Two easy cold vegetable dishes

Cabbage Salad

When I go to a Japanese restaurant, I always like their fine-chopped cabbage salad.  A few year's ago, I learned from a colleague a Japanese Ramen Cabbage Salad, I made it several times, but the ramen got soggy if you don't eat it right away.  So, I simplified the recipe a bit, papa likes it a lot :)
 
Ingredients:

1. Half of a cabbage
2. olive oil 2Tbsp (or vegetable oil)
3. honey 2 Tbsp
4. Rice vinegar 2 Tbsp
5. Salt 2 tsp
6. White roasted sesame (optional)

Steps:

1.  Cut the cabbage into 2 quarters, wash it
2.  Cut the cabbage leaves horizontally into thin strips, the thinner the better
3.  Add salt and put it in the refrigerator for three hours.
4. Drain the liquid from the cabbage.  Add #2, #3, #4 and mix it well.  You might want to mix #3 and #4 first to make the honey thinner. 
5. Sprinkler the sesame seeds before serve. 

Note, all the ingredient quantities are for reference only.  Always taste it and adjust the seasoning to your taste.  You can keep this dish for a week and still taste good.  If you don't like the taste of the olive oil, use vegetable oil instead.

Lotus Roots Cold Dish

This is again a very simple cold dish.  But the lotus roots can only be found in Chinese supermarkets in areas densely populated with Chinese such as LA.  I think Fall is the season for lotus roots.  They are very inexpensive and tasty around this time.

Ingredients:

1. Three segments of lotus roots
2. Rice Vinegar 1.5 Tsp
3. Sugar 1 Tsp
4. Sesame oil 1Tsp
5. some salt
6. mashed garlic (optional)

Steps:

1. remove the skin using a peel remover and cut off both sides of the lotus.
2. Cut the lotus horizontally into very thin slices.
3. Put the slices in cold water, otherwise, it will turn pink.
4.  Heat water in a pot and cook the lotus roots for 2-3 minutes.  (add a little salt in the water)
5.  Rinse the lotus root with cold water until it is cold, drain the water.
6. Add #2 - #6 and mix it well.  Adjust the seasoning to your taste.  Chill and serve. It is supposed to taste sweet and sour, whether you want it in the sweet side or sour side depends on  your personal preference.

In this photo, I added some gojis and dried jujubes for some color.  It is purely decorative. 

BBQ Baby Back Rib

I haven't been updating this website for a long time!  Sorry for the laziness.  I learned this recipe from my high school friend Sue Lee.  It is super simple and super delicious. (超好吃）  The secret is that the sauce used in this recipe is the same sauce the Catonese restaurant made the BBQ pork (叉燒肉), not the western BBQ sauce. 

Ingredients:
1. One full rack of baby back rib (I bought them from Costco, one pack contains three full racks, you can share with your friends.  It has more meat and tenderer than the ones you bought in the Chinese market)

2. Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce (李錦記叉燒醬）3TbSp (see picture on left)
3. Honey 2TbSp
4. Soy Sauce a little

Steps:

1. Cut the baby ribs into four pieces, cut out excessive fat, clean it
2. Thin the BBQ Sauce (#2) with some water (or soy sauce) -- The Char Siu Sauce is very thick and it is hard to spread it over meat.  So I mix it with 1 tsp water and 1 tsp light soy sauce.  (Soy sauce is optional, I tried first time without soy sauce and I feel it is not salty enough, so I added soy sauce the second time.  Make sure you use the light color one to keep the meat color red).  Mix the sauce with the meat and refrigerate it overnight.
2. Put the ribs on a baking pan and bake it at 400 degree for one hour.  First put the meat side down, after 30 minutes, turn them over so that the meat side is up.
3. Reduce heat to 275 degree and continue bake it for 2 hours.  Mix the left over sauce with honey and brush the sauce on the meat at every 30 minutes.

Note:  The only trick is not to burn the meat.  Each oven's power is different.  The first time, I burned the meat in the first hour, so for the second time, I used 375 degree instead of 400 degree and the result looks better.  You will have to check, especially in the first hour, and adjust the oven temperature if the meat starts to turn black.

It is an easy party recipe.  I plan to bake three racks of baby back ribs this thanksgiving :)