As was requested by a colleague, I have dug around to determine a recipe for Lotus salad.

The following is an recipe for a Vietamese salad, called Goi Sen or Goi Ngo Sen, which translates as "Lotus Stem Salad." According to what I can find, this salad consists of lotus stems (aka: young lotus rootlets), poached shrimp, poached pork or poached chicken, julienne carrots, cilantro and mint. It can be served with fried shrimp crackers and Nuoc Cham

A rough description of Goi Sen can be found on viet-cafe.com .

The reference pic comes from noodlepie.com, which hosted it on flickr.com.

Recipes for Goi Sen can be found on the following websites:

• seasite.niu.edu/Vietnamese
• recipehound.com
• vietnamese-recipes.com
• asianrecipesonline.com

Among the exotic ingredients in this recipe, the one that I had not yet been exposed to was the lotus stems. In fact, I could not find them in the Chinese supermarket that I visit most frequently, Kowloon Market (712 Somerset Street W). Instead, I had to goto a Vietnamese/Thai specialty supermarket, Man Phong (775 Somerset Street W), which was down the street. There, lotus stems in brine are sold in clear glass jars.

Though I have had Nuoc Cham before in a restaurant, I have previously never worked with fish sauce. As such, I did a little research and posted an earlier article about how to purchase fish sauce.

Recipe follows:

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When asked what foods are picnic-able, the following is my typical answer. Go wander into an ethnic European deli and pickup some cold cuts, some paté, and some cheese. Then, visit a bakery and pickup a loaf of crusty French baguette. Purchase a couple fruits from a grocer. And a pickup a 1.5L bottle of water from a convenience store. Everything fits neatly in a picnic basket and the fare is suitable for either a romantic lunch at the beach or a warm summer day in France.

Can you really ask for more? Actually, you can. How about Southern Fried Chicken? Connoisseurs say that it is best eaten at room temperature. Fine!

Firstly, let me point out I have loved fried chicken ever since my parents picked up a bucket of KFC for dinner one day. That day happened to be the day my family moved into the house I would later grow up in. I was 4 or 5 years old. The day was ending. Everyone was tired and cooking in a new kitchen with everything still packed away in boxes was out of the question. Besides, at that age, finger licking was acceptable. Little did I know that KFC's claim to fame was because Colonel Sanders discovered that you could cook fried chicken in oil in a pressure cooker at the fraction of the time that it takes in a deep fryer. I was just happy to eat his patented chicken with its secret blend of herbs and spices.

Today, I am no less happy to eat fried chicken, but I visit the Colonel very seldomly. Armed with a seasoned cast iron skillet and a recipe, when I hanker for fried chicken, I make Southern Fried chicken.

BTW, this posting and recipe is dedicated to Abby, whose offline message about picnic food went unanswered because I only use open source tools for instant messaging. One of these tools, called Pidgin, doesn't process offline messages. Sorry :(

Recipe follows:

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When it comes to methods to cook chicken on the barbecue grill, recipes abound. One that became popular in recent years is "beer can chicken", which is also affectionately referred to as "beer in the butt chicken." This recipe most likely came about when someone determined that a whole chicken can be roasted upright on the grill by inserting a half-filled beer can into its abdominal cavity and using its legs to form a trivet. According to folklore, the heat from the grill is supposed to cause the liquid in the can to steam, thus basting the chicken from the inside out. Though I am skeptical, I have always liked the idea of roasting a chicken upright.

Last week, Canadian Tire had a sale on a rig to facilitate cooking this particular preparation of chicken. At $3.99, I thought it was a steal, so I purchased one. Little did I know, Walmart sells a wire-frame rig, called the "Chick Can", for the same price. The rig I purchased, consists of three stainless steel ribs/stems and a drip pan. A 355 ml aluminium can fits under the ribs/stems which are fixed together with a heavy-duty rivet. The ribs/stems then hook into the drip pan, which holds the rig together quite securely. A whole chicken fits over top.

