I made this noodle for a party and many people wanted the recipe. It’s my variation on the Szechuanese Tan Tan Men and spicy cold noodle. You can vary the topping and the amount of seasoning according to your taste!

1) Cook the noodle:Thin Spaghetti noodle, cooked al dente and drained/ washed with    cold water.

2) Prepare Topping: Cooked chicken, cooked tofu, peas, asparagus, red bell peppers,  etc. (whatever you want!) Plus liberal dose of toasted white sesame seeds

3) Make the dressing - this is the basic proportion. You can alter the saltiness, spiciness, and the amount as you go. This can easily be doubled.

2 TB soy sauce - Kikkoman is good all purpose soy sauce. Also Sam-pyo soy sauce from Korean grocery stores is good

1 TB Creamy peanut butter

1 TB Peanut oil and 0.5 TB canola oil (or 1.5 TB canola oil, if you don’t have the peanut oil)

1 TB Chili sesame oil (less if you don’t want it too hot) - get Korean Chili sesame oil from CJ Baeksul or Haioreum brand/ or Japanese chili sesame oil from S&B

0.5 TB Asian toasted sesame oil - get any Japanese or Korean brand, not the unrefined sesame oil

2 TB Unseasoned rice vinegar - get any Japanese or Korean rice vinegar. Mitsukan is good and easy to find.

1 ts Sugar (or more)

2 TB thinly sliced green onion and 2 cloves garlic, minced+2 pinches of ginger powder or 0.5 ts of minced ginger

Mix all the sauce ingredients and taste/ adjust seasonings to your taste

4) Mix the noodle with 2/3 of the dressing and put the topping. Drizzle the dressing over and serve! (You may garnish the topping with crushed peanuts or more green onion slices.)

Enjoy~~

Last year I participated in an amazing fund-raising event called “Gourmet Soup Kitchen.” It was for the homeless shelter in Fargo, and was organized by Linda Coates and other wonderful people of this area. I was one of the chefs who donated 3 gallons of soup, and I made the “Nuro-men” which is Taiwanese national beef noodle soup. My soup was the first to run out (partly because I did not make the full 3 gallons..) and a lot of people asked for a recipe. It is really easy to make but you do need a specific spice packet that’s shown in the picture. If you can’t find it, you may substitute it with some star anise, ginger and cinnamon.

Ingredients:

1 pack (about 1.5 lb), beef Boneless short-rib

0.5 lb, flank steak (This is for more richly flavored soup stock. You can replace it with more short-rib.)

4 garlic cloves

1-2 TB Canola oil

1 rock sugar clumps, about 1 inch diameter (or a few small pieces of rock sugar)

2 TB rice wine (Mi-Chiu is good. You can also use sake or dry sherry. Do NOT use Mirin, which is the sweetened rice wine!)

1 soup packet labeled as “Spice for Spiced Food” from Taiwan - this you can find in Asian grocery stores. This soup packet contains cinnamon, cloves, star anise.

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 lime, sliced and 1 tomato cut in half

Chopped green onion and cilantro for garnishing

Dried Asian Noodle - not egg noodle or thin noodles. I used Korean Udon noodle (Choripdong brand). Japanese udon noodles would work, too.

Taiwanese chili sauce for extra spice (optional) - get the “Ichiban hot chili and garlic paste”

How to Make:

1) Cut the meat in 2-3 inch cubes. Pat with kitchen towel and get rid of any blood.

2) Slice the garlic.

3) In a large Dutch oven or Le Creuset pot, put the cooking oil and heat up the pot.

4) Put the meat and garlic slices. Stir until the meat is a bit browned and garlic is fragrant.

5) Stir in the rice wine and mix well

6) pour enough water to cover the meat and 1 inch more/ put the soy sauce, rock sugar and tomato.

7) Lower the heat and simmer for about 1-1.5 hours until the meat is really tender.

Put the sliced lime and put into the soup and simmer for 30 minutes more. Taste the soup and put more soy sauce and sugar according to your taste.

9) Cook the noodle and drain according to the package.

10) Put the noodle in a deep bowl and pour over the soup. Garnish with green onion and cilantro and serve hot. Enjoy!

