Viet World Kitchen

Salted Caramelized Walnuts Recipe

Walnuts look like brains and I read of an old Chinese belief that if you eat them, you may get smarter! Whether or not you subscribe to that idea, you must try these walnuts. They are so cleverly done – soaked to remove their tannins (the stuff that makes you pucker) and then oven roasted to slowly cook them. The nuts can sit for days until an hour or so before you’re ready to serve.

The final cooking in a skillet coats the nuts with a delicate touch of salt and sugar. While it’s dead simple, remember to watch the skillet temp or the nuts can burn. The refined flavor remains intact, delicious with drinks or even cheese for a cross-cultural approach.

Simple Stir-Fried Pea Tips Recipe and Buying Guide

I have a love-hate relationship with pea tips. When they are perfect, shot through with tenderness and spring-fresh pea flavor, I’m in a state of bliss. But they are an iffy vegetable to buy, a potential pain in the butt. If you’re not thorough in prepping them or buy a bag full of mature tips, you end up with a stir-fry riddled with dental floss-like pieces. Sometimes the pea tips resemble damp toothpicks. In other words, you don’t want to eat them because you can’t chew them. Pea tips thrill but can frustrate.

What are pea tips? A variety of snow pea that’s grown only for its tender tips. Sold at Chinese markets, they’re called dou miao in Mandarin. Pea tips look like pea vines but they only grown a foot or two; they are not trellised. (If you want to grow pea tips, here is a seed source.)

A few years back, I visited with an Asian-American farmer who explained that harvesting pea tips is very time consuming.  To get a bag of good tender ones you have to be careful and knowledgeable when snipping. She showed me some plants in a hot house and while they all looked the same to me, they were over the hill to her. We had to squat to get at them. Pea tips are a bargain at $3 to $5 a pound, given the amount of labor that’s required to get them to market.

Roasted Kabocha and Vegetable Dumplings Recipe

I’ve had pumpkin dumplings in Monterey Park and Beijing, their pretty tangerine-colored filling of grated winter (hard) squash were unpleasantly bland and sometimes undercooked. It’s an Asian dumpling that I’ve let simmer on the back burner for a while and didn’t tackle till this week, when faced with leftover roasted kabocha squash. My husband Rory said, “Let’s make Italian raviolis with the kabocha.”

I responded with this dumpling filled with roasted squash, earthy shiitake and parsnip, and upbeat celery. The seasonings involve fried shallot, lots of ginger and enough garlic for pungent depth. I wanted the ingredients to support and elevate the natural sweetness of the kabocha. I’d planned on adding soy sauce but in the end, there was so much great flavor from the vegetables that the only seasoning I added was salt. 

In other words, gluten-free dumpling eaters, this filling is for you too! No need to get the wheat-free tamari out. See the link at the end of this post for gluten-free dumpling dough options. 

Matar Soy Paneer Recipe (Peas and Tofu in Spicy Sweet Sauce)

I love the classic northern Indian dish of peas and cheese but I seldom order it at a restaurant. I can’t eat a lot of fresh dairy and frankly, it is often lackluster, especially at inexpensive lunch buffets where there’s more sauce than sweet peas and rich fried cheese.

My solution is to make it at home with soy paneer (tofu). The little fried cubes of tofu soak up the spicy sweet sauce very well. This week, I discovered a frozen bag of San Marzano tomato puree from last summer and a partially used bag of frozen peas. Those finds made for the perfect excuse to prepare a batch of matar (mutter) soy paneer.

We had it for lunch with another frozen discovery – papery thin Middle Eastern flatbread. (Yes, I'm trying to clean out the freezer's 2012 inventory.) Wheat tortillas reheated over an open flame would have been my other choice; it’s a decent shortcut for chapati.

Step-by-Step Chinese Roast Duck Recipe & Tips

To kick off 2013 last week I roasted a duck. It was a festive way to celebrate New Year but also an excuse to practice my whole duck cooking and use the new stove’s oven. I’ve experimented with deep-fried Sichuan duck and roast Peking duck. Vietnamese people often roast duck with red fermented tofu  (vit nuong chao) so I decided to combine various methods and best-practices into one. It was a delicious duck that we ate over the course of two dinners. 

Instead of a normal recipe format, I’m going to do walk you through the process so you can apply them later on. Hey, Lunar New Year isn’t far away. A roast duck could be part of your menu for launching the Year of the Snake!