Looking for the best summer dishes can be an endless search. During hot and humid summer days, cooling foods help to fuel your body. With easily available ingredients, the following simple recipes are fabulous additions to your daily summer meals. For an easy warm-weather dish, try country-style beef salad as a main and opt for a dessert of longan and lotus seed sweet soup.
Part 1: Southern Food
Country beef salad
Ingredients
a. Beef 300g sliced beef fillet
Marinade
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- ¼ tsp five spice powder
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp sesame sauce
- ½ tsp pepper
- ½ tsp seasoning powder
- 1 tbsp chopped lemongrass
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
b. Vegetables
- 100g garden eggs
- 1 starfruit
- 1 green banana
- ¼ pineapple
- 2 bunches basil, perilla leaves, and coriander
- 4 kumquats
- 3 stalks of lemongrass
- 10 purple shallots
c. Sauce
- 2 tsp chili sauce
- 4 tbsp fish sauce
- 3 tbsp sugar water
- 4 tbsp kumquat juice
- Minced garlic and chili to taste
Process
- Thinly slice the beef lengthwise, marinate for 15 minutes, then quickly fry or grill over charcoal barbecue.
- Thinly slice lemongrass and shallots, then soak in vinegar and sugar.
- Thinly slice the star fruit, green banana, pineapple, kumquats and garden eggs. Make sure to remove seeds from the kumquats.
- Cut basil, perilla leaves and coriander into small pieces.
- Combine sugar water and fish sauce, mixing well. Add kumquat juice to chili sauce. Add garlic and chili as desired.
- Mix the sliced vegetables on a plate with grilled beef. Sprinkle on vinegar-soaked shallots and lemongrass, then pour over salad dressing and mix well.
- Serve with shrimp crackers.
Part 2: Central Food
Longan-wrapped lotus seed sweet dessert
Ingredients
- 100g lotus seeds
- 500g longans
- 200g sucrose
- 1litre water
Process
- Cook lotus seeds in 300ml of water until they soften. Add sugar. When the sugar sweetens the lotus seeds, scoop out the seeds and set aside.
- Pour the remaining 700ml of water into the sugar water pot. Crush some longan fruits into the pot and filter the water again.
- De-seed the longans with a small knife and stuff the lotus seeds inside.
- Boil the sugar water again. Add the longan-wrapped lotus seeds and turn off the heat. You may add some jasmine flowers to perfume the water.
Tip: After cooking, soak the longan, wrapped lotus seeds in ice to make them crunchier.
This post is also available in: Tiếng Việt
