My Second Official Saturday Night Supper!

I am so excited. I hosted my second official Saturday Night Supper. We had our friends Kim and Eric and their kids, Sonja and Jake over. We had a fantastic dinner with an Asian theme. We started out with endamame and Vietnamese spring rolls with nuoc cham dipping sauce. The endamame was easy. I got frozen endamame in the shell, heated them in the microwave, sprinkled them with kosher salt and set them out for everyone to munch on. Even the kids loved them. The spring rolls were awesome and garnered a lot of ooohhhs and aaaahhhs. It is one of the few deep fried foods I will make at home. My husband does the frying outside on the back porch. I do not like the smell that lingers in the house after deep frying so we set up the electric wok on the back porch and fry there. My husband does not do much cooking but he is the expert on frying up the spring rolls.

For dinner we had chicken wings with oyster sauce, beef with broccoli in oyster sauce, fried rice and steamed jasmine rice. As many of you know I am rather frugal so I have to tell you what I did. I use diced ham in the fried rice. Well ham, whether you buy a ham steak in the meat department or a fat slice in the deli, is at least $2.99 a lb. The grocery store had hams on sale for .99 lb., butt or shank half. So, I bought a 10 pound ham and cooked it last night. I served it for dinner last night, got the diced ham I needed for the fried rice, I have a nice ham bone in the freezer plus four 1 lb packs of leftover ham! I am going to also share with you how I cooked the ham because it really produces the most moist, wonderful ham and some fantastic broth as well that is going to make a wonderful soup this week. Look for the ham recipe in a separate post.

While I do love my sweets I put so much effort into the starters and dinner part of my meal that the dessert is often an afterthought. I have been known to pour some coffee and throw a box of Godiva Chocolates on the table and be done with it. So when Kim asked if she could bring something I said dessert please. She brought a wonderful cake that I know I have seen the recipe for but have never tried, a poke cake. It was really good. It was very light and refreshing. The perfect end to our meal. We were all so into eating eat it we forgot to take pictures. Luckily there was a little leftover so we got a shot of it at the last minute to post here. As you will see, we did a number on that cake. It was delicious. Thank you Kim!

Beef with Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

The marinade for this recipe makes even the toughest cut of beef tender!

Main Ingredients:

1 lb lean beef, thinly sliced into bite size pieces for stir fry

3-4 thin slices ginger

12 oz broccoli florets or do as I did and use a 12 oz package of prepared stir fry veggies from the produce department (not frozen!)

Marinade:

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tlbs dry sherry

2 tbls water

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbls soy sauce

1 1/2 tbls cornstarch

Sauce:

1 tbls dry sherry

2 tbls oyster sauce

1/2 tlbs soy sauce

1 tsp sugar

1/4 cup water

Chopped scallions for garnish.

Mix together the ingredients for the marinade. Add the beef and let stand for 1 hour. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Mix together the sauce ingredients. Add the meat and ginger to the skillet. Stir fry until the meat is partially cooked. Add the vegetables and continue cooking until the meat is cooked through. Add the sauce and cook until the vegetables are tender. Remove from heat, garnish with the scallions and serve.

Chicken Wings with Oyster Sauce

This is just delicious. It is a two napkin meal as it is quite messy but worth it! Start this early in the day as the wings need to marinate in the soy sauce. I often freeze the wings in 2 lb packs with the soy sauce so they marinate as they thaw and are ready to go when I am.

2 lbs chicken wings

2 tbls soy sauce

1 1/2 cups water

2 tbls oyster sauce

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

5-6 thin slices ginger

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 scallion, diced

1/1/2 tbls cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water

Toss the chicken wings in the soy sauce and let marinate in the refrigerator all day. Mix together the water, oyster sauce, sugar and pepper. When ready to cook heat a large non stick skillet over high heat. Add the wings, ginger and garlic. Cook the wings until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Add the oyster sauce mixture and bring to a boil. Cover and cook until the wings are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove the cover. The sauce in the skillet should be reduced by 1/2. Add the scallions and cook for a minute or two and then thicken with the cornstarch solution.

Serve and enjoy!