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Panna Cotta with Mixed Berry Sauce
Nothing says summer quite like a berry dessert. One of my favorite restaurant treat is panna cotta. The mixture of creamy panna cotta with a sweet and tart berry sauce is simplicity at its best. This dessert is super easy to make, but still has that wow factor whenever I serve it. Enjoy this summer treat at the end of your next meal. Ingredients:...
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No-Knead Artisan Bread with Dutch Oven
As I dive deeper into my quarantine bread baking journey, I became fascinated with different baking and kneading techniques with essentially the same four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. The variety of bread is endless. As much as I love making French baguettes from scratch, it can be a process. Using the same four ingredients with a 75% target dough hydration, I tested...
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Quick Caramelized Chicken
My niece’s favorite meal, whenever grandma comes around, is this caramelized chicken dish with rice. It comprises of classic Vietnamese salty and sweet flavors with tender moist chicken and crispy skin. It’s a flavor bomb and it never lasts long in this household. This is a very simple dish, which makes it a perfect weeknight meal. Ingredients: 6 drumsticks or other cuts of chicken...
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Bánh Tiêu Mật Ong/ Honey Glazed Sesame Hollow Donuts
Bánh tiêu is essentially the Vietnamese version of fried dough or donut. One can find them sold throughout any town from street vendors. These donuts differ from American donuts due to bánh tiêu having a hollow center. This creates a light and fluffy donut with a chewy texture, which also has a light crunch from the sesame seeds. To take this traditional hollow donut...
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Chè Nhãn Hạt Sen / Longan and Lotus Seed Summer Pudding
Summer in Vietnam can be brutal with the average temperature hitting in the high 80F’s and with the suffocating humidity, it can feel like it’s 100F degrees. I remembered taking two to three showers a day when I was visiting my family in July. As a result, locals turn to refreshing food and drinks such as longan and lotus seed summer pudding served with...
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Honey Milk Bread
Ever since my first trip to Japan years ago, I have been obsessed with fluffy white bread that is drastically tastier than the US version. I could only find this at good Asian bakeries like Tous Le Jour. Due to the pandemic, milk bread was hard to come by. I scoured Youtube and blogs to find the perfect recipe and after a few trials...
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Viet-Cajun Butter Sauce for Seafood
Like all good recipes, I accidentally created this addicting crack sauce (per my foodie family) when I was experimenting with new toppings to take steamed seafood up a notch. In the summer, our family likes to have a variety of crustacean and shellfish. Viet-Cajun style butter sauce has been popular for seafood boil starting in the southern region of the US for a few...
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Refreshing Summer Slaw
I randomly created this refreshing and crunchy slaw during our quarantine when we ran out of everything else. The key ingredients are Asian pear, apple and crab sticks. The family devoured it and kept asking for more. Furthermore, I also found that it keeps very well in the fridge and tastes better the longer it marinates. This slaw goes well as salad for a...
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The Beginner Gardener Series: May 2020 Experience
Gardening is all about trials and errors. You will likely make mistakes, but also gain insights into being a better gardener. Here is my list of successes and failures so far this year: 1- I was over-eager to acclimate my indoor seedlings in late April… and half of them died. Luckily, I overseeded, so I had backups. For one, my cucumbers struggled to...
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Nước Sâm / Vietnamese Herbal Ice Tea
Vietnamese herbal tea is usually served with ice, which makes it a refreshing drink in the middle of a hot and humid summer day. This drink is inspired by Chinese medicine with a focus on ingredients that have “cooling” properties. There are many variations and the one that we are sharing includes artichokes. Don’t be put off by the scary ingredient list as they...