Yes, that’s right! A Korean grocery store, not an Asian grocery store - here in Fargo!

I love eating all kinds of food, but I am a Korean at heart (naturally) and I crave Korean foods periodically. It’s been wonderful living in Fargo, but the grocery situation has not been too hot. I have had to order so many times from H-Mart online, which is highly over-priced, whenever I needed Korean pepper paste (Gochu-jang), Korean style noodles, etc.  But now with the help of this wonderful little store, I won’t need to order anything from H-Mart for a long time.

This store is called “Everyday Mart”, and is located on the 10th St., between 7th and 8th Ave N. There used to be a sign that said “Maeil Mart” (in Korean) for a long time without anything inside the store. I saw an “Open” sign lit when I was driving a few weeks ago, and today I decided to check it out. It is operated by two very nice Korean ladies, and they have walls of nicely arranged sauces, oils, soups, seaweeds, pastes, rice, noodles, flours, ready-made soups and other prepared foods, ramen noodles, etc. Also they have a freeze/ refrigerator section with various kinds of Korean style dumplings, fish cake, kimchi, and some seafood things. There’s even a wall of various teas from Korea. They also stock a few Japanese things and other Asian ingredients such as Sriracha sauce and fish sauce.

Things are about $1-4 cheaper (depending on what you are buying) than H-Mart online or the Asian American grocery store on Main.) I am going to be a happy cook in the kitchen!

P.S. They keep only napa-cabage that’s needed for making kimchi or Korean soup in the vegetable section. This is a store for sauces, seasonings, basic grains for cooking Korean style food, not a store for fresh produces.

707 10th St
Fargo, ND 58102-4319
(701) 232-2266

Many people think that sushi = raw fish. But! Sushi just means “vinegared rice” in Japanese. (I am not Japanese but that’s what I learned from reading lots of Japanese cookbooks.) So anything with vinegared rice, whether with raw fish on top or not, can be called as sushi.

I made one of the non-fish sushi with fried and seasoned tofu pouch a few days ago for a party, and it was so popular. It’s served as “Inari sushi” in many Japanese restaurants, and the version I served is my mom’s version for picnic. A dear friend wanted the recipe so I tried to write down, but I make this dish without measuring so add the seasonings a bit at a time and taste-adjust! (You always need to adjust the seasonings to your taste even if you are using the measuring tools..) I am writing this post for my dear friend Neil.

Ingredients:

About 2 cups Cooked short grain rice - I like Kagayaki brand. (Most Asian markets will sell this brand) or Organic Sushi Rice from Lundberg. It’s very important to use the right kind of rice! The best way to cook short grain rice is to use a rice cooker. It costs around $50-150 (depends on the brand and the extra functions), and it’s one of the most useful things in your kitchen if you like eating Asian food. (Cuckoo brand from Korea and Zojirushi from Japan are the best.)

3 TB Sushi Vinegar or more - You can make your own sushi vinegar by mixing 4TB rice vinegar, 2 -3 TB sugar (according to your taste), and 0.5 TB salt. (Many recipes have different ratios of Vinegar-Sugar-Salt, so you may need to experiment to find what you like.)  You can also purchase Japanese ready-made sushi vinegar or seasoned vinegar from Asian markets. (Marukan or Mitsukan brand)

1/2 carrot and 1/4 yellow onion (1/2 if the onion is small), finely chopped - stir fry with a bit of salt in a wok or fry pan until the onion is translucent. My mom also added seasoned ground beef (with soy sauce, sugar, pepper, garlic, and sesame oil). You can add chopped daikon pickles, stir fried shiitake mushrooms, and cucumbers as well. Just make sure that the rice is the main ingredients, not the other stuff.

Fried and seasoned tofu pouch - you can buy it from any Asian markets. I prefer Korean version from Pulmoowon - this is smaller and less sweet/ comes with vinegar and seasoning mixture. For Japanese version, look for a round can that says “Inarizushi No Moto” -Hime brand is good.

How to Make:

1) Cook the rice - make sure you don’t put too much water. Sushi rice should be on the dry side, not on the watery side. You may put a piece of kombu seaweed or spoonful of sake for more flavor, but you don’t have to.

