Myulchi Bokkeum - Korean anchovies

This is my all time favorite banchan dish at a Korean restaurant! ALL TIME FAVORITE! Why? Because it's just like the Vietnamese dish called cá cơm kho. It might look gross with all the tiny fish eyes staring up at you, but it's so delicious with its savory sweet and chewy taste. Let's get over eating fish eyeballs and proceed with the recipe, yes?

"Cá Kho" (Vietnamese Braised Fish with Caramel)

I've eaten this dish many many many times growing up. My grandma used to make a jar of caramel for these types of braising. The sad thing is that I never did learn to make it from my grandma and now I never will. Even though I walk around telling people that I'm so Vietnamese and speak with authority over everything Vietnamese, I know next to nothing when it comes to Vietnamese cooking. One of my goals is to at least learn to make the basic food so that it's not so embarrassing when the only advice I have for people regarding Vietnamese food is "Add a ton of lemon grass and a ton of fish sauce!"

Soy Sauce Swai and Guacamole

I don't want to be left out of the lazy post loop, so here's my lazy post.

Fish Taco With Mango Salsa

Whenever the weather gets cold, I make Mexican food. What? Oh well, fish tacos it is! Recipe was taken from SimplyRecipes

I always feel like tacos are such a rip off when you buy it. Two or three small tacos for $5 or $6? No, thank you! Even I, a 105 lbs female, feel like two tacos aren't much of a snack. Let me tell you that when I made these tacos to feed three people, it only cost me less than $10 and there wasn't much "cooking" to do, just a lot of chopping.

Penang Assam Laksa

Nur, my Southeast Asian food go-to person, sent me this penang laksa recipe to try out. According to Nur, it's authentic! How do I know it's authentic? It contains strange sounding ingredients. Let's take a break from my streak of dessert making and go into some real food.

Laksa is a sort of spicy noodle soup and it comes in several types. There's curry laksa and assam laksa. Curry laksa is self-explanatory. Assam laksa is a sour fish base laksa.

Foil Packet Tilapia

Steamed fish has got to be the easiest thing to make. Want to make it with minimal cleanup? Put it in a foil packet!

Gordon Ramsay's Fish Cakes

For those of you who don't know this, I am a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay. Why? Why not? The guy has enough angst to shame a teenager. Well of course, his recipes are also amazingly simple! Well, at least in his current books. I heard his older cookbooks are actually pretty complex and difficult. I found this fish cake recipe on-line from his show "The F Word," which I have to admit, I've only watched a couple of times while I was flying on Virgin America, and yes, that was a shameless plug for my favorite airline.

Pan Fried Tilapia

For a simple lunch with my sister, I made pan fried tilapia fillets and serve it with rice. I love tilapia! The juicy fillets have a very light taste and yet very filling at the same time. All the while, tilapia are very cheap and easy to obtain. I usually get the frozen ones to save for a quick and easy meal.

Ingredients:
((Printable recipe))
4 medium fillets of tilapia (a little more than 1 lb)
4 cloves of garlic - minced
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of ground black pepper
1 tbsp of dried parsley
(if you're using fresh parsley, chop up about 3 tbsp)
olive oil
approximately 1 tsp of lemon juice

Directions:

Defrost the tilapia fillets if you got it frozen like me. Pat dry with some paper towel.
Next up, mince the garlic. I like to use the knife blades and press down on the whole garlic cloves so that it's semi flat. This makes it easier to peel the last bits of skin off. Mince away!

Sprinkle on the salt and rub on both sides of the fillets. If you accidentally sprinkled a bit more salt on one fillet than the other, feel free to carefully rub the two fillets together to distribute the salt. Rub rub rub.

Sprinkle on the ground black pepper and rub. Give those fillets a good massage.

Rub on the minced garlic. Yummmssss. Are you tired of rubbing already? Don't worry, the next step is the final rubbing phase. Having said that, rub on the parsley. One time, I used freshly chopped cilantro and it very yummy as well. My sister actually prefers the cilantro over the parsley.

Are you done with the rubbing? Yes? Yes?

Time to hit the stove! Heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil on a pan. Lay the fillets in one single layer like so:



Cook on medium high heat for about 3 minutes on each sides or until fish flakes easily.
While it's cooking, squeeze or sprinkle on the lemon juice. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a hint of lemon is good.



Remove from heat and serve with steaming hot rice!



Have fun cooking!