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Minh's Mexindorocco and Fry Couscous Fusion

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  To finish up the project, I decided to make a fusion dish based on all of the dishes I have made. I named it the Mexindorocco Chicken and Fry Couscous. I spent about 4 hours and 15 minutes in total: 2 hours and 10 minutes to prepare and cook, 5 minutes to clean up, 50 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 10 minutes to write down the recipe. For the Mexindorocco Chicken, I marinated the chicken first with India’s tikka masala chicken marinade and refrigerated it for 1 hour to get the creamy and earthy flavor.  Next, I make the mole sauce base by blending a chipotle pepper with chicken stock, almonds, peanuts, and tomato sauce as this would add some heat and nutty flavors to the dish. Then, I cooked the marinated chicken in a slow cooker, with the mole sauce on it, and ingredients from chicken tagine: onions, carrots, raisins, and dry apricots as it brought a sweet flavor to the dish. For the fried couscous, I used the same techniques as the Vietnamese fried rice but instead I coo
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Ceviche with homemade Tortillas

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  Today, I finished my world culinary journey in South America. I decided to cook ceviche with homemade tortillas. I spent about 3 hours and 45 minutes in total: 1 hour and 40 minutes to prepare and cook, 5 minutes to clean up, 50 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 10 minutes to write down the recipe. The cooking process wasn’t hard, I just had to make sure to use fresh/sashimi quality shrimp and fish. Unluckily, I only got the shrimp for the ceviche today.  First, I quickly blanched, not cooked, through my shrimps to make sure that it would be consumable. Then, I would fully submerge the chopped shrimp in lime juice with other ingredients such as diced tomatoes, onions, sliced red chili pepper, and chopped cilantro. After that, I placed the bowl in the refrigerator and let the acid of the lime juice do the cooking. At first, I was a bit nervous that this method of cooking shrimp in lime juice wouldn’t work. However, after an hour, I took my shrimp out and saw that all of my shr
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Second weekly reflection

It was another fun and challenging week of cooking food for my senior project. I enjoyed cooking the dishes, making the videos, writing down the recipes, and especially the most interesting part out of all, eating my products. For this week, I continued my food journey around the world. I learned how to cook steak with mole sauce and homemade tortillas from Mexico, bulgogi and oi muchim from South Korea, mushroom risotto with pan-seared chicken, bruschetta, and pesto sauce from Italy, chicken kebab with Turkish bread and haydari from Turkey, falafel with pita bread and hummus from the Middle East, and chicken tagine and couscous from Morocco. This week, I was making a lot of bread and with my previous experience with naan bread; I figured out another way to knead the dough without making a mess. I decided to mix and knead the flour with the yeast mixture or just water in the dough to prevent the yeast mixture from spilling over everywhere. I benefit from this change of method because t
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Chicken Tagine and Couscous

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  Morocco, famous for its tagine dish that is cooked in an earthenware pot. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an earthenware pot, so I decided to cook my chicken tagine dish in a slow cooker served with couscous. I spent about 3 hours and 40 minutes in total: 1 hour and 40 minutes to prepare and cook, 5 minutes to clean up, 50 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 5 minutes to write down the recipe. For the chicken, I decided to use bone-in thighs because when slow-cooked, the bone would give the extra flavor and the thighs would bring some more juice to the dish.  When using the slow cooker, I set it on low so all of the flavors had time to build up from the onions, carrots, chicken, raisins, dried apricots, garlic, and seasonings. The low heat also made the chicken very tender and juicy. Meanwhile, I add in some extra ingredients like roasted bell peppers, cucumbers, butter, coriander, and paprika to the couscous to make it more colorful and flavorful. 
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Falafels with Pita bread and Hummus

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  Today I head to the Middle East for a vegetarian dish, the first in my cookbook. I cooked some falafel with pita bread and hummus. I spent about 4 hours 25 minutes in total: 2 hours and 15 minutes to prepare and cook, 5 minutes to clean up, 50 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 5 minutes to write down the recipe. The cooking process wasn’t meant to be too difficult, but I made it difficult for myself. I was meant to soak the chickpeas in water overnight, so it would be easier to blend with the other ingredients.  However, I was only able to soak the chickpeas for about 8 hours and when I was making the falafel mixture, my food processor wasn't able to fully break down the chickpeas. Therefore, I had to scoop out the mixture and separate the chickpeas, so I could deal with it alone. For the falafel, I decided to cook it two ways: deep fry and bake. Unfortunately, I might have overcooked the baked one. In the end, I preferred the deep-fried falafels with pita bread and dippe
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Chicken Kebab with Turkish bread and Haydari

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  I’ve always wanted the opportunity to taste Turkish food. Now I have had the chance to taste it because I made some chicken kebab with Turkish bread and haydari, a Turkish yogurt dip. I spent about 4 hours and 10 minutes in total: 2 hours to prepare and cook, 5 minutes to clean up, 55 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 10 minutes to write down the recipe. The cooking process was not too difficult. I marinated the chicken in the fridge for at least 1 hour, so the chicken would have wonderful flavors when grilled.  For the Turkish bread, I made its bread dough almost the same way as the naan bread. However, I didn’t roll the dough as thin as naan and topped the bread with some olive oil, parsley, and chili flakes. Meanwhile, I decided to use Greek yogurt for the Haydari because it was thicker compared to plain yogurt. Therefore, I didn’t have to drain it. In the end, the creamy yogurt dip went well with the smokey kebab and the Turkish bread.     
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Mushroom Risotto with pan seared Chicken, Bruschetta and Pesto sauce

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  Italy, home to the famous pizza and pasta dishes and more. Today I took on the country’s other delicacy, mushroom risotto served with pan-seared chicken, bruschetta, and pesto sauce. I spent about 4 hours and 20 minutes in total: 2 hours and 10 minutes to prepare and cook the food, 5 minutes to clean up, 50 minutes to make the video, and 1 hour and 10 minutes to write down the recipe. Cooking the mushroom risotto wasn’t incredibly hard, but it was a battle of patience. Based on the recipe, it should’ve taken me 15-20 minutes to finish stirring the risotto with the chicken broth.  However, it took me about an hour to finish. At that moment I wanted to increase the heat to medium-high or high, so I could finish faster. Yet, I resisted the temptation and cooked the risotto at medium heat. I kept adding a ladle of chicken stock into the risotto and stirred until there wasn't much liquid left before adding in another ladle. Therefore, I just repeated this action until there wasn't
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