2) Stir-fry the chopped carrot and onion in 0.5 TB or more canola oil (or grapeseed, corn, soybean oil. Don’t use Olive oil) with a bit of salt. This should not be too dry or too oily. Set aside.

3) Take out the tofu pouches from the can and put them in a colander. Run hot water to wash out excess seasoning and then drain. Be careful not to tear them! If using the Korean kind, follow the package instruction and use the vinegar mixture inside.

4) Put the cooked rice into a large bowl, and mix with sushi vinegar. Be careful not to break the rice! Swing a fan or a plastic panel over the rice to get rid of heat and moisture.

5) Mix in the cooked carrot and onion.

6) Take the tofu pouch - be careful not to tear it - and put a spoonful of rice into the pouch. This sushi does not require wasabi and soy sauce. Perfect finger food~

Yamklava is a creation of Aki Parsamian, mother of the Arsenal Trio’s cellist, Hrant Parsamian. Her rendition of the achingly sweet yet irresistable baklava is much less sweet, and has more interesting and satisfying flavor. (Also easier to make!)

I cannot reveal the secret of making it (Hrant will be very angry at me if I did so), so here’s a list of ingredients:
1 package philo dough - you may need to cut off some edges to match your pan size.

5 yams, grated

1 - 1.5 cups walnut, finely chopped (Food processor works really well for this task. Do not chop too finely, though, as you want to feel the crunchiness of the nuts.)

Sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on top of the yam.

1 stick of salted butter, clarified. Pour the clarified butter into a measuring cup and fill it with vegetable oil to make a cup.

And Sugar Syrup

1 cup sugar and enough water to barely cover the sugar.

If you want to know how to make it, please email me and I will let you know.

This is, along with my spicy tuna sushi, the crowd-pleaser,  and the most popular dish among all the things I can cook.

So many people have asked the recipe for these - and here’s my little secret.

Ingredients

Vietnamese Rice Papers: look for two roses on the package. That’s the best kind, my Vietnamese student once told me. Prepare a big bowl filled with hot-warm water that you can put your hands in.

Rice Stick: get a very thin kind. Not the kind you would use for Pad-Thai. Soak in warm water for about 20 minutes and then boil quickly in hot water for 30 seconds and then drain.

Extra Firm Tofu: I always use organic tofu. Place the tofu on a flat surface and put a cutting board on top of the tofu. Put a heavy object on top of the cutting board so that water can be squeezed out. After doing that, wipe out the water with some kitchen towel. Cut into sticks - about your pinky size.  Put enough oil (canola or vegetable) on a non-stick pan and fry the tofu until golden and crisp. This takes a while, so don’t be hasty or flip the tofu around too often.

Avocado: Cut it in slices, about the same size as the tofu sticks.

Cilantro leaves, Chopped green onion (green parts only), and Shredded cabbage (you can get it in a bag)

I have made these rolls with boiled and sliced shrimps and some pork, like at a lot of Vietnamese restaurants, but this one is much more popular and it is vegetarian!

Sauce Ingredients:

1) Simple kind: Mae Ploy brand sweet chile sauce + some freshly squeezed lemon juice - not spicy and vegetarian.

2) Spicy kind: 4 TB Mae Ploy brand sweet chile sauce + 1 TB Vietnamese chile garlic sauce (with green cap) + 0.5 TB or more Tiparos brand fish sauce (Golden Boy brand is good, too) + 0.5 TB or more sugar + 0.5 TB or more freshly squeezed lime juice. Mix well and taste - then put some more sugar, fish sauce, or lime juice according to your taste.

How to Make:

Prepare all the ingredients/ lay them out on a large, flat surface. I use a large cutting board as the “wrapping station.”

Soak the rice paper in the hot-warm water until it is pliable. This takes some practice - so expect to ruin a few papers before you get the right consistency without tearing.

Put the paper on the cutting board/ arrange all the ingredients on the paper. (Put only one stick of tofu and avocado per one roll.) Use the front part of the rice paper, and don’t put too much. This also takes some practice.

