Lee Kum Kee Bi-monthly Recipe Newsletter

I recently came across a newsletter (shown below) distributed by the sauce company Lee Kum Kee.  For those of you not familiar with Lee Kum Kee, they are famous for their oyster sauce. Lee Kum Kee is over one hundred years old and has since branched out into other categories and now offers over 200 different sauces.  Oyster sauce plays a central roll in a lot of Chinese cuisines so it is a must have for many Chinese families. For those that are put off by fishy or seafood tastes, worry not!  Once you cook and mix everything, you can't even taste the oyster sauce anymore.

This newsletter I came across recently seems to pay homage to the very sauce that made Lee Kum Kee a household name.  It contains information such as recipes using Oyster Sauce and tips on how to recognize and evaluate premium grade oyster sauce.  The part that I was most excited about are all the different recipes they have in this newsletter.  I came across one in particular that I just had to try myself.  Mango Fillet Mignon.



The recipe in the newsletter were somewhat abbreviated and leave a lot of room for interpretations. For those who are new to cooking, this might prove to be a bit of a challenge.  Here is the original recipe that's on the newsletter.


Ingredients:
8 oz beef tenderloin cut into 1 inch cubes
1 mango peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
1 oz snow pea

Sauces:
1 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Chicken Marinade
2 tbsp LKK Panda Brand Green Label Yster Flavored Sauce
2 tbsp orange juice
Salt & pepper as needed

Cooking Methods:
1. Slightly boil the snow pea for a minute.  Drain and set aside.
2. Season beef with salt and pepper.  Stir fry with orange juice, LKK Chicken Marinade and LKK Oyster Flavored Sauce until half way cooked (no more than 5 min).  Stir in snow pea and mango for 2 minutes until heated through. Serve.

I understand that Lee Kum Kee may have limited amounts of space for their recipes and that's why it's abbreviated.  When I made this dish myself, I made a few changes to the recipe.  I noticed the amount of liquid going into this dish and with the meat giving off moisture while cooking, it would probably be pretty soupy in that pan.  So what I did was actually marinade the meat with the Chicken Marinade and the Oyster Sauce for about 30 minutes. While the meat is being marinated, you can prep the rest of the food like boiling the snow peas and cutting the mango.  After the meat is marinated, heat up 2 tbsp of oil in a pan or wok.  When that is nice and hot, put in the meat.  Make sure that you reserve the marinade and just put the marinade coated meat in the wok.  This would make everything less soupy.  Stir fry with orange juice until the juice has reduced by half.  This should take 5 to 10 minutes. If by the time your meat is cooked and there is still a lot of liquid in the pan/wok, go ahead and spoon some of it back out.  Add in the mango and snow peas and serve with rice.

This is a great use of the oyster sauce.  It perfectly compliments the sweetness of the meat and melds very well with the tartness of the mango.  This dish was a big hit and did not last long on the table before the plate was cleaned.  Next time you're at a 99 Ranch super market, be sure to pick up this newsletter. There are tons of other recipes on there that I'm sure would make for happy eating. Enjoy!

Read more »

A Taste of Thailand: Ground Pork Laab

Today I made one of my favorite Thai dish of all times, Laab. It's basically a ground pork salad, eaten hot or cold, seasoned and flavored with fish sauce, lime juice, cilantro and chilies. The secret to making this dish taste like you just took a trip to Thailand is the ground toasted rice powder. This is a dish that takes to heart the balance of tastes that Thai cuisines are known for which is sour, sweet, salty and bitter.

This Laab I made today is made with ground pork but you can substitute ground pork for ground turkey, chicken or even ground beef. If you're going to be using chicken or turkey, I would suggest sauteing them with a bit of oil since they are a bit leaner than pork or beef. This recipe calls for cooking the ground meat in just a bit of water and I've tried that technique with ground chicken and it does get a bit dry.

Here are the ingredients that you would need to make this dish.

1 pound ground pork

1/4 tablespoon ground dried chili pepper or crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

3 tablespoon fish sauce

4 limes juiced

1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots

1-2 tablespoon toasted rice

chopped green onion and cilantro for garnish

You start by toasting the rice. Set a nonstick pan on medium high heat with the rice in it. You need to stay by the stove and keep an eye on the pan to make sure the rice doesn't burn because it happens really quickly. It'll take about 5 minutes for the rice to toast. Make sure to keep stirring the rice until it is a nice gold brown.

Once it gets that golden brown color, immediately take it off the stove and transfer it to a mortar. If you don't have a mortar, go ahead and ground the toasted rice in coffee grinder, food processor or a blender. Any one of those would do the trick. I like my mortar because come on, how often do you get to use one of those things? That and it's a great way to take out your frustrations.

Now that your rice is toasted and the shallots and cilantro chopped, take half a lime and squeeze the juice to marinate the ground pork for a few minutes before cooking. Make sure the juice is mixed in well with the pork.

Heat up the pan until it is super hot and then add in 2 tablespoon of water. Immediately add in the ground pork and stir, making sure that the pork doesn't stick to the pan. Cook until the meat is well done and most of the moisture from the meat has evaporated. Put the ground pork into a mixing bowl. Now add in the juice of the remaining limes, chopped shallots, cilantro, chili powder and half of the toasted rice. Mix everything together and taste. Depending on your preferences, you might want to add more fish sauce, chili powder or maybe even more lime.

Go ahead and arrange the Laab on a bed of lettuce and garnish it with some cilantro and a sprinkling of toasted rice.  This dish is great with rice or as is.  If you want to really indulge and have the full Thai experience, eat it with some sticky rice.  

And there you have it~! This dish is refreshing and great for the summer heat.  It can be eaten hot or room temperature.  This salad is very healthy since the only fat is from the ground pork because we didn't use any oil at all to saute the meat.  For those of you watching your weight, you can eat this without feeling the guilt.  And for those of you just looking for an easy Thai dish to recreate at home, definitely give this recipe a try.  Let me know how you like it!  Happy eating!

Read more »

The First of Many

Welcome to Fooditorial!  Since this is the first post, we'd like to elaborate on what we wish to accomplish with this site and our goals for the future.  This site will be an outlet for all things food be it recipes, appliance and utensil reviews or food events.  We will start out with recipes and reviews of food products and hopefully branch out into reporting on food events and upcoming food news and trends.

We here at Fooditorial believe that our busy lives do not automatically translate into preparing unimpressive food!  We feel that we just have to cook smarter and that is why Fooditorial exists.

We have a lot of exciting plans we want to share with you, but like cooking, things will take time and will need to be properly prepared before going to the next step.  Please bear with us while we get everything jump started and in presentable shape!  In the meantime, we wish you all happy eating!

Read more »