Pan de Sal and Longanisa Stuffing

Pan de Sal and Longanisa Stuffing

At our store, we are always trying to come up with a twist on celebrating the holiday festive season. Carrying mainly ethnic foods and ingredients, we tend to fuse [always] ingredients together. For example, stuffing for a turkey or in this case, a whole chicken. In the past, it has always been the usual stuffing with breadcrumbs and some spices or the random boxed stuffing mix. This year, we have decided to use an ethnic bread, Pan de Sal, which is a Filipino version of bread rolls, for our bread crumbs, and toss that in with some ethnic seasoned meat, longanisa. Longanisa is usually found in a sausage form, here with the stuffing, we will remove the casing and use just the meat. Longanisa has been a staple for the Filipino's, at home and also those living and working abroad. The seasoned meats go pretty fast off our shelves ... BUT we continually keep it well stocked! Especially for the holiday season now! We found an amazing recipe and pictures [since I totally forgot to take some while I was trying out the recipe] from Burnt Lumpia Blog! So are you ready to try a different take on your stuffing?!?!

from Burnt Lumpia

What you need:

1/2 pound Pan de Sal rolls (about 4-5 rolls), cut into 1/2-inch cubes and left out to dry overnight

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 pound longanisa sausage, casings removed

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

1 oz. dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 30 mins then drained and chopped

1-inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped fine

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup homemade turkey stock (or storebought chicken stock)

2 eggs, beaten

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Add the pan de sal to a large mixing bowl.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the longanisa to the pan and cook until golden brown.  Using a slotted spoon, remove longanisa from pan and add to mixing bowl with the pan de sal.

yummy!

Add all of the vegetables to the pan and saute until onions become translucent, about 5 minutes.  Transfer vegetables to mixing bowl with pan de sal and longanisa.

Return saute pan to the heat and add the 1/2 cup of wine to deglaze, making sure to scrape the brown bits from the pan.  Turn heat off, and transfer deglazed pan liquid to the mixing bowl.  Add the turkey stock to the mixing bowl and gently mix contents (try not to break up the bread cubes).

Add the eggs and salt and pepper to the mixing bowl and continue to mix contents until eggs are incorporated, use your hands to mix if necessary.  Place the stuffing mixture into a 9x9 baking dish and cover dish with foil.  Place baking dish in oven and bake for 1 hour.  After an hour, remove foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes or until top of stuffing has browned nicely.

yummier!

serving suggestion by Burnt Lumpia!

recipe and pictures taken from Burnt Lumpia

Enjoy and let us know and share with us your stuffing recipes!

-Patricia

The Wait is Over: The First Round of Food Story

For all the lovely individuals who would like to create more happiness, just with your creativity and a bit of baking or cooking, decorating, and crafting ;)... the time is here!

After a few tweets (by wonderful supporters!) and Facebook updates, we would like to share with you our Food Story Action- as it gets colder and colder outside and warmer and warmer inside our homes- with a theme that fills your heart. And perhaps adding a few pounds may not be such a bad idea for this winter! 

Just in time for the holiday season and all the gift giving, we have our Food Story Theme as:

"Let's Start the New Year with Chocolate Happiness"- cookies, fudge, cupcakes-galore, and many holiday goodies are waiting to be sent away and enjoyed!

Registration opens today until December 16th, 2012 here.

Let's join in creating chocolate happiness

Each happiness creator has until December 16th, 2012 to register to be apart of our Food Story Action.

Everyone will receive on December 25th, 2012 the Address from their Exchange Partner, where you will contact each other for the exchange; which will occur between January 04 - 15th, 2013.

This means: During this time, the packaged goodies along with the recipe should be mail-posted for your partner to receive!

Once the package is received, please email (max 1MB) or notify us with the blog or link to the photo you have snapped of the goodies!

crafted personally for happiness

Looking forward to our first ever Food Story Action!

Keep warm and can't wait for all the wonderful goodies to be exchanged and to see more happiness!

-Patricia

Your Food Story Action-er!

p.s. If you are looking for creative ideas on how to decorate and pack your goodies, check out some ideas here!