Since I didn't have a 355 ml beer can available, I used a pop can and ginger-ale to put together an oven-based recipe. Though I'm still not sure about the significance of the liquid inside of the can, the chicken came out juicy and succulent. I don't think any of the ginger-ale really evaporated.

Recipe follows:

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Found in Chinese barbecue houses (aka: Chinese delis according to Martin Yan), this sticky sweet roasted pork is an iconic meat in Chinese cuisine. Sliced, char-siu is served with steamed white rice and in sandwiches. Chopped, char-siu is mixed into omelettes, fried rice and dumpling fillings. Shredded, char-siu even ends up in spring rolls, my baked spring rolls for one. Of course, char-siu also shows up in baked char-siu buns, which are favorites from any Chinese bakery. A steamed version of the char-siu bun is served with dim sum.

The picture above comes from Wikipedia.com.

Char-siu literally means "fork roasted" in Cantonese. Its etymological source most likely has to do with the fork-shaped hooks that the strips of pork hang off of in the vertical roaster.

Besides Chinese barbecue houses, which are few and far between, char siu is also available at some Asian grocery stores. You will find it hanging with soy sauce chicken, salt baked chicken, whole roasted pig, and roasted duck. Like other Chinese take-away meats, char-siu is purchased by weight and is typically sliced for you in the store.

In Ottawa, you can find Char-siu at the Kowloon Market (720 Somerset Street West) or Uni Mart (on Montreal Road, across from the Rideau bridge).

The following recipe is one you can make at home:

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If you followed the baked spring roll recipe from a while back, you'll know where to find spring roll wrappers. If not, wander down to the refrigerator case where tofu, meatless cheese, and other natural food products are sold. Once you pickup a stack of wrappers, you're are going to ask yourself, "What else can you do with these wrappers besides making spring rolls?" How about wrapping individual whole shrimp, deep frying them, and making finger food that would make any seafood-lover drool? It's crunchy, shrimpy, and oily. Can you really ask for more?

Personally, I've seen these edibles served on the carts at a Chinese restaurant during dim sum and on a coffee table as hor d'oeuvres during a dinner party. Many thanks to my better half's mom for showing me how to make these spring rolls. It so happened that she put a pile of wrappers and a bowl of tail-on shrimps in front of me when I looked a little bored one night.

Recipe follows:

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Be it to steam mussels or to add "just that something extra" to a stew, Stella Artois has never failed to provide the flavour I'm looking for when I add beer to my cooking. You'll always find at least one can in my fridge. It's not meant for drinking.

Needless to say, I find Stella to be a great ingredient. Though, it is a somewhat expensive choice. However, like wine, you really shouldn't cook with something you wouldn't ordinarily drink on its own. Save for honey browns or dark ales, I honestly don't like beer, but, for some odd reason, I can stomach Stella. Besides, never cook with a dark ale, like Guinness. It turns very bitter when heated.

Besides brazing, Stella has found its way into another recipe: beer bread. Beer bread is typically a quick rising bread, which means that it uses a chemical leavener and not yeast to raise the batter. It is also a nice delivery mechanism for all those bits of cheese that you have no idea what to do with.

Recipe follows:

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What do you do with some cheap lamb chops on an unusually warm weekday and dinnertime is fast approaching? Season and toss on the grill of course! This is what I ended up doing with four rather meaty looking lamb shoulder shops I picked up from the local mega-mart. I did them up in the "spirit" of steak au poivre: little bit of kosher salt and LOTS of freshly ground pepper. I know, I know, you're supposed to use cracked and not ground black pepper. You're also supposed to use a black steel pan to sear up the steaks and finish them in a pre-heated oven too. Given that one act of cooking usually precipitates one act of cleaning, I decided to forgo the pan sear and cook the chops on the barbecue.

More after the jump...

A reader of foodiePrints requested a recipe for "lotus salad." The recipes that I found thus far are primarily Vietnamese, so that means my pantry is sadly lacking of a necessary ingredient: fish sauce.

The picture on the left comes from flickr.com.

