Tag Archives: soy sauce

Ain’t no Beefin’

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In the Poconos, recently my friends and I were on a wine tour doing tastings of the area vineyards and as we all know when drinking copious amounts of booze causes most people to binge eat. Luckily, there was a cook-off contest going on nearby so we stumbled over and tried all the eats the locals had made. There was a plethora of good food like sausage and peppers, mushroom risotto, etc. but this beef dish just knocked my socks off! I asked for the recipe because I wanted to recreate it for the blog, but more importantly, I wanted to try it sober to see if I even liked it (who knows when your inebriated, errythang tastes good under the influence). My God. I was NOT disappointed! It was just as yum, so I hope you enjoy this as well.

  • 2 lbs. flank steak
  • 1 cup cranberry juice
  • 1/2 crushed pineapple or puree
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 cup cranberries(recipe calls for fresh but all I had was dried so do you)
  • 1/2 cup diced candied ginger
  • 1/4 cup minced garlic or 4 cloves chopped
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce

In a medium saucepan cook soy sauce, honey, pineapple, cranberry juice into a marinade. Add cranberries and candied ginger cook for a bit more before turning off stove to cool.

In the meantime, coat steak with the ginger and garlic, then pour cooled marinade over steak. Marinade for 1-2 hrs then remove steak from marinade and cook for 7-10 minutes on each side. Take the marinade and recook to turn into a glaze for the steak. After letting meat rest slice on grain.  Drizzle remaining cooked marinade then serve w bean sprouts and chopped cilantro.

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Happy Eating, XO

Takeout Timeout

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Guys, who doesn’t love some Sunday night lo mein or kung pao chicken. However, after eating like crap all weekend or spending too much money going out it may be best to just cook your Chinese take out staple at home. It is a lot healthier and tends to be more wallet friendly as well. I hooked up some stir fry and fried rice for the boyfriend and I last weekend, it was tre yum. Check out the fried rice recipe below and see if you enjoy it as much as we did.

  • 1/2 cup mirepoix mix (pre diced celery, onions, & carrots. You can obviously do this yourself but its just more time away from laying on the couch and watching football).
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • salt & pepper to taste (I would add at the end only because soy sauce, even the low sodium stuff is pretty salty tasting so you don’t want to over season).
  • 1 tbsp. minced garlic paste
  • 1 tsp. minced ginger paste (if you don’t have garlic or ginger paste, the powder would work too)
  • 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. sambal oelek (it’s an Asian chili oil but a few squirts of siriacha would do if you didn’t have any)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup boiled rice
  • 1 tbsp. butter (I add it just at the end, before serving. It melts into the rice and adds a nice soft texture to the dish, but feel free to leave out).

Heat the oil on high in pan or wok, while cooking the veggies, paste & spices. Don’t add the rice or soy sauce just yet. Cook till translucent/tender. Then crack the two eggs into the hot oil, veggie, spice mixture. Start scrambling, this is when you add the rice to incorporate everything together. Lower heat and stir in the chili oil & soy sauce.

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It came out so legit, I didn’t even miss having a post meal fortune cookie. I may permanently be on a time out from my take out spot.

Happy Eating, XO.

Sassy Fish

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Hopefully everyone is full of chocolate from V-day and is now ready for eating better. As we know, fish is a staple to eating healthier, but I have a really a good twist on a basic pan seared fish recipe! I love it because its a lil sweet & spicy and I think it resonates with me/my personality. I’m a sassy girl! Overall I am sweet, but I have a lil fiery side to me as well. I also love this fish idea because it totally came out of no where when I was rummaging through my mom’s fridge over the holidays.

