Chef Chong's Crab Cake Salad

Wow, this is the blast! I always think of avocado and crab meat is a good combination. In fact, I came up with this wonderful delicio crab cake recipe. Dont be surprise with lots of ingredients in it.

Recipe soon.

Halibut light and easy

Halibut is a very tasty white fish. I love it when it is seared and steamed provided it is fresh. This time, I am cooking it in the oven at 450 F so that I no need to clean the stove top from searing the fish. It is a very interesting combination of marinade, and with capers.

Recipe soon.

Leftover Mussels Clams Pasta

I got the leftover Mussels Clams Pasta from work last nite. The Chef, Chef Neda, made this wonderful deliciouso pasta for the family. She has the magic touch on it, but little salty. Well, you know, sometimes we as a chef add too much of the salt, and different people different taste buds. Today for lunch, I made it over by adding some leftover curry sauce I had from a Malaysian restaurant, heat it up either in the microwave or in the oven at 350 F. Of cos, you have to cover it when you put into the oven or else, it will dry the pasta. For the side, I roasted Cauliflower with olive oil, salt and some curry powder until little brown and soft (say 45 min at 350 F). It was so good! Enjoy the day with this wonderful simple easy savings meal.

Butter Roast Dungeness Crab

Well, it is a dungeness crab season in California. It is so cheap, cost $3.99 per lb last weekend and lots of people are crazy about them. I am sure lots of people cooking the crabs at home, their own Grandma or Mama style. Also there are lots of good restaurants serving good crabs, such as PPQ Dungeness Island, a Vietnamese restaurant. So, I decided to cook the crab, my own style, inspired by PPQ, called  Butter Roast Dungeness Crab. One crab can feed 2 people.

Ingredients:-

1 small size Dungeness crab (1.5 lb) clean and cut into 4 pieces.
1/2 stick unsalted butter (divide into 2 portion)
1 Tablespoon chop fresh Parsley
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
2 teaspoon Garlic salt


Methods:-

1. Heat a small pot (8-9" size) on medium heat.
2. Put the crab, half of the 1/2 butter, garlic salt and black pepper. Cover the pot with lid. Let it roast in the pot for 5 minutes.
3. Then stir it with thongs and add the rest of the butter and chop parsley, cover with the lid and roast for another 3-5 minutes.
4. You will see the crab is curled up and also you can smell the buttery parsley smell out of the pot.

Selamat Mencuba!

The Perfect Seared Scallop

Believe it or not, I had never seared a scallop.   So my partner dared me to do it.  Of course I'm always up to a challenge.  He said they were one of the most perfect scallops he had ever had.

 Here's how I did it.

Recipe
Soon to come

White Ciopino

Gregg and I went to Blue Eye, MO to visit Jim Long and Josh Young. Of cos, Barbara (Josh's mom), Molly the dog and Squeeky the cat. Usually, I will cook for them, The Chef Chong's style. I cooked seafood ciopino that day for dinner because Barbara wanted to have some scallops. Well, in my head I was thinking of searing them with salt, pepper and some seasoning. However, I changed my mind the last minute, because the big scallops were not enough for all of us. So I used small scallops and shrimps in the freezer for the ciopino. You can soak the frozen in water to thaw.

Also that I used the peppers and cilantro grown in Jim's garden. See, it is simple and delicious.

Ingredients:-

Scallops and Shrimps (clean and pat dry)
One garlic (smashed and chopped finely)
Half Onion (sliced)
4-5 mini yellow peppers (cut into pieces, any shapes you want) will find out the name of the peppers later
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste

Methods:-
1. Heat the pan with olive oil. Caramelised the sliced onion and peppers. Then put aside.
2. Use the same pan, throw in the seafood. Add salt and black peppers. You can see some juice coming out from the seafood after a min or two.
3. Add in the caramelised onion and peppers, the butter, garlic, wine, cilantro and green onion into the seafood.
4. Cook for another min or two, try one of the shrimp and the taste. Add salt to taste. You can put in the oven at low while waiting for your guests.

Bon Appetite!

A Square of Salmon

Salmon is always a great staple to have, very healthy and a good square meal, so I made it into a square of Salmon. I just arranged some romaine lettuce leaves as the square "bed" to lay on, then layered it with a little rice, a layer of roasted vegetables, the salmon and the sauce. A perfectly healthy lunch or dinner!

Recipe:

Soon to come

You can Sushi too!

You don't have to be an expert Sushi Chef to make sushi. In fact, you don't need any specific ingredients besides the rice and the nori (seaweed). Again, whatever's leftover in your fridge/freezer is fair game. This weekend, I had leftover bacon, eggs, shrimp, mushrooms and cucumber. I tried combining a couple of these ingredients, and you know what, it tasted great!

