Final Meal

For the final meal assignment, I decided to go with an Asian fusion theme because I used to think a lot of my favorite Asian dishes were really complicated to make until this class! These dishes were also inspired by some of my favorite Asian restaurants back home so I was super happy to try them out! For the assignment, I made Vietnamese spring rolls, kimchi tofu soup and parfait with persimmons and Asian pears. I only used a recipe for the Kimchi tofu soup from one of my favorite chefs, and the dish was inspired from his restaurant in LA! The other two dishes I just pretty much followed my instincts!

Appetizer: Spring Rolls

                            ingredients: 

- lettuce

- sliced pork belly

- spring roll wrapper

- rice noodles

- 1 avocado

- salt

- pepper

- sugar

 I started with frying the marinated sliced pork belly until a little crispy and boiling the rice noodles at the same time. I then prepared a bowl big enough to fit the spring roll wrappers without crushing it and filled it up with warm water. Then I rinsed the lettuce sliced up an avocado. After everything was done I just simply dipped the spring roll wrappers in water and let it sit for 30 seconds, after it was soft I put two pieces of lettuce, two pieces of sliced pork belly and one piece of avocado and wrapped everything up!My wrapping skills definitely weren't the best but they turned out to be really good! I also marinated the sliced pork belly ahead with salt, sugar and a little bit of soy sauce and I just dipped the spring rolls in sriracha and it was really good and the avocados added a refreshing taste!

Main Course: Kimchi Tofu Soup (kimchi jiggae)

ingredients

- pork 

- kimchi

- green onions

- enoki mushroom

- soft tofu

- salt

- chili pepper

- 1 yellow onion

 

 

I started by roughly chopping up the pork and boiling it for a few hours. This was pretty unusual for me because I usually fry the meat first before making it into a soup but the recipe said that letting the fat melt in the water would give it more richness and texture which I found actually helpful! After the meat had been boiled for a few hours (I think I let it boil for 4 hours?) I added the kimchi, onion, tofu and green onions. I let that cook for a few minutes then I added the soft tofu. After everything was cooked through, I turned off the heat and sprinkled some chopped green onions. It actually tasted very good so I was really surprised because I've tried to make kimchi soup before but they always tasted weird. I think the broth really helped with the pork so I'll definitely be making this again! 

Dessert: Yogurt Parfait Cup with Persimmon + Asian Pear + sweet potato balls

 

 ingredients:
- 1 persimmon
- 1 asian pear
- 1 sweet potato
- all-purpose flour
- yogurt of any kind
- chia seeds (optional)
- sugar
- milk

This recipe was pretty straightforward for the parfait part. I washed and sliced some persimmons and asian pears because those are my favorite asian fruit (if it's accurate to call them that) and I actually brought them back from San Francisco! I also made some sweet potato balls which was inspired by one of my favorite asian dessert place in California called meet fresh. They're usually served with milk tea or grass jelly but I wanted to combine it with something healthier and more common so I put it under the parfait and it actually worked really well! However, making the sweet potato balls were a little more complicated than I thought it would be so I'm probably not going to make it again in the future. 

conclusion

Overall I had fun making all these dishes even though this is a very busy time and I probably should've started earlier. All of them were dishes that I was already familiar with so it didn't take that much time which I was happy with. I was also happy with the nutritional balance because there were different vegetables, protein and fruits! This assignment definitely helped me realize that I really can make a lot of the dishes on my own if I try instead of eating out.