Vietnamese Shaking Beef Salad (Bo Luc Lac)

We still had some salad greens from yesterday's dinner party, so I made a Vietnamese beef salad for dinner this evening. I followed the original recipe by Wendy Hutton from Vietnamese Favorite of the Periplus series of cookbooks. However, the resulting beef salad didn't seem Vietnamese enough for our taste. I've made some minor adjustments in the recipe I'm typing below, adding more patis and adding a bit of lemon juice and chili garlic sauce as well. Note, though, that it hasn't been tested yet. I'll update this entry when I've tried this with the changes.

Ingredients:

400 g tenderloin beef steak, cubed
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp vinegar
1 bunch watercress or other salad greens, coarse stems removed
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Marinade:

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp rice wine
2 tbsp patis (fish sauce)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Dressing:

1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
1-1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine the Marinade ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Place beef in marinade and mix until beef is well coated. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Combine the sliced onion, rice wine, and vinegar in a bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes, then remove onions from the liquid.

3. Combine dressing ingredients and whisk well. Combine onions, greens, dressing and toss. Set aside.

4. Heat oil in a wok over high heat. Stir-fry marinated beef for 1 to 1-1/2 minutes until meat is seared on the outside but still pink inside. Remove from heat, then sprinkle 1/2 tbsp lemon juice on beef. Spread beef on top of salad. Serve immediately.

Serves 3 - 4 (based on recommended portion size).
Calorie count: 350 per serving.

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Sun-dried Tomato and Ham Omelette

Mike usually makes a breakfast or a brunch on weekends. Today, we woke up late and had omelettes for brunch. Here's what he prepared.

Ingredients:

6 slices cooked Canadian bacon or ham, chopped
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. butter
2 pcs. sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1/4 tsp. dried basil
2 tbsp. grated Quickmelt cheese
3 small eggs
pepper to taste

Method:

Combine ham and sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl. Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Heat butter and oil in a pan over medium heat. Pour eggs into pan, and let cook until underside begins to set. Sprinkle grated cheese onto one half of the egg. When underside of egg has set, put ham and sun-dried tomatoes on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with pepper to taste. When filling has warmed, fold the empty half of the egg over the filling. Cook until egg has reached desired consistency. Serve with rice or bread.

Serves 2.

We served this omelette with garlic fried rice sprinkled with garlic salt and dried parsley. A very tasty brunch!

Oriental Chicken Salad

We'll be having friends over in awhile, so I'm attempting a new salad recipe. I'm doing it almost exactly as described by Sarina A. Fores in the Assumption Cookbook. I just substituted the honey with syrup and added sesame seeds to the dressing. I also used salad-in-a-bag for the variety of lettuce leaves rather than the iceberg lettuce recommended in the original recipe; bagged salad tastes better and is better for your health. A doctor-friend told me that iceberg lettuce does not only, as some people already know, have zero nutrients in its leaves; to make things worse, eating iceberg lettuce is actually more harmful to your health than not eating a vegetable at all. Anyway, here's the salad recipe.

Ingredients:

2 pieces chicken breast, boiled or grilled, then cubed
1 pack salad-in-a-bag (approx. 200g)
20 wonton skins, sliced 1/2" and fried crisp
1 medium red bell pepper, slivered
1/4 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Dressing:
6 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp honey or syrup
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp chili garlic sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted

Method:

1. Make dressing: combine all ingredients and mix with wire whisk. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Deep-fry wonton skins over medium to low fire until golden. Drain on paper towel

3. In a salad bowl, mix together chicken breast, lettuce and bell pepper. Toss with a little salad dressing. Add the wonton skins and peanuts and toss again with a little more dressing. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 - 6.

Update: Yummy salad!! I declare this recipe a success. I just crossed out the instruction to refrigerate the dressing, because when I did that, the dressing coagulated and I had to microwave it for 20 seconds to turn it back into a liquid dressing. I also cut down the number of sheets of wonton wrapper. Twenty would've been enough.

The dressing is very tasty, and you may want to keep the dressing recipe on hand for simple green salads as well.

We served this salad with Easy Stir-fried Beef in Oyster Sauce, Stemaed Fish and Chinese Sauce and steamed rice, for a Chinese-themed meal.

Beef soup with lemongrass

Vietnam was in the news yesterday. ANC was doing a comparison of the growth of Vietnam's economy (incredible) with the Philippines' (lame). So from Singapore we now head to Vietnam with this recipe which I got from "Vietnamese Favorites" by Wendy Hutton, part of the Periplus Mini Cookbooks series available at National Bookstore. We adapted it a little.

Ingredients

200g sukiyaki beef (or beef sirloin sliced paper thin)
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp patis (fish sauce)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 spring onions, green and white parts separated, finely sliced
1 tsp oil
1 stalk lemongrass (thick bottom part only), outer layers discarded, inner part thinly sliced
2 thin slices ginger root
2 to 3 beef cubes dissolved in 6 cups hot water
2 tsp rice vinegar (can be substituted with 1 tsp rice wine and 1 tsp sukang puti)
1 tsp sugar
1 medium tomato, cut into wedges
coriander leaves to garnish (optional)

1. Marinate beef in 1 tsp garlic, 1-1/2 tsp patis and black pepper.
2. Heat the oil in a stockpot over medium heat and stir-fry the remaining garlic, spring onion white bulbs, lemongrass and ginger for about 2 minutes until soft. Add the remaining fish sauce, beef stock, rice vinegar, sugar and tomato and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 5 minutes.
3. Just before serving, bring the soup to a boil. Add the beef and simmer until just cooked, about 30 seconds. Remove and transfer to individual serving bowls. Garnish with spring onion greens and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Serves 3 - 4.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 8 to 10 minutes

This is a yummy recipe and incredibly easy to make! It's like Filipino nilaga with a Vietnamese kick, and the soup is very Vietnamese-y. Mike suggested that I serve it with additional patis on the side as an option for the Filipino palate. We ate this meal with steamed rice, but we imagine it would also be great as a pho, with bihon (rice vermicelli) added. If you want to eat it as a pho, add the bihon before the last step, then wait around 2 minutes before adding the beef.

Arugula salad with grapes and feta cheese

salad lettuce
arugula
feta cheese, crumbled or cubed
seedless red grapes, halved

Dressing:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp red wine
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Arugula is good for you but it's bitter. In this recipe, the red grapes and feta cheese balance out the bitterness of the arugula. Toss well, so that every bite of the salad has a bit of everything.

I'm still trying to improve on the dressing, though (the basics of which I got from the Internet). It's okay, but not great.