Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight's Dinner

Please note that the publisher and author(s) of this cookbook are NOT RESPONSIBLE in any manner whatsoever for any domestic accidents, fires, food poisoning or allergic reactions that could result from the preparation of the recipes given within, including from the eating of raw vegetables, eggs, meat and fish. The publisher and author(s) are not responsible for any kind of food borne decease or illness caused by undercooked food.

Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759 U.S.A. and 61 Tai Seng Avenue, #02-12, Singapore 534167

Copyright © 2009 Steamy Kitchen, Inc.

With additional photo contributions from Diane Cu, Matt Wright, Matt Armendariz, Lara Ferroni and Carrie Hasson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hair, Jaden.

Steamy kitchen : 101 recipes simple enough for tonight’s dinner / Jaden Hair; photography by Jaden Hair. -- 1st ed.

p.               cm.

Includes index.

ISBN: 978-1-4629-0569-0 (ebook)

1. Cookery, Asian. 2. Dinners and dining. I. Title.

TX724.5.A1H32 2009

641.595--dc22

2009017461

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Printed in Singapore

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Contents

Introduction 8

The Tools 14

The Ingredients 17

The Basics

Apricot Sweet Chilli Sauce 28

Asian Flavored Salts 27

Asian Pesto 31

Broccoli Stem Pickle 30

Carrot Daikon Pickle 31

Cashew Nut Dipping Sauce 30

Chilli Garlic Sauce 29

Chinese Dipping Sauce 29

Fried Garlic Oil 29

Ginger Scallion 28

Meat Stock 32

Mom’s Chicken Stock 31

Peanut Dipping Sauce 30

Seafood Stock 32

Sweet Chilli Sambal 26

Sweet Soy Sauce 30

Thai Dipping Sauce 28

Vietnamese Dip 28

Vegetable Stock 31

Chapter One: Appetizers & Little Bites

Baked Garlic Chilli Wings 43

Crispy Fish Cakes 36

Firecracker Shrimp 48

Furikake French Fries 53

Great Grandmother’s Crispy Potatoes with Sweet Soy Pork 40

Lettuce Cup Appetizers 42

Mom’s Famous Crispy Eggrolls 50

Pork & Mango Potstickers 46

Raw Bar with Asian Mignonette 38

Shrimp Chips with Spiced Beef and Crispy Shallots 41

Thai-style Chicken Flatbread 37

Vietnamese Summer Rolls 44

Chapter Two: Soups, Salads & Wraps

Baked Tofu Salad with Mustard Miso Dressing 64

Chicken and Corn Soup 57

Healthy Chinese Chicken Wraps 67

Crab and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup 60

Crisp Fuji Apple and Crab Salad 62

Lemongrass Chicken and Coconut Soup 56

Miso Ramen with all the Trimmings 66

Pomelo and Edamame Salad with Honey Ginger Vinaigrette 65

Ochazuke Rice with Crisp Salmon Skin and Nori 59

Quick and Hearty Rice Soup 57

Quick Vietnamese Chicken Pho 58

Thai Beef Salad Wraps 63

Chapter Three: Seafood

Asian Crab Cakes 83

Beer Steamed Shrimp with Garlic 71

Clams Sautéed in Garlic and Black Bean Sauce 77

Coconut Shrimp 78

Grilled Fish with Kabayaki Sauce 73

Herb Crusted Fish with Sweet Chilli Sambal 82

Mussels in Coconut Curry Broth 70

Salt & Pepper Squid 76

Scallops with Tropical Fruit Salsa 79

Mom’s Chinese Steamed Fish 75

Tea-smoked Salmon with Cucumber Relish 80

Chapter Four: Meat

Grilled Steak with Balsamic Teriyaki 90

Beef Satay with Peanut Dipping Sauce 93

Chinese Beef Broccoli 94

Korean BBQ-style Burgers 91

Grilled Lamb Chops with Asian Pesto 95

Hoisin and Honey Glazed Baby Back Ribs 88

Pork Chops with Plums and Sweet Spices 86

Sweet and Sour Lychee Meatballs 87

Steak with Sweet Tomato Onion Sauce 89

Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich 92

Chapter Five: Chicken

Baked Crispy Chicken with Citrus Teriyaki Sauce 105

Stir-Fried Chicken with Roasted Eggplant 107

Hainanese Chicken Rice 100

Chicken Skewers with Honey and Turmeric 98

Maridel’s Chicken Adobo 99

Pan-fried Mango Chicken 101

Sweet and Sour Chicken 106

Thai Coconut Chicken Curry 103

Thai-style Chicken in Sweet Chilli Sauce 104

Chapter Six: Vegetables, Tofu & Eggs

Asian Style Brussels Sprouts 123

Asparagus and Crab with a Light Ginger Sauce 118

Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce and Roasted Garlic 124