Food Story Registration Begins Nov 23 until Dec 16

enjoying Portuguese natas

The Idea! 

What would it be like, if all the little goodies, that we create in our lovely kitchen, could be shared with others? What if the scrumptuous homemade pralines, marmelade, cupcakes, or spicemix were to be remarkably decoratively packed for a trip, a few kilometers away, so that it would create happiness for someone?!

Our thoughts: It would be amazing!

And by paying it forward, by sharing with others, we, at the Asian Supermarket World Foods and Imports, want to create and foster this happiness: The idea to share and to connect us!

How it works: Every 3 months, a theme will be announced on our blog. Everyone who would like to create [more] happiness, can register per Email, and you will receive an Exchange Partner at a fixed date. And so, the creation of happiness begins: cook, bake, stir, steam, and what ever your heart desires, snap a photo from your creation and send it away decoratively packed. And please post your photos on your blogs, if you don't have one, send us your photo and we will post it on our blog! And through our happiness creation, we could collect all our photos on Pinterest.

Join us in creating happiness? We would love to connect with you!

How does it all work?
Register here!

Welcome! Bhutanese Community

We would like to extend our warm welcome to the ever growing Bhutanese Community in Lethbridge, AB. We have had the fortunate opportunity to carry a selection of food that the Bhutanese have requested and we continue to expand on this, over the past couple of years. 

Our father Louis Luu, the owner and founder of the Asian Supermarket, along with our mother Thao; had initially opened the business solely because there was a lack of a food selection from our own country, Vietnam, back in the 1980's, where an influx of Vietnamese Boat People came to Canada and were resettled all over. We understand and believe that ethnic food is important no matter where we are: food connects and comforts individuals near and far.

We are happy to continue to support the Bhutanese Community, and please feel free to let us know what other selections that are important for the Bhutanese diet. 

Thank you!

Patricia

Ginger Fried Rice Recipe

We would like to introduce a feature food and recipe blogger Brian Ly from tubbybakes.com.

He currently resides in Toronto, an avid foodie and a creative food photographer for an upcoming Foodie shop in Burgundy, France.

“Hey, I'm Brian, and I'm the owner/author of tubbybakes.com; a food and recipe blog located in Toronto. I was asked by Trish at the Asian Supermarket World Foods and Imports to share my recipes and postings and to encourage others to try out different recipes. I thought I'd start off with something simple, so today I will be posting my ginger fried rice recipe.”

I had a sudden craving for fried rice last night and decided to stir something up. But after a long night, I thought it would be best to take a nap first…8 hours later, I woke up and the magic began. 

Peel and finely chop the ginger.

Ta da!

 Do the same to the garlic

Add the ginger and garlic into the pan and get them nice and golden brown. Remove from pan.

.

Add the scallions to the same pan. 

Mix in the rice with the scallions. 

Ginger Fried Rice Recipe

Prep time: 10 mins – Cooking time: 20 mins 
1/4 cup or less of canola oil 1 tbsp minced garlic 1 tbsp minced ginger some salt 1 cup thinly sliced leeks or cup of scallions – white and green parts 2 cups day-old cooked rice 1-2 large eggs 1-2 teaspoons soy sauce

Heat oil in a large skillet on medium to high heat. Add ginger and garlic into the pan and stir until golden brown. About 30 seconds. When it’s done, remove with a slotted spoon or tip the pan and spoon it out into a bowl lined with paper towel. Salt if desired.

Turn the heat down to low and add the leek/scallions. Scallions take a couple of seconds, but the leeks will take a few minutes. Once they’re sizzling, turn the heat up and add the day old rice and break it in thoroughly.

While the rice is going at it, heat another small pan and start frying the eggs. Once they’re golden around the edges, pop them out.

Lay the rice on a plate and top with egg. Garnish with ginger and garlic and a bit of soy sauce. Enjoy.
  
Tips Use day old rice. Why? You want fried rice don’t you? Using fresh rice while it’s still warm won’t give it time to release its moisture resulting in a soggy mushy rice. This isn’t a recipe for soggy mushy fried rice now is it?

