Day 104

Rice. Rice. Rice. And... more Rice. 

It is the grain with the second largest worldwide production after corn. That's a lot of rice. 

We utilized rice several ways. First we made Vietnamese Salad Rolls (Goi Cuon) which are rice wrappers filled with shrimp, pork, rice noodles, bean sprouts, carrots, cucumber, cilantro, thai basil, mint, and bibb lettuce. I added a bit of sriracha sauce in there too. Once you roll them up tightly, they are delicious dunked into some Spicy Peanut Hoisin Sauce (Nuoc Leo).

Spicy Peanut Hoisin Sauce 

Makes 2 cups

Ingredients

1 cup water or stock

5 each garlic cloves, minced

1 T thick soy sauce

1 tsp spicy soybean sauce

3 T hoisin sauce

5 T peanut butter

2.5 tsp chili garlic sauce

1 oz peanuts, chopped 

Method

1. add water or stock and garlic into saucepan and bring to boil. once it begins to boil, reduce to a simmer 

2. add rest of ingredients reserving chopped peanuts for a garnish. Whisk until combined. Adjust seasonings to taste. 

We also produced Ichigo Daifuku which is a rice flour pastry filled with sweet beans and fresh strawberry. This recipe is an adaptation of Mochi which is found widely across Japan. The rice flour pastry is made with a super glutinous rice flour that makes for a sweet and gummy-like product.

Next it was on to Pearl Balls which are pork meatballs that are rolled in sweet rice and steamed to perfection. We topped them with a bit of soy sauce and chopped scallions.

We also made a traditional Chicken Congee (Gai Jook) which is a Cantonese rice porridge with ginger, black fungus,  and soy sauce that you top with crispy wonton strips, scallions, and fresh cilantro. 

We had a lot of leftover ingredients from our sushi making extravaganza yesterday so we made more sushi, ahi poke, and salmon tartare with wonton chips for scooping. 

Rice overload. 

 I still love rice but needless to say, I'm glad we are moving onto some other grains tomorrow.