Yam Khai Dao Recipe

After eating at Pok Pok, Andy Ricker’s highly acclaimed PDX establishment, I was inspired to make Yam Khai Dao myself. Yam Khai Dao is a Thai Fried Egg Salad. I thought Wikipedia explained it best -

Yam (Thai pronunciation: [jām]) literally means “mix” but in Thai cuisine it normally refers to a type of salad-like dishes… Yam can be made with a wide variety of ingredients as its main ingredient and nearly any type of protein, vegetable, fruit, herb, spice, and noodle, or combinations… Besides the main ingredient, the basic recipe of a yam will nearly always contain sliced fresh shallots or onions, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, and fresh or dried chillies. When herbs are used, it is usually Chinese celery, sometimes in combination with other fresh herbs such as spearmint, coriander leaves, spring onions and culantro. Very often, sliced tomatoes are also added in…

I referenced a recipe, courtesy of Food.com (click here), and found it extremely easy to make! Unfortunately, I’m not great at handling spiciness so I omitted the chilies. Overall, it tasted very similar to what I had at the restaurant, and it took only 10-15 minutes to prepare.

The recipe will provide more detailed instructions, but basically just like what Wikipedia said…

1. Mix fish sauce, sugar, garlic, coriander (aka cilantro), and fresh lime juice until sugar dissolves. Expect the dressing to be sweet & savory.
2. Fry (or deep fry) eggs. You can plate them chopped or whole (as I have pictured above).
3. Add tomatoes, greens, onions, or other ingredients to your “yam.”
4. Mix ingredients together and enjoy!

Who knew making Thai food could be that simple? :)

Mr. Kim's Tuna Poke

Why I Love Visiting Hawaii Reason #5

Mr. Kim makes a mean Tuna Poke.

Making Coffee... The Whole Nine Yards

What I love most about visiting Jonathan’s family in Hawaii is his father’s backyard garden. His dad grows everything from Hawaiian papaya, apple bananas, to turmeric and purple sweet potatoes! It’s always a treat to wake up to fresh fruit and vegetables on the table.

One of his newer editions to his garden was a Kona Coffee Tree. Jonathan, being the coffee connoisseur (or snob) he is, wanted to harvest and roast his own beans for the first time. And of course, I was going to tag along for that adventure.

We went to the backyard and picked a handful of ripe berries. I attempted to eat one raw… and boy, was that a bad decision. It was super bitter and clearly not what I expected from a pretty berry.

Once we were done with our harvest, we went back inside to give them a quick rinse, and then the real work began.

Unbeknownst to me, coffee beans are actually the seeds inside the berries. Besides the flesh of the berry, another filmy layer (the scientific term known as “mucilage”) protects the seed, and both need to be removed prior to roasting. Once we had exposed all the seeds, we soaked them in water for a day to loosen the filmy layer.

And then they went out to dry for a few days.

The drying process further separated the husk/parchment layer from the bean, which finally prepared it for roasting!

Roasting required lots of patience. You had to make sure the beans didn’t burn, so every few minutes, we would have to swirl the pan. This process went on for a little under an hour, but even then, the beans were barely roasted (we had lost patience). After grinding and doing a proper pour over, it only produced a tea-like consistency versus a deep coffee hue we were expecting. It was sort of gross so I didn’t even bother taking a picture, haha.

Although our coffee wasn’t as gratifying as we hoped considering all the work we went through, it definitely helped me appreciate the process and respect quality sourcing. Every cup and every brew has its own story and attempting to roast our own beans brought that to life for me. I don’t know if I would do this again (Jonathan is already planning to retry it), but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

Side note: must give mad props to whoever figured out how to do all these steps just for a cup of coffee. Who would have thought this process dated back to the 15th century. The Ethiopians, Arabians, or whoever it was must have been pretty bored…

Easy Coconut Macaroons Recipe

I never knew how easy it was to make macaroons! I found this recipe in my Real Simple magazine (love love love that publication). Literally took 10 minutes of prep. I’ve posted it here to share:

Ingredients

• 3  large egg whites
• 1/2  cup  sugar
• 1/2  teaspoon  pure vanilla extract
• 1/4  teaspoon  kosher salt
• 1  14-ounce package sweetened shredded coconut (about 5 cups)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325° F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
2. Vigorously whisk together the egg whites, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a medium bowl until glossy, foamy, and the sugar is mostly almost dissolved. Fold in the coconut, stirring until evenly combined.
3. Using a small ice cream scoop, drop the batter in mounds (about 2 tablespoons each) 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake, rotating the sheets halfway through, until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes; let cool completely. The macaroons will keep for up to 5 days at room temperature in an airtight container.

The macaroons came out a little dry with this recipe, so I recommend adding a bit of milk to the mixture to make it a bit creamy. Jonathan and I also experimented by adding cinnamon to a few and mole spices (Mexican cocoa powder mix) to a few others. I was a huge fan of the cinnamon! Definitely have fun in the kitchen customizing this basic recipe.

How To Cook Bitter Melon

Bitter Melon is a vegetable that requires an acquired taste. It’s kind of like what an IPA is to beers, and in fact, in Asia, there are beers that replace hops with bitter melon. The vegetable is super healthy (some people attribute it with medicinal properties), and also very easy to prepare.

Prep

Like a squash, the bitter melon has seeds that needs to be scooped out. Halve melon, remove seeds, and cut into slices.

Cooking

It can be cooked multiple ways - in an omelette, in a vegetable stir fry, etc. but if you’ve never had it before, I would ease your taste buds into it by adding sugar. The sugar will off-balance the bitterness along with other sauces you may use. Tofu is also a great add because it has a neutral taste and soaks up the flavors that you cook the bitter melon in.

It takes a while getting used to, but once you’ve developed that acquired taste (and tapered down the sugar), it’s very enjoyable AND you reap all the health benefits.

FOOD ACTION PLAN #1

Use new ingredients at least once every two weeks.