimps, deveined
1 cup bean sprouts
Parsley for garnish

Procedure

1. In a bowl, soak dry noodles in warm water until flexible but not expanded, about 5-10 mins.

2. In a wok or large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook onions until transparent, tofu until brown. Add in garlic and cook until fragrant.

3. Drain noodles and toss into wok. Add in tamarind, sugar, fish sauce, and chili flakes. Stir constantly.

4. Push all noodles to one side of the wok. Add a tbsp of oil and pour in beaten eggs. Scramble until cooked and combine with noodles.

5. Add in shrimp and bean sprouts until fully cooked. Serve with a wedge of lime ans a sprinkle of parsley.

Jerk Seafood

Do you know any of Chuck's Hughes speciality dishes? He is a chef here in Montreal, owner of the restaurant Garde-Manger and a Food Network host of Chuck's Day Off.  Recently, he appeared on Iron Chef America and won the battle against Bobby Flay. All the dishes that he made for this epic battle are all in his menu. Considering seafood is a staple at his restaurant (and a lobster tattoo on his forearm), the favours were on him. One of his speciality dish that my Taiwanese friend and I really enjoy is his jerk crab. It is a large common dish where everyone digs in with their hand. The enjoyable part is to get your hands dirty and suck every bits of flavour about of these crabs.

Since my friend loves to cook seafood, he uses several seafood ingredients for his jerk dish. Jerk is a cooking style native to Jamaica where the proteins is dry-rubbed or marinated with a spicy mixture. This mixture consists of two main ingredients: a very spicy pepper and allspice. Other spices, aromatics and herbs are added to accentuate the flavour in the mixture. Traditionally, the marinated meats and seafood are usually cooked in a grill, we did ours in the oven. The cooking time takes longer than the requested time on the grill, but do check for doneness midway. Our jerk seafood turned out spicy, saucy and full of seafood flavour, a guaranteed dinner-party knockout.

Serves 6
Adapted from Food & Wine
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 20-25 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Jerk Paste
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
4 scallions, cut into 1 1/2-inch sticks
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 pinch ground allspice
1 pinch grated nutmeg
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp distilled vinegar
Salt and pepper

2 jalapenos, julienned
2 lbs mussels, cleaned

3 calamaris tubes, cut into 1/2-inch tubes

1 lb shrimp, shelled and deveined

1 lb bay scallops

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 500F.

2. In a food processor, combine all jerk paste ingredients until blended. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. In a bowl, combine jalapenos, mussels, calamari, shrimp and bay scallops. Add in the jerk paste.

4. In a 13'' x 9'' baking pan, line two aluminum foil at the bottom. Transfer seafood mixture to baking pan. Cover with two more aluminum foil. Fold up the edges all around to seal.

5. Bake for 20-25 mins until mussels have opened and squid tubes have curled.

6. Remove the aluminum cover and serve in a bowl.

Curry Shrimp Fried Rice with Pineapple and Sausages

It never cross my mind to post a recipe on fried rice. After watching the first season of Worst Cooks in America, I was shocked that a contestant manage to screw up on fried rice, especially that this contestant is Chinese. For us, this should be the easiest dish to prepare in Chinese cuisine. Well now, it doesn't look simple after all. It reminds me a bit of my undergraduate days when students asked the instructor about the difficulty of the final exam. The instructor will usually say that it will be easy but the exam ended up to be difficult...

Since we always eat rice at home, it is no surprise that we always have leftover rice lying in our fridge. Reheating leftover rice is not always satisfying as it becomes dry and lose its fluffy texture of freshly cooked rice. Making fried rice is the best cure. We cook fried rice like 2-3 times a week. One of my favorite is to combine shrimp with the sweet taste of pineapple and season the rice with curry powder. Something about these three ingredients make the dish comfy and succulent. Sausage is just something extra that I had left in the fridge. Also, if the leftover rice is clumpy, rinse it in cold water and drain excess water. It will make it easier to fry.

Serves 4
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 sausages, casing removed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8-10 large shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 cups cooked rice
2 tsp light soy sauce
1/4 cup diced pineapple
2-3 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper (optional)

Procedure

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat.

2. Add sausages and shrimp. Sauté until cooked.

3. Stir in cooked rice, soy sauce and pineapple. Combine and cook for about 1 min.

4. Add curry powder and stir until the rice becomes yellow. Add more curry if necessary. Serve.

Coconut Fish Stew

When I started to learn how to cook other than Chinese food, my first cookbook is The Illustrated Kitchen Bible. Once I opened this book, it already sold me to buy this book as each recipe contains a mouth-watering picture. Great for beginners as all the basic food preparation techniques can be found in the last section of the book. Every recipe I tested so far turns out perfect and I never stop loving this book. I also convince some of my friends to buy this book, even my Taiwanese friend Chris owns a copy of it. 

