Lettuce Wraps

In my country, the last part of the chicken we eat are the chicken breasts.  When we have any grilled chicken, we always have a problem with what to do with those meaty parts.  While I had some in the fridge, my mind was lost of what to do with it: Chicken tortilla soup, chicken macaroni salad, chicken sandwiches....Anyway, this idea came up and it was a hit! Get ready to have your hands dirty!

Ingredients:

Big leaves from iceberg lettuce
Any cooked meat, I used grilled chicken
Sliced bellpepper
Sliced onions
Shredded carrots
Cooked rice vermicelli noodles
Hoisin sauce or plum sauce



Assembly:

In a flat big serving plate, arrange all the ingredients and in the middle, a small bowl for the sauce.
Start filling the lettuce leaves as you please. Roll and eat!

Taco Filling

Taco Filling

No, no I did not use a Taco Spice Mix. I googled and found out that the main ingredients of a Spice mix are Oregano (which is always around in our kitchen) and Cumin. In this recipe I used almost 4 tablespoons of oregano and perhaps some 3 tablespoons of cumin. But of course its all up to you.

Ingredients:

500g ground beef
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots or 1 onion
4 small chilies
pimenton picante 
cumin
oregano
salt
oil
150 ml broth

Direction:
1. Heat a bit oil in pan. Fry and break the beef until it runs dry or if you have not so much time, take the liquid away. Remove from the pan.
2. Blend the garlic, onion and chilies with a bit of oil. Then saute adding a bit more oil if needed. Place back the beef and saute until well incorporated.
3. Add the broth and all other spices.  Let simmer and keep adjusting the tast.

Pork in Garlic-Chili Sauce

The chili-garlic sauce I used here is from the bottle, Heinz to be exact. Afterwards, I blended my own with 70% small red chili, 30 % garlic, bit of vinegar, salt and sugar. It is sitting in the ref and have used it for the rice vermicelli and gave marvelous spicy taste.

Ingredients:

1 fillet of pork, sliced into longish bite size pieces

1 bell pepper, sliced lengthwise

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

half an onion

some minced garlic

brown sugar to taste

2 teaspoon chili garlic 

oil

Directions:

1. Saute pork in oil until soft.

2. Add garlic and onion. Then all other veggies.

3. Finish it off by adding sugar and the sauce.

4. Serve with jasmine rice.

Rice Vermicelli with Spring Onions and Carrots

 

I always marveled the vermicelli noodles done by Miggy Chang whenever we had a pot luck lunch.  And she has told me not only once how she cooks it.  However, I think only today did I master it the way I wanted it to taste.

Ingredients for 2:

3 cups cooked and drained vermicelli noodles (Marks and Spencer)

half a carrot, cut into julienne strips

3 stalks spring onions

bulb of ginger, cut into julienne strips

garlic, julienne strips

half teaspoon chili/garlic mix 

sesame oil

fish sauce

ground peanuts (optional)

Saute in oil the garlic and ginger. Add carrots until limp, then spring onion. Make a well in the veggies and place the homemade chili/garlic mix and add more sesame oil. Wait some seconds to fry that then mix. Add fish sauce. Then place the noodles and stir fry until done. Sprinkle with peanuts and/or serve with peanut sauce.