Pull the ingredients toward you and then flip it. Fold the left and the right side to the center. Roll it to close. (See the picture)

Serve them with the sauce and enjoy!

* Don’t make these rolls too early. They can become very sticky and dry.

I love cooking and I love all things baked. But I fail more than I succeed in baking, and the most recent failure happened yesterday when my cocoa almond sablets turned into a flat and greasy burned dough..

However I have succeeded in the past in pie-making. I know a lot of people have fear of failing in pie-making, and I had never even wanted to try before I was encouraged by a good friend of mine. (a great conductor, too!) He told me “It’s not complicated at all! I will show you how,” so we tried to make an apple pie. It was not too difficult or fussy, and it turned out beautifully! So here is his secret recipe…. 

For the Pie Dough (10inch pie pan - I used a glass one with rims)

All purpose flour, 2.5 cups

1 Plugra unsalted butter, Cold - this is what we used, but you can use 2 sticks of regular unsalted butter.

Cold water, 1/3 cup (plus more) - start with 1/3 cup, and add as needed

If you want, you can add a bit of salt and sugar into the dough. 

For the Pie Filling

4 apples, sliced - Every cookbook will tell you which apple is better but it boils down to either Golden Delicious or Granny Smith. I used Granny Smith and it was just fine - not mushy, not bland as one cookbook criticized..

1/2 cup brown sugar - you can put a bit more

1/2 ts cinnamon powder

1ts or more freshly squeezed lemon juice

(You can add 1-2 TB corn starch to make the filling more sticky.)

About1/2 stick of butter to dot on the filling 

HOW TO MAKE A PERFECT APPLE PIE

1) In a big bowl, put the measured flour. (I don’t think we sifted, but it would not hurt I suppose..?)

2) Take the butter out from the refrigerator and cut it with a small knife. Cut it so that it’s about 1-2 cm (less than half inch) thick. Cut it into the bowl where the flour is.

3) With a pie cutter, cut the butter into the flour. Do it until they look like small beans. 

4) Add the cold water and fluff with a fork - add the water little by little, and do not stir too much. This is the most important part in pie making! You usually need a bit more (about 1-2 TB more) than 1/3 cup of water. You need to be able to feel if it is ready to become a “ball of dough,” but trust me it is much easier than feeling the water temperature for the dry active yeast. 

5) When the lumps start coming together, then stop mixing. Use your hand and make a big ball.

6)  Wrap the ball with enough plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. You need to say hi to it once or twice - just open the fridge door and pat on it a few times.

7) Make the pie filling: mix everything with a spatula!

Preheat the oven to 425F.

9) Take the dough-ball out from the fridge, and cut in half. On a flat surface, scatter half handful of flour and spread out with your hand. 

10)  Take one half of the dough and flatten it out a bit with your hand so that you can start rolling it. Wrap the other half. 

11)  With a rolling pin, roll it sideways once and vertically once. Then turn it over. Roll again sideways, and then vertically. Repeat twice more.

12) Put the rolled dough over a pie glass. Then pour over the pie filling. Dot with 1/2 stick of butter. (cut it in thin slices and scatter them over the apples)

13) Roll the other half of the dough, and cover the filling.

14) Using the kitchen shears. cut the dough leaving only about 2cm on the edge. 

15) Pinch the doughs to seal, and then tuck it into the pie glass so that it does not hang over the glass. Then use a fork or your thumb, push it against the pie rim so that it looks pretty.

16) Prick the dough (top part) with a fork - I made about 10 pricks. This is to make a few holes so that apples inside can breathe.

17) Bake in the preheated oven (425F) for 20 minutes.

18) Then turn it down to 350F -  bake about 10 minutes and check if it is done. Tap with a fork and see if it makes a pleasant noise. Also look for a golden color. Every oven temperature is a bit different, so you may need to bake up to 15 minutes after you lower the oven temp to 350.

19) Slice it and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

This recipe comes from maestro Bernard Rubenstein, conductor of the Fargo Moorhead Symphony.

