Air-Fried Wings with Spicy Sweet & Sour Herb Sauce

When I dip, you dip, we dip. I love dips, condiments, sauces. Just give me more so I can smother my food in it. I created this sauce originally to eat with my air-fried wings and then I ended up eating it with everything and anything I could dip into it. I love the combination of spicy, sweet, and sour with herbs. My love of herbs comes from Cambodian food. The more, the better! Sharing with you the recipe and I hope you like it!

Spicy Sweet & Sour Herb Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1½ Tbsp Sambal sauce (Chili Garlic Sauce)

• 6 Tbsp water

• 2¼ Tbsp vinegar

• 1½ Tsp sugar

• ¼ Tsp fish sauce

• ¼ cup scallions, finely chopped

• ¼ cup cilantro, finely chopped

• 1 clove of garlic, minced

Directions: Mix everything together and let sit for 30 minutes. Serve with air-fried chicken wings, grilled shrimp, rice, or noodles. So good on crispy fried eggs with rice. You can also dip cucumbers into it or serve with fried eggs as well.

Dreams...

I had a challenging last week. Can I blame it on Mercury in Retrograde? Some things fell through, professionally and personally, and it made me feel sad, discouraged, and stressed. What am I doing with my life? Am I making the right decisions? What did I do wrong? Etc etc. While it’s human to feel these emotions and have these thoughts, I didn’t want to linger in that head space for too long. I needed to let go, shake it off, and move on.

When I’m feeling anxious or stressed, I have a hard time sleeping. I replay events in my head and over-analyze things unnecessarily, recreating the feelings of negative emotions. Earlier last week, I had one of those dreams where everything went wrong and then it ended with someone saying to me, “Davy, I’m so disappointed in you.” We can analyze that in so many different ways. For example, my mother is not the most supportive mom in regards to my endeavors. I have never heard her say she’s proud of me (until one time recently when I got mad at her). It’s not part of her language or culture, but that’s another long story. However, I can definitely remember her telling me several times about how disappointed she is in me. And if she didn’t say it blatantly, her disapproval was always obvious in her tone and choice of words. Anyway, I was feeling stressed and insecure and it was manifesting in my dream that night.

My friend suggested I try Insight Timer, a free app for meditation and sleep. It’s amazing. I’m not able to stay awake for the entire meditation but I believe you still absorb the positive words while you drift off into sleep. After using Insight Timer a few times, I had the most comforting dream by the end of last week. I was in a small plane with a guy I used to date. I don’t think there is any significance with that particular person because he was never anyone I was serious with. He was that guy I had fun with briefly, which I guess has a different type of significance. My mother never wanted me to have fun growing up—”You had fun last week, you don’t need to have fun again this week.” As if having too much fun is a bad thing that needed to be controlled and restrained. In this dream, we were about to jump out of the plane to skydive. I was scared and nervous. He comforted me and said, “It’s okay, just hold my hand.” So I held his hand and then we jumped out of the plane together. I was shocked because it didn’t feel as scary as I had anticipated. The view was beautiful. I felt light and free. But when we started to get closer to the ground, I panicked because I didn’t know what to do. He reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. He instructed me to deploy the parachute and then we pulled it together. We landed softly and smoothly on our feet in a field where there were people out picnicking and kids playing. It was a beautiful sunny day. I felt relieved and at peace. I was impressed with myself for being brave enough to go through with skydiving, and I was also so grateful that I survived! It didn’t matter how scared I was, I still let go and jumped out of the plane. I still landed on my feet. Those feelings stayed with me when I woke up the next morning. I felt calm, comforted, and hopeful that regardless of what happened last week, things will all work out.