Since October, Chris attended culinary school. On the first day, he had to learn the basic cutting techniques. In order to put his skills to the test, he chose to make a coconut fish stew. This dish is a traditional Brazilian fish stew which combines fresh bell peppers and tomatoes, and enriched with coconut milk. This can be served with a side of lime-flavored salsa. His knife skills were not too bad, so I'm giving him, just for now, a B+. Also, as a chef, he needs to practice a lot on food presentation. This is also true in my case as a food photographer to see how a dish should be presented and apply correctly the rules of photo composition.

Serves 6
Adapted from The Illustrated Kitchen Bible

Preparation Time: 20 mins

Cooking Time: 30 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

3 tomatoes, skinned and cut into wedges

1 red bell pepper, julienned

1 green bell pepper, julienned

1 cup coconut milk

1 tbsp tomato paste

750g cod (or any white fish), cut into 2-inch pieces

salt and pepper

Salsa

1 tomato, diced

1 small red onion, diced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp olive oil

Procedure

1. In a pot, heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion until transparent, about 5 mins. 

2. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add tomatoes and bell peppers. Stir occasionally and cook until softened, about 15 mins.

3. Stir in coconut milk and tomato paste. Bring it to a boil. Add in the fish and cook until opaque, about 5 mins. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Make the salsa. Combine all ingredients in a serving bowl.

5. Serve fish stew with the salsa.

Creamy Pumpkin and Bay Scallop Soup

What is your favorite soup for the cold times? My last attempt on a creamy texture soup without the use of cream was such a success that I wanted to do it with other vegetables. As a routine and also to keep this blog up-to-date, I love to do most of my experiments at my Taiwanese friend's place on Sundays. These are the days where I combine ingredients that most of us don't think of.

This soup was made over a month around Halloween where we had an abundance of pumpkin lying around inside the fridge. We also added bay scallops to give a seafood taste to the soup. We followed a similar procedure as the Broccoli Soup using potatoes as our thickener and purée all the ingredients using a immersion blender.  

Serves 6

Preparation Time: 15 mins

Cooking Time: 35 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cubed

1 medium onion, chopped

1 large red potatoes, peeled and diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 1/2 cups vegetable stock

1/2 lb bay scallops
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook pumpkin, onion, and potatoes for 5 mins until onions are transparent. Add in garlic and cook for 1 min until fragrant.

2. Pour in vegetable stock, bring to a boil and simmer until pumpkin and potatoes are soft, about 15 mins.

3. Purée mixture in a blender until smooth. Transfer back to pot, add bay scallops and simmer for 10 mins until scallops are cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spicy Angel Hair Pasta with Crab and Lime

I have to admit that the presentation picture is not pleasing to the eye. The one from Gordan Ramsay is much more vibrant and colorful. By nature, we usually judge food by its cover. We can "see" whether it tastes good or not. Pretty much like searching through cookbooks and food blogs, you decide to cook a dish based on how mouthwatering the pictures look. If I added some greens and reds, I would probably convince you to try this dish out. This dish has lots of flavors. The pasta is mixed with crab, white wine and olive oil along with a kick of acidity and spiciness, making this dish pleasant to eat.

Serves 6
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

200g angel hair pasta

3 garlic cloves, minced
1 red chilli, seeded and thinly sliced

4 spring onions, chopped

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 lime

250g white crab meat

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Procedure

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook according to pack instructions until al dente, about 3-4 minutes.

2. In large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Sauté for 1-2 minutes and season with salt and pepper.

3. Add white wine to pan and cook until it reduces to half. Stir in crab meat.

4. Drain the pasta, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the pasta to the crab mixture, chop the parsley and toss the ingredients to combine.

5. Serve immediately with a generous squeeze of lime juice.

Bouillabaisse

The name bouillabaisse is divided into 2 French verbs : bouillir  means to boil and abaisser means to reduce, together it means to reduce by evaporation. Bouillabaisse is a fish stew which originates from the city of Marseille in France. This is also known as a fisherman's soup using the remains of the day's catch. It consists of a variety of herbs and spices mainly saffron, garlic and bay leaf as well as a variety of white fishes and seafood. You can imagine the amount of seafood flavors in this stew. It is like eating a paella where you can't stop eating until you are full. Try it out, use any seafood and white fishes and let me know the results. Bon appétit!