Spice of the Month: Cumin

Cumin is earthy, smoky and downright toasty. This sensational spice is a must-have for fall cooking

Cumin Basics

Dating back to the Old Testament, this ancient spice is a relative of parsley (but you’d never know it by the flavor). Tiny slivered brownish-black seeds are super aromatic and explode with even more flavor when ground into a fine powder. Some specialty markets may also have white cumin seeds.

Popular across various cultures, you’ll find cumin as a staple in Asian, Mediterranean, Mexican and Middle Eastern cuisines.

Nutrition Info

One tablespoon of whole cumin seeds has 22 calories and 1 gram of fat along with 1 gram of fiber and 22-percent of your daily iron needs.

What to do With Cumin

Ground cumin is a common ingredient in both curry and chili powders. It’s warm, not spicy – a nice balance to fiery spices like cayenne and chipotle.

Use cumin to add a deep, nutty flavor to chicken, fish, pork or beef. Add to a marinade for a platter of grilled veggies like zucchini, eggplant, peppers and portabello mushrooms. Jazz up chicken soup, beef stew and turkey chili. Or blend into salad dressing and hummus.

Cumin seeds can also be enjoyed whole – they’re divine when sautéed in oil and added to soups and sauces. Indian classics like lentil soup and masala use this method frequently.

Shopping and Storage Tips

Store cumin seeds or ground cumin in a cool, dry place for up to 6 months. To bring out the flavor of cumin seeds, lightly toast in a dry pan.

Taken from foodnetwork.com

Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream

These little delicious pockets of green tea (matcha) mochi ice cream are just little surprises to your tongue! The first time I ever had them was just a coincidence. We have always been stocking them in our freezer section, but just the other day, I had a craving for green tea; but not the hot liquid, something else, something different. So as I was strolling along the various aisles, I came across a package that said green tea mochi ice cream... it sparked my interest and I opened the package, then slowly the silver package and inside were little individual plastic with these little gems inside.

I took a bite into it and and it was AMAZING! I had about 5 within the 30 minutes of discovering these lovely pockets of green tea! It is basically rice flour as the outside part filled with green tea ice cream. It is gluten free..no wheat! Yay!!!

You should try it yourself! Take a stroll along our aisle at the Asian Supermarket World Foods and Imports. You never know what you will discover. Just like myself, after 30 years.... I just had my first ever green tea mochi ice cream.  These are staples in Japan and imagine they are individual pieces...exact amounts of happiness ;)

Like us on Facebook!

Trish
your local foodie!

Masterchef Season 3 Winner Christine Catfish Recipe

The first ever blind contestant from Masterchef with her Vietnamese comfort food, in which we totally agree! We are Vietnamese ourselves! Catfish is a very tasty fish and we have all the ingredients here at the Asian Supermarket World Foods and Imports!

Here is the link to the episode!

And the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 lb catfish steaks (bone and skin on or other meaty fish steaks)
4 tbs fish sauce
3 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs minced shallots
2 tbs minced garlic
1 tbs black pepper
3 green onions, sliced 1 inches long
3 tbs caramel sauce (see below)
1 can of young coconut juice
1 thai chili (thinly sliced, optional)
cooking oil

Directions:

For the caramel sauce all you need is sugar and water. Use about 2 tbs of sugar and 1/4 cup water and keep at a rolling simmer, stirring until it reduces and becomes dark brown, about 8min or so. It should be around maple syrup like consistency. If too thick, just add more water.

Clean the fish steaks, rinse well and pat dry. Marinade with fish sauce, sugar, pepper, garlic, and shallots for about 1/2-1 hr.
In pot, heat about 1 tbs of cooking oil on medium high and add the marinaded fish. Allow to sear and brown for about 2-3 before searing opposite side for another few minutes. Add the caramel sauce and just enough coconut juice to the level of the fish steaks. Cover and turn to med low heat and allow to simmer for about 25 min (longer if you want it really soft), checking a few times to make sure that it's not reduced too much. Add more coconut juice or caramel sauce if needed. The fish will eventually caramelize and brown, as will the sauce which will be a thick gooey consistency. Taste sauce and make final adjustments with fish sauce or sugar. Turn off heat and add additional fresh cracked pepper, green onions, and optional chili pepper.