As I was still thinking about the dream again this week, I was reminded of a motorcycle accident I was in 11 years ago. My guy friend showed up at my doorstep to pick me up for dinner on a motorcycle. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on it because I had never been on one before in the USA but he persuaded me. I conceded because I felt that I needed to say yes to more experiences in my life at that time. I had trouble putting on my helmet so he helped me put it on but I didn’t realize he didn’t buckle it. We didn’t have to ride very far for me to feel unsafe with him. I told him he was going too fast and he disagreed. In less than 2 miles, at an intersection, he hit a moving car making a left turn in front of us. My body flew off the bike and hit another moving car, my helmet flew off my head, and my body fell lifelessly onto the concrete pavement. I have no memory of the impact because I was unconscious and didn’t wake up until the paramedics came to the scene. Fortunately, I didn’t have any major injuries. However, I did suffer from a concussion, had a contusion on my head the size of a golf ball (in my memory, it felt like the size of a baseball), purple bruises and scrapes all over my body, and a sprained wrist and hand. My last thought that night before the accident was, “Oh shit, are we going to make it?” Even though we had the right of way, I felt like my friend was at fault because he was going too fast and could have avoided the accident. He also didn’t listen to me when I told him I was nervous and wanted him to slow down. I trusted him and he failed me that night. My injuries could have been worse. I could have died.

I’m grateful that I survived that crash. But I wonder if, in a way, I have trouble giving up control as a result of that incident. Because when I gave up control in that situation, I got myself into a really bad accident. Do I subconsciously equate control with surviving and letting go with death? In my dream last week, I finally let go, gave up control, jumped out of a plane, and had a beautiful new experience and a smooth landing.

In life, all the little moments impact us. All the big moments impact us as well. Some more heavily than others. Sometimes we ignore how situations, people, circumstances, and things make us feel. Maybe it’s connected to something that has happened to us in the past or maybe not. Those feelings inevitably manifest somehow—in our dreams, in our relationships, in our health. I would like to think that the Universe gives us signs to follow and guide us through life. We just have to pay closer attention. Other times, I search for meaning in things that I just can’t shake off for some reason and yet still find no answer. Because you won’t know why things happen, until they have happened. I have to trust that all things will happen for me in time. This is not an excuse for me to be lazy or to give up. It’s a reason to keep going, to keep moving forward, and maybe to switch things up. Who knows? But at the very least, this rant was cathartic :)

Sweet Corn & Tapioca Pudding

When I think of Cambodian food, I don’t normally think of dessert. When I do finally have Cambodian dessert, I’m surprised how much I like it and wonder why I never think to make it. Dessert provides a nice ending to any meal, but it hasn’t been a priority for me in the making of this cookbook. I tend to have more of a savory palate than a sweet one. I tackled the hardest savory recipes first and I’ve saved dessert for last.

This week, I made Sweet Corn & Tapioca Pudding. It was actually quite simple to make. When I posted it on Instagram last week, I was surprised by the response from my followers asking for the recipe. This dessert seemed to get more feedback than any of my savory recipes! You asked for it and here it is. Enjoy!

Sweet Corn Pudding (Serves 4-6 )

Ingredients: 

• 3 ears of sweet corn, husks removed 

• 1 can of coconut milk 

• ¼ cup of tiny tapioca balls 

• ½ cup of sugar 

• 1 cup of water 

• pinch of salt 

Directions: 

Presoak ¼ cup of tapioca balls in a small bowl filled with cold water for 10 minutes.  Mix halfway through because the balls tend to stick together.  Drain any residual leftover water. 

In the meantime, using a knife, shave shallow layers of the raw ears of corn.  I shave about 2-3 layers of one section of the corn at a time.  However, my mom prefers smaller bits of corn.   She shaves more layers and scrapes the last couple of layers of corn from the cob. 

In a small pot over medium heat, add 1 can of coconut milk, corn shavings, and a pinch of salt.  Cook for about 10 minutes.   

Pour in the tapioca balls.   Cook for 5 minutes, stirring so that the balls and corn don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.   

Lower heat.  Pour ½ cup of sugar and 1 cup of water into the pot and stir thoroughly.  Cook for 10 more minutes.   

Try the pudding to see if it is sweet enough for your taste. I prefer it to be mildly sweet but you can add more sugar if you like.

Garnish with mint.  Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold.