Caramelized salmon- I will write blog again!

So last night I remembered that I had a food blog once, where I can post ingredient and not forget about it, and I can share with my friends in case they want it. I realized that I have not only one but two blogs! Both are Jolie’s corner, one in Blogspot and one in WordPress. One in Vietnamese and one in English. So I choose this one, the one in English, so I can also improve my English writing too.

So here I am, writing about my yesterday lunch meal:

 

Caramelized salmon, steamed Chinese broccoli with eggs and tamari sauce and brown rice

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of salmon (with bones)
• 2 tbs of brown sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• 2 fresh thai chili and 2 dried red chili
• a piece of ginger, minced
• 1 shallot, crushed
• 1 tbs of galangal powder (optional). You can use fresh one (it’s better), but I can’t find the fresh one here. I brought back one from Vietnam.
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tbs salt
• 1 stp of coconut oil

1. Making the caramelized sauce: in a saucepan add 2 tbs brown sugar. Turn on the stove in medium, wait until it melts. It will happen very quickly so you should be there all the time. Do not stir! When the sugar is melt and turns medium dark brown, turn off the stove and all a quarter cup of water.
2. Add all the spices on the sauce: 1 tbs sugar, the chili, ginger, shallot, fish sauce, salt and pepper, galangal and coconut oil.
3. If you want your fish really firm, before you add the fish to the sauce, pan fried it. It is optional. Add the fish to the sauce. You want the water to cover the fish. If not, add more water.
4. Turn on the stove again in medium, braise the fish for 15-20 mins, reduce the heat if the water is reducing too quickly. Your fish is ready when the sauce becomes thick.
5. Serve with steam rice. For a healthier version, I am using brown rice.

On a side, I made steam chinese broccoli with an egg and tamari sauce. It is very easy so I will not explain much. The secret for a green, crunchy steam vegetable is using high heat temperature, wait until the water is super boiled, then add 1 stp of salt. Do not cover the lid.

Bon Appetit!

 

A closer look at my caramelized salmon. Originally people use catfish, but I use wild caught Alaskan salmon for a healthier option. 

 

 

La petite robe noire- review at first sign

I want to have a sample of “La petit robe noire” ( The little black dress in English) because I have a lot of black dresses. I think it would be cool if I wear it with one of my black dress 😛 (By the way, every girl need at least one black- classic- little dress, I think it is very true :P)

It smells like Lolita Lempika EDP for the first second, but after just a minute it turn to smell like Angel from Thierry Mugler, with a strong smell of patchouli (which is nice for those who like the patchouli smell, but I think I prefer something more complicated :P) The perfum lasts quite long (for more than 5 hours) and would be suitable for the winter.

In the description it says: “A creation embroidered with the most beautiful “black” note in perfumery: Black Cherry, Black Rose, Patchouli, Smoked Tea. But sorry Guerlain, I only smell your Patchouli.

Will I buy a big bottle? I don’t think so 😛

Home-made Fajitas

Last weekend I made fajitas at home, and it was a big success. My boyfriend ate six! Then he could’nt move 😛

So now I will show you how to make fajitas at home. It’s quite easy and quick. I even made tortillas myself, you can see the ingredients here:

https://joliecorner.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/how-to-make-tortillas/

To make 10 fajitas, you will need:

• 10 tortillas
• 500g chicken (I used boneless chicken breast)
• 1 onion
• 2 bell peppers
• 5 tsp of Fajita seasoning
• Cheese (optional), salsa (optional)

1. Slice the chicken and add the fajita seasoning, mix well and set for 20 mins.

 

2. Slice the onion and peppers:

 

3. Heat up some vegetable oil (about 2 spoons) and add the chicken. Still well.

 

4. Stir the onion and peppers

 

5. Add the chicken into the vegetable, stir well and turn of the heat.

 

Now the fajitas it’s ready. You can put the chicken, onion, pepper, cheese, salsa on a tortilla, roll it and eat 😛

 

Enjoy!

How to make Tortillas

Tortilla is the bread that we use in Mexican food, such as taco, fajita and burrito. It’s easy to find tortilla in the western shops in Hanoi, but it’s even easier to make it at home, and it is much cheaper. So I will show you all the steps to make flour tortillas.

To make 10 tortillas you will need:

• 4 cups of flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1tsp salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

2. Add in vegetable oil, mix well.

3. Add in water, mix well into a dough and let it set for 10 mins.

4. Cut the dough in to 10 pieces (each one in the shape of an egg)

5. Flour the surface and roll each piece with a rolling pin (or with a Vodka bottle like me :P)

6. To make it pretty: put a dish on the roll and run a knife around:

7. Put it in a pan and turn when you see some bubbles.

Then it’s ready for you to make tacos, fajitas or burritos. In the picture below is the fajita I made last weekend. I will write a note about it later 😀

Bubble milk tea

Bubble milk tea is very popular with young people in Vietnam, but it´s Taiwan original. It is a combination of tea, milk and pearl or jelly. So you can eat the jelly when you drink the tea milk. It´s quite cheap here in Vietnam and you can find many places call ¨Pearl Milk Tea¨ all around the city. But people say it´s not good for health, cause you never know what kind of milk they use.

I like to drink milk tea very much, and I drink it every day. My favorite tea is Chai tea. But to make Milk tea I use vanilla black tea (which has real vanilla bean in it, great flavor!)