  • 2 5-6oz filets of a “meaty” fish (so think salmon, tuna, halibut and not tilapia or cod because they are more flaky)
  • 1 tbsp. minced garlic (3 cloves?)
  • 2 tbsp. minced onions (yellow, Spanish, shallots, whatever you want)
  • 1 tsp. sriracha (more if you like it spicier vs. sweeter)
  • 1 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 3 tbsp. mango chutney (I use the brand Patak’s Major Grey Mango Chutney, but really any one would work)
  • Pinch of black pepper

In a small sauce saucepan simmer the chutney, soy, sriracha, garlic, and onions. This will not only marry all the flavors, but it will thin out the consistency since the chutney is chunky with pieces of mango in it. Think about 3-5 minutes. While that is happening coat the fish with olive oil and pepper (no salt really needed because of the sodium in the soy). Start to sear in a hot non-stick pan. Reduce the flame on the saute pan and add the sauce to the fish, finish cooking the filets with the sauce in pan. Approximately 10-12 min. of total cook time for fish.

Happy Eating, XO.

Big ol’ Rice Bowl

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One of my favorite restaurants serves these delicious rice bowls. Seeing that I’d probably look stalker-ish if I went there every day  to get one, I recreated it for dinner. And as it turns out, it was really easy (but I mean, come on, would we ever post a super hard recipe?), and I learned how to make fried rice. We should all know how to make fried rice.

  • 2 bags of white rice (I use the instant boil-in-a-bag kind)
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/3 cup peanut oil (or vegetable oil)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 medium yellow onion
  • 1 chicken breast, diced
  • 1 container of button mushrooms
  • Salt and pepper to taste

There’s a bit of prep before you begin to combine it together in a bowl. To start, boil the rice according to the box instructions (roughly 10 minutes). In two separate pans, cook the diced chicken and scramble the eggs. (Be careful not to over cook them though as they’ll continue to cook a little longer when combined with the other ingredients.) In a deep wok or skillet heat up the peanut oil over medium heat and add in the peppers, onions, and mushrooms.

Once the rice is done, dump it in to the wok with the vegetables and pour the soy sauce on top. Mix in the chicken and eggs and toss until fully combined. Serve in a big comfy bowl and enjoy!

 

Rice Bowl

 

Happy Eating, XO.

Wonton Soup

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So one of our blog readers brought to our attention that we have a good variety of cuisines (Latin empanadas, Indian curries, Persian koftas, Italian rollatini) on the blog, but we’re seriously lacking the Asian food representation. So I thought to myself about what I usually order when getting take out. And although my number one item on Chinese menus is an egg roll, I don’t own a deep fryer and I am coming down with a bit of a cold, so I thought of my second favorite appetizer: wonton soup would be best! I love it so much, I usually order soup dumplings, wontons, or some variation at dim sum restaurants too. I figured its a light and refreshing broth (read: also extremely easy to make) so why not give it a whirl? Luckily, I found out I don’t need to be an origami expert to pull together these yummy packets (wontons) from scratch either. Although in a pinch I heard (you know word on the street) if you make your own broth and just boil the frozen dumplings you get at Trader Joe’s you can shave off a ton of time, not that I would dare take such a blatant shortcut. #justsaying.

  • 7  oz. shrimp, peeled and finely chopped
  • 10 oz. ground pork
  • 1/2 egg white
  • 1 tablespoon corn starch
  • 3 tablespoon rice vinegar (1 tbsp. for wonton and 2 for soup)
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 splash of soy sauce
  • 1 splash of sambal sauce or chili oil
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, grated
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon table salt
  • 1 package wonton wrappers
  • 6 cups chicken broth – low sodium
  • 1/2 pound baby bok choy (I like some leafy greens in my soup, the original recipe doesn’t call for it so I will just leave it as optional)
  • Green Onion/Scallions, thinly sliced

In a large mixing bowl combine shrimp, pork, egg white, corn starch, rice vinegar, sesame oil, ginger, sugar, and salt. Allow the mixture to “marinate” for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lightly dust with cornstarch. To assemble wontons, fill each skin with about a teaspoon of filling, and fold either in half, into flower blossoms, or into nurse’s caps (don’t know what either mean, but basically you are wetting the sides and pinching to create seams, photo). Place each finished wonton on the baking sheet. Then, drop the wontons in a large pot of boiling water and cook until they float, 5-6 minutes. Slowly, over low heat, warm the chicken broth, vinegar, chili oil, and scallions. Place a few boiled wontons into each bowl, and ladle with the warm chicken broth. Top with thinly sliced scallions & drizzle of soy sauce.

Happy Eating, XO.