Japanese Mushrooms Baked in Soy Sake Butter 115

Fried Eggs with Tomato and Chinese Chives 120

Garlicky Tofu and Spinach 110

Green Beans with Preserved White Radish 114

Mashed Potatoes with Miso 121

Pan-fried Tofu with Dark Sweet Soy Sauce 111

Quick Omelette with Shrimp and Peas 122

Simple Baby Bok Choy and Snow Peas 116

Spicy Korean Tofu Stew 112

Three Pea Stir-fry 119

Tofu and Clams in a Light Miso Broth 117

Chapter Seven: Rice & Noodles

Chinese Sausage Fried Rice 131

Chinese Sausage with Rice and Sweet Soy Sauce 129

Coconut Rice 130

Garlic Butter Noodles 134

Korean Jap Chae Noodles with Beef 135

Korean Kimchi Fried Rice 132

Perfect Shrimp Fried Rice 128

Quick Noodle Stir-Fry 136

Simple Ginger and Green Onion Fried Rice 133

Shrimp Pad Thai 137

Steamed Rice 129

Chapter Eight: Sweets & Libations

Apple Ginger Mint Ice Tea 151

Asian Pear Frozen Yogurt 140

Avocado Milkshake 150

Bubble Boba Tea 149

Chocolate Wontons 147

Coconut Frozen Yogurt 146

Fresh Starfruit and Mango with Chilli and Mint 143

Grilled Bananas with Chocolate and Toasted Coconut Flakes 145

Grilled Pineapple with Chocolate Coconut Rum Sauce 142

Hong Kong Yinyeung Tea-Coffee 154

Matcha Crepes with Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream 148

Mango Julius 150

Passionfruit Chilli Martini 151

Pomegranate and Soda 152

Tapioca Pearls with Sweet Coconut and Honeydew 141

Thai Coffee Ice Cream 146

Vietnamese Iced Coffee 153

Acknowledgments 155

Resource Guide 156

Index 157

About the Photography in this Book 160

The story of

Steamy Kitchen

I could start off by telling a story of how I learned cooking from my mother when I was a young girl . . .

But I didn’t.

In fact, quite the opposite! My Mom is a fantastic cook . . . grocery shopping is her hobby and feeding people is her passion. When I was a little girl, I wasn’t interested in cooking at all. I was constantly hungry and always wanted to eat! Plus, if I was anywhere near the kitchen when Mom was cooking, it never failed that I’d always end up with the crap jobs, like tediously pinching the itty bitty tails off the mountain of bean sprouts, shelling pounds and pounds of shrimp, peeling away the stringy thing off the snow peas, washing every bit of trapped dirt hidden in the bok choy. Of course, Mom would constantly rattle off kitchen wisdom, but hey, I was young and didn’t care about cooking. I was too busy pouting with kitchen chores wondering when I could finally devour the fluffy pork bao whose steam was whispering my name . . .

So, I didn’t become a kitchen rock star until I moved away from California (where my family lives) to a little town in Florida to start a family of my own with my husband, Scott. Suddenly, without easy access to good Asian markets, cheap Asian midnight eats and, of course, Mom’s kitchen, I was forced to learn via telephone calls while digging for ingredients at the supermarket, tossing fragrant garlic and ginger in a wok and virtual taste tastes at the dinner table.

What a fine education it was. $448.63 in cell phone minutes later (which, by the way, is way cheaper than three years at a fancy culinary institute), I discovered that I was insanely good at cooking. I must have inherited Mom’s natural talent of creating spectacularly simple meals for family and friends.

How it All Started

You might be wondering how I got from cell phone diploma to writing this book, and it’s kind of a silly story. Right after we moved from San Francisco to this little town in Florida, Scott started a computer repair shop in the middle of a local strip mall, and right next door was a restaurant called Bangkok Tokyo. I’d often walk next door to Bangkok Tokyo to grab a to-go order.

Well, one afternoon I was waiting for my order when I overheard a woman at the sushi bar just behind the hostess stand chatting loudly on her cell phone with her friend,  . . . come meet me for lunch! I’m eating sushi at the Chinese restaurant!

WTF?!!

Bangkok Toyko? HELLO? Last I checked, neither Bangkok nor Tokyo was in China.

