Ingredients1/4 Cup Sesame Oil1/4 Cup Rice Vinegar2 Cloves Garlic (Smashed) Chile FlakeBrown SugarFish SauceSalt1.25 Pounds Pork Belly (boneless skinless) Rice NoodlesMayoSrirachaRice VinegarFish SauceLettuceTomato For: 4 PeoplePreparation: 20 minCooking: 3 minReady in: 23 min InstructionsThe pork was tossed in a mixture of sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, chile flake, brown sugar, salt, and fish sauce. I…
There is always something great about making that first dish in your new kitchen. Learning the new space, finding out things that are great and not so great about it. Realizing things that you forgot to move or get at the store and making quick changes to the dish based on that. I made these bacon coconut noodles as the first dish at the place I moved into a few days ago and I am absolutely loving it. The kitchen and the noodles.
I was craving a breaded chicken dish with pasta like chicken parm but I wanted it to be lighter. I was also craving Vietnamese bun vermicelli. I put the two cravings together to create this dish. I had been thinking of Vietnamese for a long time actually. The other day I finally was going to order some but I was having a lazy day and didn’t want to leave the house, so I found the only place that delivered. I had never been there and didn’t look at the reviews, but it turned out that it was more of a Chinese place that had some Vietnamese dishes on the menu. The bun vermicelli was almost embarrassingly bad and it made me crave the stuff even more! I’m not saying what I made here is super authentic or anything, but when I am craving it what I really need is the interplay of cucumber, mint, peanut, fish sauce, and rice noodles. The one that I ordered that day only had 3 out of 5 of these ingredients and for me that just doesn’t cut it!
Last week I went to an awesome burger event in Boston called Battle of the Burger. It was lots of fun and sponsored by Amstel, so as you can imagine I had a few. I tried as hard as I could to taste all 20 burgers there, but alas, I only made it to about 15. I almost had to crawl out of the event I was so full! I even had to pass on the make your own sundae booth, and throw away a few bites of a shake shack burger which might have been a low point of my life. I was really impressed with many of the burgers, especially the lamb and tzatziki burger from Cafeteria, but overall, I wished some of the restaurants lightened things up a bit. Every burger was an overindulgent savory bomb which was awesome at first, but after trying 10 or so, they all started to meld together. If I was there, I would have served these Vietnamese vermicelli topped burgers as a bit of a reprieve from the bacon-truffle-mushroom-aioli-cheese madness.
These noodles use hummus as a shortcut to making something that tastes like Thai takeout.
A version of the classic Thai spicy noodle dish with fresh bay scallops.
This soup has a nice spicy background flavor with that fresh garden basil taste up front.
