Hello hello!
Welcome to July! It’s my birthday month and my mom is flying into town next week, so you know what that means? I’ll be working on a fun birthday cake (I have a flavor combo I’m really excited to try out) and I’ll see if all my painstaking research for restaurants to take my family to will pay off. I’ll be sharing the results of both here! Last year’s Picky Asian Parent Restaurant Review was entertaining for a lot of you so I’ll make sure my mom is extra honest about her opinions… which won’t be hard!
With the long weekend approaching I’m sure many of us are preparing our menus, cleaning off our grills, or maybe setting up a little doggy pool to lounge in (Olive is about to become a real seal). We’re having a casual cookout at our house and I’m hoping it stays warm all day (Bay Area summer problems). I’ll be making custom dimension Japanese Sweet Potato Buns for extra long hot dogs, the coconut crunch cabbage salad from Chinese Enough (a mayo-less coleslaw!), and a skewer and s’mores bar. Reuben will be smoking hot dogs, shrimp, and chicken so it smells like a proper bbq.


This week I’m sharing a really easy non-lettuce based salad and some fun skewer ideas! You can make them this weekend or keep them in mind for the rest of the summer!
First up is a Corn and Tomato Crispy Rice Salad! Crispy rice salads seem to be having a moment, and for good reason - they are delicious and texturally exciting. Unfortunately, when something gets really popular the source material gets somewhat erased. Nam khao is the original Laotian crispy rice salad and I order it from our local Lao restaurant on a weekly basis. Theirs comes with fermented pork sausage (naem chua), lots of mint, peanuts, and a spicy bright dressing similar to Nước chấm. A bite of the salad with some crispy pork belly with lots of lime is one of the best bites I’ve ever had in my life.
My version of the crispy rice salad is very summer forward, with raw sweet corn and juicy tomatoes. Both lend their own textural elements that work so well with the crispy and chewy bits of rice. Some fresh basil and green onions lighten up the salad even further. It makes a perfectly refreshing side salad to have some heavier grilled meats. If you have some cold rice already sitting in your fridge, from start to finish you make this salad in about 20 minutes!
Corn and Tomato Crispy Rice Salad
Serves 4
For the dressing:
3 tbsp water
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
2 tsp honey or agave
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 tsp chili flakes
For the salad:
2 cups steamed cold jasmine rice, preferably cooled overnight
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp sambal (or less if you want less spice)
2 tbsp avocado oil
2 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 1/2 cups (from 2 ears) fresh raw corn kernels
1 1/2 cups (about 8 oz) small tomatoes, cut in half
Handful of torn basil
2 green onions, thinly sliced
To make the dressing, combine water, fish sauce, lime juice, honey, garlic, and chili flakes in a small jar and give it a shake. Allow the dressing to sit for 15 minutes while you prepare the rest of the salad.
In a large bowl, mix to combine cold rice, cornstarch, sambal, oil, fish sauce, salt, and pepper. Make sure to break up the clumps of rice and that everything is well dispersed. In a large frying pan, heat up 2 tablespoons of avocado oil over medium heat. Once hot, spread the rice in an even thin layer on the pan. Cook until the underside of the rice is crispy and deeply golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes. With a spatula, flip sections of the rice over to cook the other side until crisp and deeply golden brown, 5 to 7. Toss the rice and continue cooking for a few more minutes to get more crisp if you wish.
Alternatively, you can make the crispy rice in an oven or airfryer. Preheat the oven to 400 F degrees. Spread the rice onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper into a thin layer. Bake for about 10 minutes, scrap and toss the rice, and bake for another 8 to 10 minutes until crispy.
Transfer the crispy rice to a large mixing bowl. Top with corn, tomatoes, basil, and green onions. Pour the dressing overtop and give the salad a mix and serve. Ideally you want to toss everything together right before serving, so you can keep the components separate. The salad is delicious after it’s been mixed for a while but the rice won’t be as crispy.
A Trio of Skewers!
If you’ve ever enjoyed pattern making or even making friendship bracelets I think assembling skewers will give you the same level of satisfaction. Every week we light up our little tabletop charcoal grill to cook up dinner. It requires more upfront setup but then the cooking process is hot, fast, and hands-on. Skewers are so fun and nearly effortless to prepare. The skewer combinations are infinite. I like to take inspiration from Japanese yakitori, making sure the skewers have a nice balance of textures and flavors and giving extra care to the size of each element so they are uniform and cook at the same rate. So here are 3 skewer ideas (not so much recipes) to try out on the grill.
Cheung Fun (rice noodle roll) + Thinly Sliced Beef + Spring Onion
Cheung fun is one of my favorite non-traditional ingredients to grill up. The soft bundles of rice noodles develop a crisp and slightly charred exterior and the beef fat melts (watch out for some flames while its cooking) somewhat basting onion and noodle. The thinly sliced beef frozen for hot pot and kbbq are perfect for this. I like to use cheung fun that already fresh and soft, if they have been refrigerated, just warm them back up in the microwave for a minute or two until they are soft again.
Firm Tofu + Okra + Spring Onion
We love throwing some okra on the grill. For these, I picked some smaller okra so that it would be closer in size with the cubes of tofu. A firm or extra firm tofu would be best on the grill so it doesn’t fall apart when you try to flip.
Garlic + Seaweed Shrimp
I’ll toss 1 lb of heads on shrimp (the heads are so flavorful) with 1 1/2 tbsp of avocado oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp Woon Sea Moss Seasoning (you could sub with furikake or grind up some roasted nori), 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1/2 tsp coarse salt, a few turn of black pepper and let that marinate for a few minutes. A skewers isn’t totally necessary but they do look restaurant quality when they stretch out flat on a skewer.
All-purpose basting sauce:
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
pinch of chili flake
Tips for cooking:
Depending on the temperature of your coals, the cook times will vary but since these are relatively small skewers they will cook fast! Each skewer will take about 2 to 3 minutes on either side to cook and get some good color on them (the shrimp will sometimes cook faster). Baste with the all-purpose sauce frequently to develop a layer of flavor.
If using bamboo skewers, make sure to soak them in some water for a few hours!
Make sure the grill grates are oiled so your food doesn’t stick.
It’s okay to flip the skewers a few times and move them to hot or cooler zones to get the level of cook and char you want.
Happy cooking this weekend!




I appreciate you give credit to the original dish. No idea the Laotian fermented pork sausage is called naem chua. The Vietnamese version is called "nem chua". It's very delicious and my guilty pleasure.
Wow that crispy rice salad looks amazing. ❤️❤️