Oooooooh . . . I was upset. And yeah, I totally overreacted and took it personally, having just moved from San Francisco, one of the greatest culinary destinations and cultural smorgasbords. It didn’t help that the week before I had watched a television celebrity chef feature an entire show on the foods of Thailand while wearing a Chinese cheongsam and cooking Japanese dumplings. Seriously, I’m so not kidding! (By the way, details have been changed to protect the guilty in case I happen to run into this particular celeb chef one day and then be forced to act all embarrassed, wondering if she has read my book! Ay-ya!)

Okay, back to the story. After the eating sushi at a Chinese restaurant incident, I cried and whined to Scott, wanting to move back to San Fran. And do you know what he said to me?

Honey, don’t you see that this is such a great opportunity for you?

Welllll . . . truthfully, it went something like this: Quit your bitchin’. If you don’t like this situation, why don’t you do something about it?

And so I did.

I called a local cooking school called The Chef’s Table and asked if I could teach some cooking classes, focusing on teaching Mom’s family recipes, the virtues of fish sauce, how to stir-fry and, of course, the differences between Chinese and Japanese food.

That’s how it all began. Oh, and the blog, SteamyKitchen. com? I started the blog because I needed a place to store all of Mom’s kitchen wisdom and recipes. I was too lazy to write by hand, too unorganized to record audio notes and too scared to leave precious family recipes on my laptop hard drive. A blog was an ideal solution, and I named it Steamy Kitchen, as it perfectly described both my Mom and me, though in different ways. There’s always something cooking in Mom’s kitchen, a soup simmering away for hours or the flash-bang-cling-clang of her speedy wok master action. Basically, the kitchen was always steamy, with a variety of goodies cooking away. And then there’s me. Steamy perfectly describes my fiery-hot nature and passionate personality.

Actin’ all crazy on the beach (from back row) Steve Anna, David Lebovitz, Elise Bauer, Adam Pearson, Romain, me, Matt Armendariz, Diane Cu; Ochazuke Rice with Crispy Salmon Skin, my boys Andrew and Nathan; my brother, Jay and I; Quick Vietnamese Chicken Pho, page 58; Andrew not wanting to go to school.

What this Book is About?

This cookbook is a collection of Asian recipes that I prepare at home for my family and friends. These days, every one is limited on time, especially if you’ve got kids. If I don’t get dinner on the table quickly, my rug rats will begin shimmying up the pantry shelves to help themselves to sugary treats. . . so the recipes I’ve included in this book are fast. Most of the dishes are quick cooking or involve little hands-on time. There are a couple of exceptions—my Mom’s Famous Crispy Egg Rolls (page 50) and the Pork and Mango Potstickers (page 46). I included them because these are super-awesome dishes and also because they are great for freezing and saving for a lazy kitchen day or last minute party nibbles. Both recipes go from frozen to dinner table in about 15 minutes. Can’t beat that!

Fast is not the only thing you’ll find in this book. I love vibrant vegetables, aromatic herbs and ripe, juicy fruits. You’ll find that each dish is incredibly colorful with fresh herbs, chilli peppers and veggies. Food comes so fresh these days—it’s a shame to do too much to them other than a quick stir-fry in a pan!

But I think if there was one thing that defines this book, it’s that the recipes are simple. Simple enough for tonight’s family dinner. I’ve got lots of step-by-step photos to help break the steps down so you can visually see how to do something, like rolling Mom’s Famous Crispy Egg Rolls (page 50) or deveining a shrimp with the shell-on (page 71).

Because I’ve been teaching hands-on cooking classes for a few years now, I’m really good at knowing what questions you’ll want answers to and how to explain things clearly. At the end of class, people always proclaim, I never knew it was that EASY!

What is Asian Cooking?

I put a lot of thought into what Asian cooking really means, and it’s more complex than just a section of a shelf at a bookstore. You see, I grew up in North Platte, Nebraska, in the ’70s, during a time when I was the only Asian kid in my entire school. So, you can imagine some of the comments and attitudes that I had to endure as a child.

When we moved to Los Angeles, California, things changed. It was actually quite a bit of a culture shock for me, being surrounded by my peeps everywhere! No longer was I any different than the general population. When Scott and I moved to a small town in Florida to start a family… and as you read earlier, it kinda jarred me back to the days of childhood.

I think calling my style of cooking Asian will be short-lived because Asia is made up of so many different countries! We don’t use the term European Cooking as we can differentiate between French and Italian cuisines. And if I called what I specialize as Asian I would be just as guilty as the ignorant.

But at the same time, we’ve got to start somewhere. I hope this book inspires you to explore the ingredients in your local Asian market and play with them in your kitchen, and at the same time I hope to teach you some things about each spice, herb and vegetable, such as their origins and popular uses. And maybe one day, the foods of Laos will be just as popular as the specialties of Germany.

Having been born in Hong Kong, having grown up in secluded Nebraska, and having lived in crazy California and now in Florida, I think all Asian food is relative. It depends in part on geography (living nearby the bustling Los Angeles Chinatown versus having to drive four hours to the nearest Asian market in Nebraska), but also on learning how to take whatcha got and adapt it to your family meal. With several Asian online grocers in business (see the Resource Guide for a list) and many ethnic ingredients popping up at your regular grocery store, it’s easier than ever to create fabulous meals with ingredients from all over Asia at home. This is why Martin Yan, Ming Tsai and Andrea Nguyen—my cooking idols— are such amazing chefs. They are able to keep the authenticity and essence of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai ingredients and help us integrate them into our American lifestyle without dumbing down Asian food. My style of cooking is really a combination of my Mom’s home-style dishes and and of course influence from chefs and my fellow food bloggers.

With this book, I wanted to showcase all types of Asian ingredients, but specifically pantry items (like canned goods, bottled sauces and spices), frozen foods (fresh frozen noodles, dumpling wrappers) and preserved/dried ingredients (black mushrooms, Chinese sausage). And here’s why. With our lifestyle, we don’t necessarily eat Asian foods everyday, but I do like having the ingredients at my fingertips. I love going to my local Asian market once a month to stock up on ingredients that keep well in the pantry, refrigerator or freezer for weeks or even months at a time. I can combine any of these ingredients with a fresh vegetables, meat or seafood from my regular supermarket. That’s exactly what I do these days and it’s exactly how my Mom did it when we used to live in Nebraska and our nearest Asian market was a few hours away!

So, for example, pair canned black bean sauce with fresh clams—and 15 minutes later you’ve got a delectable dish. Slather jarred sweet plum sauce over chicken and roast— for a savory yet sweet, moist chicken. Fresh noodles found in the freezer section paired with crunchy carrots and soft mushrooms make it to the table in less time that it takes to order a take-out dish.

This cookbook is a compilation of some very traditional Chinese recipes from my Mom, some not so traditional but modern take-out old favorites, and of course, some that my kidlets have chosen for you, like Chocolate Wontons (page 147)! Many of these recipes were inspired by some of my very favorite food bloggers that I am lucky to count as my friends. We are constantly swapping recipes, learning from each other and inspiring new creations. And you don’t have to just depend on me to tell you that the recipes in this book work. The recipes were tested, and retested, by almost 200 of my dear blog-readers from all over the world, making this possibly one of the most well-tested cookbooks out there!

My wish is that you’ll find this cookbook full of fantastic meals you’ll share with your family and friends. It can’t get any better than fast, fresh and simple enough for tonight’s dinner!

Please continue the journey online with me at www.steamykitchen.com where I am constantly updating the site with new recipes, videos, clips from my television segments and links to other fabulous blogs. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with the recipes, just comment on the site, email me at jaden@steamykitchen.com or find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/steamykitchen.

WHAT TO DRINK

After chopping, stir-frying, tossing and tasting in the kitchen, there’s nothing I enjoy more than sitting down to a delicious meal with friends and family and a suitable beverage. We always keep a stash of chilled lager-style beers on hand. Their clean, simple taste immediately quenches thirst and is a fail-safe accompaniment to any Asian style dish. But sometimes, depending on the time of year or if we feel like something a little more upscale or festive, we pull out bottles of wine or sake. I’ve asked my friend Anu Karwa of Swirl Events to tell you about pairing wine with Asian dishes and Morgan Hartman of Vine Connections to tell you about sake. Aren’t I lucky to have such experts as friends who can do that fancy wine and sake talk?

PAIRING WINE WITH ASIAN FOOD

The complexity of flavors—spicy, sweet, salty and sour—in Asian food makes pairing wine lots of fun. Here are some guidelines to pick the perfect wine to enhance, not overpower, your Asian meal.

Spicy dishes beg for a wine to balance the heat, not add to it. You want to stay away from anything too high in alcohol because it can intensify the heat. You also want to avoid highly tannic wines, which can add a bitter taste to highly flavorful, pungent dishes. For lighter Asian dishes, my go-to recommendation is Gewürztraminer from Germany. Its lychee and roselike aromas that hint at sweetness make it a natural fit. Another great pairing is a dry Riesling, such as a Kabinett-style, from Germany. Its slightly dry taste and racy acidity really works. Other options for spicy dishes with slightly more pronounced flavors or heavier texture, such as Spicy Korean Tofu Stew (page 112), include a Muscadet from the Loire Valley in France. For the more adventurous wine drinker, try the up-and-coming varietal of Torrontes from Argentina. A Pinot