Shrimp and Squid salad (Goi tom muc)

This shrimp and squid salad is such a refreshing dish that serves great as an appetizer at your weekday dinner and perfect at any weekend parties. The dish is super simple to prepare and super delicious for the taste buds. The secret to this tasty salad is in the dressing. Transforming the pungent fish sauce into a delicious dressing to bring out the freshness of the salad can be challenging if the ratios is off. The ratios that I'm mentioning here are between the fish sauce, the lime juice and the sugar. The simplest one to remember is 1:1:1, but for me I like a little more sweetness to the dressing so I tend to add a little more sugar into sauce. Adjust the ratios to however you like and get your beers ready for some tasty treat.

Vietnamese vermicelli with Barbecued Pork (Bun cha thit nuong)

The weather has been warm enough lately for an early Barbecue event. Well, not quite yet at certain places on the globe, but we have been very blessed for living in Southern California with gorgeous weather of early Spring. So I have to take advantage of our new barbecue grill and the weather to make this delicious Northern Vietnamese noodle dish.

To me, this dish resemblances more of a salad than a noodle entree. Mostly, because I love to add a lot of vegetables with the  smallest amount of noodle possible to my bowl whenever I eat this. Also, the fish sauce serves as a dressing and ultimately brings everything together in this dish like a salad. That is why to me, making the fish sauce dressing is just as important as marinating and grilling the meats. The lightness of the minty vegetables and the smokey fragrance of the barbecued meats make you feel delighted and guilt-free when enjoying this noodle "salad".

Thai seafood salad (Goi Thai tom muc)

The post of this dish is way overdue! I made this yummy Thai salad a couple weeks ago and didn't have a chance to share it until now. It has been an overwhelming week for me physically and emotionally. Sometimes, I really wish to have some alone moments to sit down and unwind all the stresses. But the day continues to pass on, and one day after another I found myself continue to move forward with the whirlwinds of life.

Alright, enough with the excuses for the delay, back to business. This refreshing seafood salad is definitely a must try if you are into Thai food. It can be paired perfectly with any main entree for any daily meal. I used the same dressing ingredients that were used in Thai green papaya salad, and it blended perfectly together with the seafood mixture. It feels like an explosion of flavors in your mouth and sending your taste buds on a wild adventure. What better than a fresh, flavorful plate of salad for dinner in a warm summer night?

Stir-fried bok choi with dried shrimps and cabbage salad

The weather this week has been so torturing for me. I don't know how everyone else handling the heat, but for me, I don't do very well in it. I have always preferred the cold over the heat simply because I can't function in this weather. I feel like my whole body shutting down and every movement that I make take a tremendous effort to do so. 

We are reconstructing our patio cover in the backyard soon, so I hope the heat will not last too long. Hopefully, I will be able to sit and enjoy the evening breeze with our dinner once we get more shades for the patio. For now we have to refrain ourselves from any outdoor activities until the heat has subsided. Anyway, in this weather, the best things to eat are anything green and refreshing such as these two dishes that we had for dinner yesterday. Not only that they are healthful for the body, colorful for eyes, but also delightful and tasty for the taste buds. 

Actually, there is a secret behind this cabbage salad. It's supposed to be a Thai green papaya salad, but I didn't have any green papaya on hands so I did a little improvisation. With a quarter of the cabbage head left in the fridge, I thought why not substituting it for the shredded papaya? So except for replacing the main ingredient, green papaya, with shredded cabbage, I pretty much kept all other ingredients the same from my previous posted recipe for the green papaya salad. The verdict? My husband said he liked it more so than the traditional green papaya because the crunchiness of the shredded cabbage added more texture to the salad and together they blended so well. I hope you all will enjoy my new creation as much as we did!

Shaking beef with watercress salad (bo luc lac)

I can't believe it's already August! This summer has gone by so quickly before we even had a chance to kickback and unwind. My oldest son is back to school next week and he's going on first grade. I can still remember the day we dropped him off at the daycare for the first time more than three years ago. The feeling still lingers on with me as I reminisce how anxious we were to be separated from our child.  I think I've cried more than he did on that day. And now in a couple more days, he will be in first grade! Oh my, how fast time has flown by, and pretty soon I will have to send him off to college.  Alright, maybe not that soon, but you know what I mean. 

In a few more days, school nights going to be busy and I won't have the luxury to enjoy my free time baking or blogging as much as I desire. Dinners will have to be cut short to something quick and easy to leave more time for school activities and homework. Therefore, I want to introduce this simple, easy and delightful Vietnamese beef salad called bo luc lac or shaking beef. The dish can be eaten as is on its own or with some steamed rice for a more balance and complete meal. The slight bitterness of the watercress and the tanginess of the vinaigrette entwine beautifully with the juicy, tender beef. The name of this dish loosely translated to shaking beef to imply the method of how the beef is cooked. The beef is essentially being tossed and shake back and forth under the intense heat to sear and caramelize the outside, but leave the inside with the ravishing pink, tender and juicy texture.  This dish will always stay on the list of my all time favorites.

Thai green papaya salad (Som Tam)

Anybody who is familiar with Thai cuisine must definitely know about a popular and refreshing salad called Som Tam or green papaya salad. Since I love spicy food, this dish quickly won my heart over as one of my favorite Thai dish. The spicier the dish, the tastier it is for me. My poor husband, who can't tolerate the heat as well as I do, had to drink buckets of water while eating it. Despite the fieriness of the heat, he couldn't resist himself from picking up one bite after another, with occasional sips of water in between.  

The dish itself is so refreshing and flavorful that I could just eat it alone with a bowl of steamed rice without any other entrees. The tartness of green papaya, green beans and the sweet tanginess of cherry tomatoes (freshly grown in my garden) combine wonderfully with the tasty dressing of fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. All together, they create an unforgettable combination of flavors in your mouth. It's a perfect blend of all flavors- spicy, salty, sweet and sour. This iconic taste of Thai cuisine is utterly scrumptious as well as addictive.

I twisted the original recipe a little by substituting regular dried shrimps with deep-fried dried shrimps to add an additional crunchy texture to the salad. I also sprinkled some chopped mint leaves, that grow abundantly in my garden, to add some aroma to the dish. The result is one colorful and flavor-filled dish that will ultimately win your heart over. 

Prosciutto and baby arugula salad

Don't feel like anything heavy or soupy in this scorching hot weather? I got just a perfect dish for you in this wilting heat! Yes, a salad! Refreshing, light, simple and equally delicious. 

My husband, "a meat and potato" kind of guy, who thinks beers and fries belong to the vegetable food group, actually loves this salad very much. It is his favorite green dish beside the homemade Ceasar salad. And the best part is that it takes no time to prepare. So when I feel like it is time to squeeze some greens into his system, this is the dish that I will go for.