Serves 6-8
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 50 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes with juice
4-5 cups vegetable or fish stock
1 1/2 cup white wine
5 fresh bay leaves
1/2 tsp saffron threads
200g mussels, cleaned
250g cod, cut into 2-inch pieces
250g haddock fillets, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 lb shrimps, peeled and deveined
100g scallops

Procedure

1. Heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic, cook for 5 mins. Stir in tomatoes, stock, wine, bay leaves, and saffron. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer for 30 mins.

2. Put in mussels in the pot. Cover bring to a boil for 4 mins.

3. Turn heat to medium-low, add in fish and cook for 3 mins. Simmer for 2 mins. Afterwards, add in scallop and shrimps until the shrimp changes colour, about 3-4 mins. Make sure that the liquid is covering the seafood, add more stock if necessary.

4. Remove from heat. Discard bay leaves, and ladle into serving bowls.

Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Do you have a favorite shrimp dish? For the past few days, we have very cold weather in Montreal and felt like winter is coming soon. I didn't felt like going to grocery, instead tried to cook something out of ingredients we had at home. My parents tends to buy boxes of shrimps when they are on special, we probably have like a dozen of it at home. I ended up making a simple garlic lemon-flavored shrimps reduced in rice wine vinegar for the sauce and serve it over rice.

Serves 2-4

Preparation Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 5 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

40-50 medium-sized shrimps, peeled and deveined

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar or white wine

Parsley to garnish

Procedure

1. In a skillet, heat oil and melt butter over medium heat.

2. Cook shrimp until it turns pink, about 1 min on each side. Add garlic and cook until fragrant.

3. Turn to high heat. Add lemon juice and wine, cook until liquid reduced by half, about 1 min.

4. Remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with parsley. Serve.

Thai-Style Yellow Curry Shrimps

Here is a quick and satisfying shrimp dish made by my Taiwanese friend. The curry sauce is a simple mix of coconut milk (or whole milk) and curry powder. I can guaranteed you that you want to remake this sauce for dinner parties.

Serves 4
Preparation time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup milk or coconut milk

2 tbsp yellow curry powder

1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon of oyster sauce

1 small onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2-3 red chili peppers, seed removed, cut in half lengthwise
300g shrimps with shell and head still on
1 scallion, chopped

Procedure

1. In a bowl, mix milk with curry, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook onion until transparent. Add in chili peppers and garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 1 min.

3. Pour in sauce and stir for about 1 min. until hot.

4. Add shrimps to skillet and cook until it turns pink. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions.

Lobster with Ginger and Scallions

Have you ever order lobster in a Chinese restaurant? The Chinese has its own way in preparing and cooking the lobster. Most people are used to cook lobster in boiling water, check out my past blog post: Lobster with Pasta and Spicy Lobster. The Chinese first cut the lobster into pieces and isolate the tomalley (green substance) and roe (black stuff similar to caviar) which will be cook separately. The tomalley and roe are first steamed in order to fully cooked them (roe becomes red when fully cooked). The lobster parts are then stir-fry in a wok and the tomalley-roe are added afterward. It is common to deep fry cooked lobster, but this step is optional.

IMPORTANT: Almost every part of the lobster are edible, except for the head sack behind the lobster eyes. Remove the black veins found at the bottom of the tail. I think that is about it. Let me know if I missed anything.

Here is a crush course on how to prepare lobster, the Chinese way. If needed, click here for the anatomy of the lobster. Be aware, this is one of the messiest preparation, better do it outside. Check out the step-by-step pictures for guidance.

For 2 lobsters
Preparation Time: 20 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 lobsters
pinches of corn starch
3 tbsp ginger, cut into sticks
4-5 scallions, green parts only, cut into thirds
2-3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp rice cooking wine

Procedure

Cutting Lobster

 1. Make sure that the lobster is fully clean before cutting.

2. Using a butcher knife or sharp chef's knife, cut lobster in half at the abdomen.

3. With the abdomen/tail, discard black veins, reserve the roe and chop into 4-6 pieces.

4. With the top part, chop arms and claws.

5. Using both hands, separate legs from its top shell.

6. With the legs, reserve the tomalley (green substance) and cut the ends of each leg.

7. With the shell, discard antennas, head sack and eyes. Cut the shell in half lengthwise which will be used as a holder. Place tomalley and roe on both shells.

Cooking Lobster

1. Place 2-3 scallions, ginger and a pinch of cornstarch over each tomalley-roe.

2. Steam for 5-10 mins until roe is fully cooked. Set aside.

3. In a wok, heat oil over medium-high heat. Stir fry ginger and lobster until the shell turns red and meat turns white, about 5-10 mins.

4. Add in tomalley-roe and scallions. Stir fry for 1-2 mins.

5. Add soy sauce, rice cooking wine, and about 1/4 cup water to prevent from drying. Cover for 2-3 mins. Serve.