This is my favorite thing to order at the Bonefish Grille (Nice family restaurant specializing in seafood. Nice enough food with pleasant atmosphere). I tried a few times to recreate their appetizer called “Bang Bang Shrimp” and this one came very close! The only problem is the batter - I think the restaurant uses a mixture of cornstarch, flour, and salt. But I just used potato starch I had. You can also use panko as the crust. (Flour-Egg-Panko, in that order)  Use whatever you like - the sauce is more important!  

Ingredients:

Medium size shrimps (thawed, deveined, cleaned, drained)

Salt, pepper, rice wine to marinate (I always use some rice wine for shrimps and chicken before cooking. It gets rid of the odor.)

1-2 Egg white and 3TB (plus more) potato starch for the batter

Sauce ingredients: 2 TB Mayonnaise, 0.5 TB (or more) Chili garlic sauce (Vietnamese kind, not he Sriracha sauce, but the coarse kind called “Tung Ot Toi Viet-Nam.”/ 0.5 TB Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (Mae Ploy Brand)/ some lemon juice and sugar to taste

Garnish: chopped green onion

How to Make:

1) Prepare the shrimp/ marinade for 10-20 minutes/ then pat dry/ mix with 1-2 egg white (depends on how much you are making - enough to coat well)/ put the shrimp in a zip-loc bag and pour 3 TB (or more) amount of potato starch and shake well to coat 

2) Heat up the oil in a medium sauce pan or a frying pan/ fry up the shrimps. It’s better to fry twice - fry once until yellow, drain on paper towel, and then fry again until golden brown. Shrimps become much more crisp this way!

3) Mix the sauce ingredients

4) In a bowl, mix the fried shrimps and the sauce well

5) Garnish with green onion pieces and serve right away!

This is an appetizer I made when I invited the conductor of FM Symphony, Bernie Rubenstein. He loved them and wanted the recipe - hence comes my first posting on the “Jihye’s Kitchen” section.

This recipe was based on the coconut shrimp with honey mustard dipping sauce on a Korean blogger’s site.

http://blog.naver.com/hyleeyan.do?Redirect=Log&logNo=53725960

I changed the sauce to my taste, using Thai Sweet Chile sauce. (Mae Ploy brand) Also I used regular salt and pepper, not the herb salt/ also I added some rice winte to the marinade.

I usually avoid making fried dishes as it’s a waste of so much oil and it’s bad for the environment, but this one is worth the trouble. I will post another fried shrimp appetizer so that you can maximize the use of your oil!

Oil: Canola oil or corn oil works the best. 

Ingredients: Shrimp (Uncooked! Large size works better than jumbo, but it’s up to you.)/ Dash of salt and pepper + 1-2 TB rice wine (depends on the quantity of your shrimp) to marinate the shrimp/ Enough Flour, 1-2 eggs, and Sweetened shredded coconut for batter 

Sauce Ingredients: 1 TB Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (Mae Ploy Brand)/ 0.5TB whole grain mustard (any kind)/ 0.5TB freshly squeezed lemon juice/ 0.5 TB-1TB mayonnaise (Start with this, and adjust according to your taste. You can omit the mayo and mustard as well.)

How to make:

1) Prepare the shrimps (thaw, devein, wash, drain)/ sprinkle salt and pepper and some rice wine - not too much, otherwise shrimps will be too watery

2) Prepare 2 plates - one with flour, one with coconut/ put 1-2 egg(s) in a bowl and whisk with fork. Heat up the oil in a fry pan or a medium sauce pan with heavy bottom. (up to 170C - usually I just drop a little bit of the batter - if the batter drops to the bottom and floats right back, the oil is ready.)

3) Make the sauce

4) Put the shrimps in flour to coat –> then dip in the egg –> then roll over the coconut to coat well. The more you the better!

5) Fry the shrimp until golden brown/ crisp. Don’t crowd the pot too much - fry the shrimps in a few batches! Otherwise the oil temperature drops too quickly and shrimps will not be crisp.

6) Drain on paper towel or wire rack, and serve with the sauce.

My name is Jihye, which means “Wisdom.” It’s a name that’s hard to live up to, but I try!

In this section I will put up some of my favorite recipes and things that I like to eat.