Fish sauce is a characteristic condiment of Thai, Malaysian, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese cuisine. Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cuisine as soy sauce is to Chinese cuisine. According to Kasma Loha-unchit, a Thai cooking instructor and author, genuine fish sauce is the water, or juice, in the flesh of fish that is extracted in the process of prolonged salting and fermentation. It is made using small fish that would otherwise have little nutritive value.

Interestingly, this parallels the classical roman fish sauce, garum, which was made from fermenting fish entrails. Some historians say that Worcestershire sauce is an evolved form of garum.

More follows:

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Personally, I feel that nachos-making is a required skill. When the chips (pun intended) are down and you have a crowd to feed, nachos can be a very versatile dish. It is just one step beyond chips and salsa. It can incorporate meat to become a hearty meal. It can be served in a large communal dish on a coffee or picnic table. It can even be an a posh appetizer if you go so far as to separate, top, bake, and serve individual tortilla chips.

More importantly, with some fresh ingredients, nachos can be an effective vehicle for delivering what the body needs when it comes to vegetables.

Recipe follows:

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Hummus is essentially a puree of chickpeas, tahini, and olive oil. It is typically seasoned with lemon juice and garlic. Served alone, it can be a spread or dip. In recipes, it can actually be used as a thickener.

Though hummus in various forms can be found in many Mediterranean cuisines, it most likely has middle eastern origins. For me, I associate this versatile sauce with Lebanese food, where I most often see it served as a dip, garnished with olive oil and sumac. Authentic recipes usually start by purchasing dried chickpeas, the larger and lighter in colour the better. The chick peas are then soaked overnight with a scant amount of baking soda. The next morning, the soaked beans are washed and cooked in unsalted water until they fall apart (at least 2 hours). The peas are then sieved, placed into a food processor, and blended with good quality tahini.

Since, I have yet to find a reliable source of Lebanese tahini, the following recipe substitutes it with cashew butter. Yes, this is heresy, but nowhere in the following recipe do I refer to the resultant hummus as authentic. The recipe probably fits in a similar category as egg rolls and chicken balls in Chinese cuisine: western innovations.

Besides, I usually have a 300 g tin of cashews or cashew pieces and a can of chickpease in the pantry, so when friends drop by, this is the dip I usually serve on a crudités platter with plenty of baked triangles of pita bread on the side.

Recipe Follows:

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Supermarkets are again selling these little lobsters. The advertisement on the left comes from this week's Superstore flyer and states that its catch is the first of the season. Living somewhat island on the seafood supply chain, lobster is rarely economical. However, canner lobsters (aka: canners) can provide a more reasonable quick fix. Canners are physically small, usually weighing less than 1 lb, and are harvested between 5 and 6 months of age. Unfortunately, they are also usually cooked and flash frozen before shipping. The ones under the glass in the fish department have been defrosted and can go south quick.

Since they arrive cooked, re-cooking is out of the question. Boiling can toughen the already cooked meat. Quick re-heating methods would be preferable: baking, grilling, steaming, or stir frying. However, baking or grilling can dry out the flesh. My better half stir fries canners to make a dish that highlights lobster flavors and doesn't overcook the meat.

Recipe follows after the jump:

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Alright, my inaugural run at the barbecue this year was with pork chops. Though, I prefer pork loin chops because there is mostly one muscle, I just picked up a couple thick (1" or so) shoulder chops from the local mega-mart. I know, I know, shoulder chops have a lot of connective tissue that won't dissolve with hot fast cooking like grilling. And, there's a lot of muscle groups connected together, but for $1.99/lb, I couldn't resist.

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With the first of May come and gone, barbecue season is now officially open. Two weekends ago, I concocted a pork tenderloin recipe that should work equally well in an oven or on the barbecue. However, if you decide to make this recipe on the barbecue, I strongly recommend you not brown the apple sauce on the tenderloins. The sauce may drip onto the grate and into the barbecue, causing one rightful mess.

Please note that this was a "necessity is the mother of invention recipe" that I cobbled together because a certain guest of mine had never really seen me make a quick meal. Both this posting and recipe are dedicated to Mademoiselle ling.

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