Friday, November 13, 2009

asian flavors

Obsessed:

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Until like two days ago, I may have never had a persimmon. And now I am OBSESSED. They had them at the Asian grocery store for some ludicrously cheap price (like 4 for a dollar or something! And now I’m kicking myself for not getting like $10 cause now there’s some other fancy breed there that’s $2 each!) and I bought them on a whim and ohhh man.

It literally took them WEEKS to ripen (I took the advice of the internet, which said they should feel like a water balloon) but they are so soft and squishy and sweet and amazing.

Atop some yogurt:

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I mixed it all together and it was everything a flavored yogurt SHOULD be- sweet without being cloying with tons of sugar or chemically with artifical sweetener! Lovely lovely lovely.

Also, I made a stir fry that was SO EASY and SO TASTY the other night:

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This was the star ingredient:

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Fish sauce! That classic ingredient of Thai food. I got it in my Asian Food Grocer shipment (love ya Foodbuzz!)

So I marinated some chicken in the fish sauce, and then cut it into stir fry-y shapes.

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Then I assembled my plants! I rehydrated two dried shiitake mushrooms (also Asian Food Grocer!) in like 1/3 cup boiling water (I saved the water) and chopped up some bok choy. On the upper right are minced garlic and ginger.

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I heated up a splash of vegetable oil on medium high heat, then added the ginger and garlic, stir-frying until brown. Then I added the chicken, stirring and frying it until browned up on all sides. Then I added the crunchy part of the bok choy, stirred and fried some more. Then the bok choy leaves and the shrooms and 2 ounces of udon noodles, cooked just shy of al dente. At that point I dumped my shiitake mushroom broth on top, as well as a bit more fish sauce, and stirred and fried until the noodles were cooked, the bok choy leaves were wilted, and the broth was absorbed. Fabbity fab!

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The final product, with my chopsticks :D

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Udon noodles are really growing on me. They are wonderfully chewy. And this dish, with the shiitake and fish sauce flavors, was so EARTHY! So good.

6 comments:

Food Makes Fun Fuel said...

I've been wanting a persimmon for ages but they are ridiculous prices here. If they're a cheap asian fruit, though, I'm officially commisioning my dad to hop over to China town and pick some up

Unplanned Cooking said...

That's it... I'm buying one! I keep reading about how tasty they are, and I've never had one.

The Purple Carrot said...

I still haven't ever had a persimmon and I've love to try one!

Anonymous said...

I never thought of adding fish sauce to a chicken stirfry, I love my stirfries so I'll have to try this out.

Taylor

Chou said...

Persimmons are so yummy. I agree. Obsessed.

Anonymous said...

I approve of this asian post. :)