Cubed steak salad

Day 3 of cleaning out the fridge... I emailed my cousin Ava today to see how she was doing. After a brief exchange in messages she asked for a recipe that involved beef. I asked her if she liked the Vietnamese cubed steak salad or Bo Luc Lac and she answered yes of course. I fell in love with this dish about 10 years ago while dining with friends at Thanh Thanh in Arlington. I never asked for the recipe while I was there so I came up with my own variation of it.

Ingredients:

1 pound beef (I used sirloin tips here, but you can use almost anything especially tenderloins, try to stay away from the less tender cuts) cut in 1-1 1/2 inch cubes
4 tablespoon oyster sauce
4 tablespoon hoison sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
2 tablespoon canola oil

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except oil in a bowl and mix well. In a hot wok or pan, heat oil on high heat. Once oil has a slight sheen add sauce from bowl and stir well (be very careful combining anything with hot oil will cause it to fly everywhere). After the sauce is heated up (about 20-30 seconds) add beef and stir constantly until sauce thickens and forms a glaze on the beef (about 4-5 minutes). Serve this directly over a bed of lettuce, pickled onions, and tomatoes (I didn't have any tomatoes in the fridge so I substituted with green apples).

Bed ingredients:

5-6 romaine lettuce leaves (roughly chopped)
1/2 yellow or white onion (thinly sliced and pickled)
1 large tomato or 1/2 green apple thinly sliced
- Pickling ingredients:
     21 tablespoon water
     7 tablespoon white vinegar (3 to 1 parts water to vinegar)
     2 tablespoon sugar
     1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
     (Let this sit for at least an hour.)

It's also good to have a dipping sauce for the meat just in case you like it extra tart.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 juice of lime

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in small sauce bowl and mix well.

Recap:

You will want to assemble the bed first and keep it in the refrigerator. This will keep the lettuce fresh and crisp. After the meat has been sauted you'll want to top off the bed of salad immediately. If there is extra sauce left in the pan don't net afraid to top off the salad with it as well.

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Tomato Basil Soup and Black Truffle Buttered Grilled Cheese Sandwich

So I'm still trying to clean out my refrigerator and pantry before I go on vacation. That means the tomatoes have to go, the cream had to go and the bread has to go. The soup was inspired by La Madeleine and anytime you have any type of tomato soup you have to have a grilled cheese to dip it with.

Soup ingredients:

1 whole can of Cento Italian style whole tomatoes peeled
1 stick of unsalted butter
2 teaspoon kosher salt
3-4 sprigs fresh basil
1 cup chicken broth
Freshly cracked pepper

Directions:

In a sauce pan, add tomatoes and cook on medium high heat. Add chicken broth, salt and butter. With an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until tomatoes are no longer chunky. Roughly chop the basil and add to soup. Continue to blend again until basil is in very tiny pieces. Give it a taste and add salt as needed. Top off with freshly cracked black pepper before serving.

Grilled cheese ingredients:

4 slices Texas toast
2 slices sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoon black truffle butter melted (or regular unsalted butter)

Directions:

Brush butter on bread and place on sheet pan, add cheese and another slice of bread. Brush top of bread with more butter. Place sheet pan in a 475° oven and bake for about 5 minutes. Flip sandwich and cook for another 4 minutes. Slice sandwich diagonally and serve.

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Lemongrass Quail with Oyster-hoison Glaze (served with Cucumber Salad)

My last trip back home to Dallas yielded me a bounty of fresh lemongrass and chili peppers. The combination of the fresh ingredients and the fact that I'm playing the "let's cook with only the stuff I have available or cleaning out the pantry" brought this dish together. I love how my mom always has fresh produce picked, packed and ready to go every time I visit her. Last time I was there I came home with basil, chili peppers and Chinese long beans. You can also recreate this dish with almost any type of poultry.

Quail ingredients:

6 quails
1 stalk lemongrass (finely minced)
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon Sriracha
2 tablespoon hoison sauce
2 tablespoon oyster sauce

Glaze ingredients:

In a separate bowl for the glaze combine same amount of oyster sauce, hoison sauce, Sriracha, black pepper, and sugar. You'll use this to glaze the quails right before they are almost done.

Directions:

Combine all ingredients well and let it marinate for about 30 minutes. Set oven to 375 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and lay quails down with the open side down (you're going to want the skin up and caramelize). Bake for 30 minutes and with a brush, thoroughly glaze the quails. Let it cook for another 15 minutes before turning the oven off and serving.

Cucumber salad ingredients:

1 large cucumber (do not peel), shredded (for shredding technique see the recipe for the papaya salad, it's the same methodology behind it)
2 garlic cloves
Pinch of salt (approximately 1/4 teaspoon)
2 Thai/birds eye chili peppers (or more if you like it spicier)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 - 3 tablespoon fish sauce (if you want to add crab paste or shrimp paste you should reduce the amount of fish sauce)
8 cherry tomatoes
Juice of half a lime

Directions:

This is the traditional Laotian mortar and pestle used.

Hint: See the spoon on the left? You want to use one

hand to stir the mixture with the spoon while you using

the pestle with the other hand.

In a mortar and pestle, combine chili peppers, garlic, and salt to create a paste. Add all other ingredients and with a spoon and pestle being mashing and stir at the same time until all ingredients are mix well (be careful with cucumbers, you don't want to over work it and make it too mushy). As with any Laotian style salads, you may need to adjust the flavor by adding more fish sauce, lime juice, or (if you're my sister) sugar. I'm not sure how many other families do this, but in our family we like to top off the salad with a little roasted rice powder (it definitely gives it an extra bit of kick).

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