So here is the ingredient to make bubble milk tea:

• 100ml milk
• 200ml water
• 2 tablespoons black tea (with vanilla)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 20 pearls (this is white jelly with coconut inside)
• a block of black jelly, cut into small cubes

How to make it:

• Bring water in a boil, add the tea. Add sugar and stir. Set aside for 5.10 mins.
• Add milk and bring it to a boil, and immediately remove from the heat.
• In another saucepan, bring the pearl to a boil and continue to boil for about 5 mins. Remove from the heat and put the pearls into cold water.
• Put jelly and pearls into a cup.
• Add the milk tea.
• Add ice or you can put in the fridge. This bubble tea better drink within the day.

Enjoy!

You can use green tea, or macha powder to make bubble green tea, it is great too!

Home-made Oreo ice-cream

I made Oreo ice-cream again! And with my new discorvery about the esiest way to make ice-cream, it only took about 15 mins to make delicious Oreo ice-cream!

To make Oreo Ice-cream, you will need:

• 300g whipped cream, whip until peak form
• 200g condensed milk
• 20 oreos, cut into small pieces

Then, you fold all the ingredient together.

And put it into boxes. Freeze for at least 6 hours.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread

If anyone asks me about  what they should bake when they start baking, my answer would be banana bread. Many people I know in Vietnam would start with Tiramisu (so would I) because Tiramisu seems to be a symbol of baking (like when you think about Vietnamese food, you think about spring rolls), here  in Vietnam when you think about cake many people think about tiramisu. However, banana bread is worth trying if you are  just beginning at baking, because it is very hard to fail! I usually make banana bread when there are too many bananas in the kitchen, and they will be too old if you don´t use them immediately.

To make Banana bread you will need:

• 1. Dry ingredients:
• 230g flour
• 120g sugar
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/4tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 100g walnut (optional, I usually skip it, because walnut is quite expensive here)

• 2. Wet ingredients:
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 113g butter, melted and cooled
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• (one banana, sliced, if you want decorate the bread)
• 1tsp vanilla extract

How to do:

• Mix the dry ingredients separately.
• Mix the wet ingredients separately.
• Mix the dry and wet ingredients until well combined.
• Put into a pan and bake for about 60mins at 180*C

Banana bread is also my parent´s favorite. It feels really good when you smell the banana and cinnamon in your kitchen on a winter day.

Happy bird-day

Well, my boyfriend just turned 30! So we had a small birthday party (2 people were invited: him and me lol). So here are the things we had for celebration:

– Cookies and Cream ice-cream. As I mentioned in the previous post I now can make ice-cream myself, so I decided to make Oreo ice-cream for him, with a lots of Oreo. He liked it very much, but I forgot to take pictures.
– Vanilla cake. With his favorite American vanilla icing. It looks simple and nice. I also made 5 cupcakes in case the big cake had a problem. But it worked, so the only problem is that my bf has the whole big cake and he can´t stop eating it.
– Snickerdoodles: This is the second time I’ve made snickerdoodles, the first time was last Christmas. They’re  simple cookies covered by cinnamon and sugar powder.
– A massage with lavender oil
– Sushi for dinner
So if anyone asks me how to make their bf happy, for me the answer is easy. Just make him lots of cookies. and cake.

Pancakes party

Pancakes are very suitable for a party, because it´s easy to make, and you can add different sauces on it so everyone can have their favorite ones.

To make pancakes you will need:

• 190g flour
• 5g baking powder
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 300ml milk
• 1 egg
• 50g butter
• 1tsp vanilla extract

How to make pancake:

1. Mix the flour and baking powder
2. Heat up the milk until warm , add butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract. Stir and remove from the heat.
3. Add the flour. Add egg and stir until well combine.
4. Heat the pan in medium flame.
5. Pour about 3 tablespoons.
6. Cook for about 2 mins or until you can see bubble, gentle flip the cake.
7. Cook for another 2 mins.
8. Continue until all the pancakes are cooked.

Enjoy with different sauce:
Basic pancake: maple sirup with a slice of butter

Caramelized apple: cut apple into cubes. In a saucepan heat 3 tbsp of sugar until gold. Add 1 tbsp of butter, add the apple cubed and cooked until the apple turns golden.

Or you can add berries, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, honey, mango etc.

Coconut lime ice-cream – How to make ice-cream without an ice-cream maker

I just finished watching the Master Chef US season 3 (which Christine Ha won the competition!) It was a great TV show, and I don’t understand why an cooking TV show could be touchable like that :”) Christine Ha, on her final fight, has made Coconut lime ice-cream. It brings me the idea to make ice-cream.

But the problem is I don’t have ice-cream maker. So I went on internet searching on “how to make ice-cream without ice-cream maker”. There are some ingredients sound really complicated, because you must take care of the ice-cream for the hole day to have ice-cream, but luckily I found a great ingredient, very suitable for  lazy people. It’s just too easy to be true, but it tastes great, very creamy, very ice-cream ^^

For make 2 boxes of Coconut Lime Ice-cream, you will need:

• 200g condensed milk
• 300g whipping cream
• 30g butter
• 3 tablespoons condensed coconut milk
• zest of a lime, coconut
• juice of a lime

How to make it:

1. Whip the whipping cream to stiff peaks

2. Add melted butter, coconut, zest of a lime, lime juice, condense coconut milk and mix in to the condensed milk (you can always choose what flavor do you want, so instead of lime and coconut, you can add in vanilla extract, chocolate,  cocoa powder, rum and raisin etc.. )

3. Fold the mixture into the whipped cream

4. Put in the box, freeze it at least 6 hours and enjoy!

It is smooth, creamy and yummy. I think I don’t need to buy ice-cream any more 😛