How to cook Swai Fish. cooking at home.

Welcome back to " Cooking at home with J.T. "

Last week Jason made an awesome fish for me and Lexi. It was a Swai fish. I never had it before and it was something like "Try it and fall in love". The other day I got Swai fish and asked him to make it again. This time I was filming so you can see each step in his cooking.

By the way, this time his original recipes was even better. Swain fish was gone in to time.

So stop talking - look at this video - then run to the store and try this out. I got Swain fish fillet we were cooking today at Albertson and it was something around $5.00. Not to bad.

Cooking at home. PHO soup.

Welcome back to the "Cooking At Home With J.T."

Today he is going to share with you his recipe for PHO soup.

PHO broth  

I started with one large pot and about 10 large chunks of beef bones (I tried to get about half knuckles/joints as they have more fat.), I the added 2 tablespoons of sea salt and filled the pot with water. I let it boil about 2 hours while scraping the foam off the top surface. 

I then broiled till just starting to get blackened: one large onion flower cut, 16 pieces of garlic and 4 big slices of ginger, and then added them to the pot.  (sorry no photos of this step) 

I put all the spices in a tied cloth bag; Cinnamon, anise, allspice fennel etc. and threw it in to boil another few hours. 

I turned the stove off to cool till the next day, first thing I scraped the heavy congealed fat from the surface of the broth. I then brought to a boil and removed the bones, spice bag , blackened items, etc and performed one last surface scrape. 

Now the broth is ready! I take 1/4 bowl of the cooked noodles and cover with 5-8 pieces of paper thin cut round-eye and ladle over the boiling broth slowly over all the meat to cook it as the bowl fills. 

I like mine PHO noodle soup with Taiwan Basil, Cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno, green onions, and bean sprouts, as for condiments use fish sauce, hoisin sauce, hot sauce/garlic pepper paste to taste. 

PHO soup 

Put on your worst shirt and eat cause you know it is going to splatter!

BEFORE 

10 minutes later ... 

AFTER 

Cooking at Home. Bulgar Salad.

Welcome back at our new section "Cooking At Home With J.T." We already let you know How To Make Spring Rolls and after that heavy meal Jason decided to make something fresh and light. Today we are going to make Spring Bulgar Salad. I made a lot of photos while Jason was cooking, so it'll be very beautiful blog post with photos.

Ingredients:

1-1/4 lbs. dry bulgar wheat

1.5-2 oz. of shredded Parmesan cheese (Asagio or other hard cheeses will work too.)

1 Tablespoon Sea salt

1/4 Tablespoon Black pepper

2/3 Tablespoon dry Dill

1 Tablespoon dry Basil

1/4 bunch Cilantro

1/4 bunch Parsley

1/4 bunch flat parsley or Italian parsley

1 Lemon

3-4 Roma Tomatoes

3-4 pieces of Garlic

3 oz. chopped Almonds

1 bunch small Green onions

1/4 cup White vinegar

3 Tablespoons Olive oil

Let's start :

Use fine grater to grate lemon rind.

Then chop up the fresh herbs and put in a bowl, add in dry herbs and salt.

Squeeze in juice from lemon and add in white vinegar on top of herbs. Chop tomatoes and put them on top of the herbs.

Boil bulgar wheat until it just starts to get on the soft side of chewy. Rinse bulgar with cold water and strain several times until bulgar is cool and the water runs clear. (This gets rid of the starchy water and keeps the bulgar from being clumpy or sticky.)

Put bulgar and the ingredients from the first bowl into a large bowl, add in olive oil and stir.

Next add in almonds, lemon zest and cheese then stir thoroughly. Refrigerate at least 4 hours and you will have a delightfully light and zesty springtime salad. Makes about 10 servings, if you are lucky!

Cooking at Home. Spring Rolls

Welcome to my new series on food "Cooking At Home With J.T." . I am a lucky women, my husband has the passion for cooking and most importantly he is willing to share the whole process. He is an artist who cooks from the heart and I have never seen him reading books on how to cook. He creates his dishes by feel and every time he serves a meal we all clean our plates in a few seconds. Remember I am trying to keep up with him while he creates and none of the recipes are written down, we rarely eat the same meal twice as he is always making something new.

How to make Spring Rolls

Ingredients

4 cups of lightly cooked bisamati rice

½ head small cabbage

6 larger green onions

6 larger pieces of garlic

2 sheets of seaweed roasted

One, about 3 inch long, piece of ginger root (skin peeled)

2 medium carrots

Crab meat of your choice or budget

1 teaspoon of white pepper

3 table spoons of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of fish sauce (I used three crabs brand)

1 package of frozen spring roll dough of your choice

1 egg white whipped

I cut the cabbage thinly; then chopped the garlic and ginger, I then sliced the green onions and crushed the 2 sheets of seaweed, and I grated the carrots finely. I put it all into a large bowl and mixed it with the white pepper and the fish sauce. I put about 4 table spoons of vegetable oil in the wok on med high heat, and then I added the cooked rice and soy sauce while continually stirring. I then added the bowl of mixed ingredients once the rice became even in color. I stir fried while stirring just until the cabbage starts to become soft.

I lay each sheet of dough and add 1 heaping teaspoon of the cooled mix on to the first third of the dough. Then I fold the sides over the mix and start my roll. I finished the roll by brushing egg white on before the end to act as glue. This makes 25 to 35 egg rolls. You can freeze them just be sure to use wax paper between so they do not stick together. You can pan fry or deep fry them until deep golden brown.

These are simple fast and delicious, plus by using rice instead of the usual glass noodles the are much more filling. That is awesome when you have hungry kids.

If you family is not into seafood skip the crab and fish sauce, instead try tofu, pork or chicken. If you want less filling and more traditional egg rolls the replace rice with more cabbage or glass noodles.