One Dinner Night

A nicely seared juicy medium well flank steak with a side of creamy buttery mashed potatoes...delicious!! Unfortunately, there are no recipes. I was going through my photo albums and found these pictures.  All I can remember is that they were so delicious that I still crave for them. I cooked these on special nights when I feel like my husband deserves an extra special meal...but I think it's time for me to cook whenever I crave for a nice juicey streak. I was never a steak eater until I was pregnant with my son. The first and second trimester...I was all about fuji apples. Then in my third trimester, I was all about steaks.  

I used a skirt flank steak...seasoned it and seared it
Obviously...I didn't let it sit long enough...too eager to slice it up

What's better paired with steaks than mashed potatoes...
I also added steamed vegetables but no pictures

When I was pregnant with my son, I had this strong craving for purple sticky rice. Sadly, I couldn't find it anywhere not even the ingredients to make it. Luckily, my mom sent me the ingredients and my cravings were fulfilled. Purple sticky rice is just like sweet sticky rice, but with a blend of black sweet rice. (I know, it's says black but the color is purple) You may have seen the black sweet rice made in a chinese soup dish with red beans. It's acutally a favorite dish of mines...perfect on cold school nights and late studying. Basically, the white sticky rice is dyed with the liquid from the purple sticky rice. The taste is a bit different than just plain white sticky rice.

I love eating the purple sticky rice by itself, with larb, fried eggs, or (my husband's favorite) sardines.

I mixed some purple sticky rice with the white sticky rice
both cooked perfectly...fresh out of the steamer

I love the smell of fresh cooked rice!!

Lau Lau, an Hawaiian dish consisting of pork wrapped in Taro leaves then wrapped in Ti leaves. This specific lau lau is made up of pork belly and purple potatoes. You can find a variety of lau laus. Some made with chicken, beef, salted butterfish, and no potatoes. For some, the smell of the Ti leaves is a bit too strong but don't worry...you won't be eating the Ti leaf. I've had authentic lau laus and I actually can't even taste the salted butterfish. I guess it's there to bring a bit of a flavor to the pork since they don't flavor the pork. Getting authentic lau laus is sometimes a challenge...traffic is way too crazy sometimes so I buy mines already made at the supermarket. All I have to do is steam them. I love the purple potatoes....kind of like sweet potatoes but purple. It's now one of my favorite dish and I plan to make my own versions of a lau lau soon.

 

The big tough leaves around the lau lau is the Ti leaf that it was wrapped in

Here you can see the purple potato snuggled in pork belly meat
all covered in taro leaves.