Best cooked in a clay pot, just like how Christine did! Best served over hot rice...why doesn't Masterchef Kitchen provide them with rice cookers....all Asian households have a rice cooker! But only the original real ones...you know what I mean?

Congratulations Christine!!!

Chinese Tea Eggs Recipe

 

Ingredients
Chinese Tea Eggs
6 eggs
2 TBS organic loose leaf Pu’erh
¾ cup soy sauce
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp dark brown sugar
4 pieces star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp cracked black peppercorns
2 strips dried tangerine or mandarin orange peel (optional)

Directions
Place the eggs in a medium-sized pot with enough cool water to cover by 1-inch. Bring the water to a boil, then lower heat to simmer for 3 minutes. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl of cool water. Reserve the simmering water in the pot for use in the next step of the recipe.

When cool enough to handle, take the back of a spoon and gently crack the eggs evenly all around the shell. Take care when cracking to leave the shell intact. This allows the dark steeping liquid to seep into the egg white, staining it with a marbled design. The more you crack, the more intricate the design will be.

Add the remaining ingredients to the pot of simmering water, stirring to combine. Return the cracked eggs to the pot as well. Bring the liquid to boil again, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 40 minutes. Turn off the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Let the eggs steep for a few hours to overnight. The longer the eggs steep, the more intense the flavor and color will be.

Drain the eggs, peel and serve. Unpeeled eggs can be refrigerated in a covered container for up to 4 days.

Author:
Olivia May at From the Kitchen of Olivia

Exciting New Look

Have you checked out our new storefront window?

We have removed our shelves for giftwares and for passerby, you can see the wide selection of ethnic cosmetic and body care from around the world.
We carry henna products, facial creams for men and women along with the hair care products to enhance and strengthen your roots.

Come in and shop the world at the Asian Supermarket World Foods and Imports.

Can you guess what this is?

Can you guess what this meal is and where you would typically eat this?

The many things you can do with DAIKON, BURDOCK (Gobo), and Organic Carrots

Burdock Florentine
Via nippon nin

Cake flour 200g
Almond flour 40g
Cocoa powder 5g
Unsalted butter 70g
Sugar 25g
1 egg- scramble

In a bowl,combine cake flour, almond flour and cocoa powder . Set it aside.
Put butter and sugar in an another bowl and mix until pale yellow in color with hand mixer.
Add egg  a little at a time. mix well each time.
Add flour mixture and combine with rubber spatula.
Put in the middle of a large sheet of plastic wrap and twist up at the top to make a tight ball. Leave in refrigerator for 1 hour.

Happy Chinese New Years! Chuc Mung Nam Moi! Happy Tet!

Year of the Dragon brings promise of change!


We here at the Asian Supermarket and International Foods would like to wish everyone a prosperous, joyful, good health in 2012. We have been around for over 25 years and still going strong as a family business. We admire all your loyalty and your continued trust in having us as your local international food store. We would be ecstatic to hear what you will be cooking up for the new years.

See you soon and Happy Dragon New Years
Our Dragon for 2012!

With respect

10% off your Total Purchase

We at the Asian Supermarket and International Foods know how after the holidays, how our spending can easily be over the top after Christmas and New Years! So to make sure your spending on your day to day grocery is not reduced, we are offering 10% off* your total purchase. This includes everything except for rice, flour, and special items.

minimum of $10 purchase.


Happy New Years!

Wheat and Gluten Free Products Available

Are you allergic to wheat? Having cravings because the products you are used to eating are not available wheat free? Well we at the Asian Supermarket and International Foods carry a wide variety of products that cater to those who share this predicament.
When was the last time you had spaghetti bolognese and paid maybe lesser than what you normally did for a package of spaghetti pasta? We here carry a wide variety of rice products in all shapes and sizes for those dishes you have been cooking these past years. Come and take a look. Shop the World at the Asian Supermarket. Because it's your World!


Hope you all had an amazing start to the new year! Take care and please tell us that you do read our blog when you come in for a purchase!

Cheers