Shrimp Soup

Again, one of the simplest, most satisfying meals to make is soup. Don't shy away from making soups, anyone can make them. This is a very asian soup, filled with succulent shrimp and the common mainstay, noodles.

Recipe:

Soon to come

The Catfish's Meow

Interestingly enough, I guess since I'm the leftover makeover, out of 4 dishes that I served at a party, the one that I turned into a Leftover Makeover was the biggest hit of all. They had some leftover catfish, and I know that when catfish is made right, it can be very good. Try this recipe, and you will have your guests meowing for more!

Ingredients:-

4-5 Fillet Catfish (any kind of fish if fine)

Half Carrots (juliened)

2 stalk Green onions (chopped)

1 teaspoon Hot Sauce or Sri Racha

2 tablespoon Fish sauce

2 tablespoon Sugar

1 tablespoon Rice Vinegar

1/4 cup Water

1 teaspoon smashed garlic

1/2 Onions (sliced)

Salt and Pepper

Methods:-

1. Heat the non-stick saucepan with 3-4 tablespoon Vegetable oil, medium to high heat.

2. Sprinkle salt and pepper on to the fish and then seared half cook (want to get the little crust)

3. Take out the half done fish.

4. Add sliced onions and carrots, caramelised it, then add garlic.

5. Add fish sauce, rice vinegar, water, hot sauce and sugar, reduce this sauce. (taste it first)

(Tips: if too sour, add sugar and if too sweet, add vinegar and water. If too salty, add sugar, vinegar and water)

6. Add back the fish and green onions, to mix with the reduced sauce.
7. Eat with steam rice.

Kumquat Salmon

Don't be afraid to mix fruits with seafood. It is a delicious way to make boring salmon become a show stopper. With this recipe, I used both pineapples and kumquats, for a healthy unique meal.

Ingredients

Pineapple

Kumquat

Onions

Balsamic Vinegar

Salmon

Salt

Recipe

Soon to come

Pineapple Curry

Curry's quickly becoming my new favorite cuisine. You can do anything you want with it. I mean without using Coconut Milk. This time I wanted to make it a little sweeter, with pineapple. The pineapple balanced out the shrimp perfectly. Also to use the old peanuts you have in the closet. Try to roast them in the oven again before use. I actually used the pineapple which has been sitting at the table for awhile. Or you have leftover cut pineapple in a container in the fridge.

Ingredients:-

6-7 Shrimps (shelled)

1 cup Pineapple (cubed)

1 teaspoon smashed garlic

2 Tablespoon Red curry paste (Thailand)

2-3 cups Water (depends on how dilute you want your curry to be)

1/2 cup Crushed peanuts

3 tablespoon Vegetable oil

Salt and sugar to taste

Methods:-

1. Heat a pot with vegetable oil at medium heat.

2. Add garlic and curry paste together, stir for few seconds.

3. Add water and pineapple and boil it for 2 minutes.

4. Salt and sugar to taste.

5. Add in the shrimps and crushed peanuts. Cook for 1 minute.

6. Good to eat with Basmati rice.

Deep Fried Fish

You can't get any more inexpensive than this meal. All you have to do is have a little luck and catch it yourself!

We caught these beautiful rainbow trout while visiting gorgeous Lake Tahoe. Instead of filleting it and getting only small fillets out of it, it's easiest to fry the whole fish. Simply clean it, season it, and then dip it in flour.

Add 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil to your skillet, and fry until golden. Adding a mixture of adobe sauce and bbq sauce gives it a little kick, and makes this basically FREE meal a healthy (those omegas3) and fulfilling one.

Barbeque Bass

What was leftover here was actually a lot of lemons that a friend had given me. So lemon juice is needed for fish, so fish it was. Also, the truth of the matter is, that me and my partner had gone for a nice fishing trip. We enjoyed the sun, had a nice snack, but we got NO FISH. So, we got some great chilean sea bass at a nice gourmet store for 22.99 a lb!! (That's why you go fishing, because it's much cheaper!) The secret to this recipe is the barbeque rub. You might think of that for meat, but on a chilean sea bass, a barbeque rub is music to a fisherman's ears!

Ingredients:
Barbeque Rub
Barbeque Seasoning (use your favorite)
Paprika
Ground Black Pepper
Cumin

Sauce
4 tbsp. Soy Sauce
Chopped Shallots
2 tbsp. White sugar

Directions

• Rub the bass with all the ingredients
• Heat up the pan with vegetable oil (medium heat)
• Sear the fish approx. 2 1/2 minutes each side
• Take the fish out to rest
• Add the shallots into the same pan and saute until brown, add soy sauce and sugar
• Drizzle sauce over the bass.
• Squeeze the lemons over the fish
• (I served with blanched sugar peas)
  

Enjoy the Fish without the Fishing!