To say I did not get inspired by Christina Tosi’s recipe would be a complete lie. But to say that these are her recipe, just copied out of her cookbook or website, with a couple of “creative additions”, that would also be a complete lie. This recipe mostly came about from a combination of loving…
Strawberry-blood orange risotto
Just a heads up, this is not a dessert. If you thought that I was going to make some kind of sweet rice porridge and call it a risotto, then YOU’RE WRONG. This risotto, but all definition, is savory. Yes, I’m using fruit in my rice, but that’s besides the point. For all of you…
S’mores panna cotta: a plated dessert
This dessert came about two summers ago when I was really bored. And I mean REALLY bored. Although that summer, I learned how to do a lot of things, specifically in terms of plating beautiful desserts and tackling ingredients I have never used before. The inspiration for the dessert came from a couple different things….
Khanom buang: Thai street crepes
Khanom buang are Thai crepes, which can be either sweet or savory, and are typically found in stalls served as street food. The first time I ever heard about Thai street crepes was actually watching Iron Chef America, Battle Tamarind. The challenger, Hong Thaimee, was making these with her dessert, although she prepared a baked version….
Coffee crusted ribeye with steakhouse sides
What? Just because I bake and I make spongecakes doesn’t mean I can’t make a delicious steak dish. This particular dish, I actually made two years ago, to celebrate finishing summer school. The entire dish was a coffee crusted ribeye with mushroom jus, kale chips, garlic rubbed bone marrow, and mac n’ cheese. And yes,…
Munti with tomato broth
I was inspired to make these last summer from a couple different things. Lamb munti, a Turkish dumpling, I learned how to make these from reading Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton. For the broth, I was inspired by a restaurant in Cerritos, California, called Omar’s Halal Chinese, where they do these hand pulled noodles with a smoky…
Beignets with ovaltine-mascarpone affogato and dark chocolate custard
I had this craving for beignets one night when I saw a video of my friend who went to the infamous Cafe du Monde in New Orleans and got to record them making these beautiful, cloud-like beignets and serving them with a nice cup of coffee. So, because I went to school in Boston at…
Wind chime in dirt: a plated dessert
I was inspired to make this dessert when I saw a Japanese wind chime, also called 江戸風鈴 (edo fuurin), just laying on my desk, and thought “maybe that would be fun to create a dessert from.” After deciding that I could replicate the entire wind chime using sugar for the glass dome and either white…
Lotus + pond cake
This cake concept came about after my friend, Christina, was so kind as to share with me drawings of cakes she likes to create. One that caught my eye was the lotus cake that she drew. It was beautiful, and being raised in a Buddhist household, I just had to create a cake inspired by…
Dreaming Sea Angel: a tropical dessert
The inspiration for this dessert came from a game I saw on YouTube, called Dreaming Mary. It’s a side scrolling indie horror game about an innocent little girl named Mary who was heavily implied to be raped by her pervert uncle, and it focuses on how she manages to escape from being imprisoned by finding a…
Bee pollen baklava
I can’t believe it took me this long to finally post a recipe that features homemade phyllo. Fun fact: I learned how to make phyllo from scratch the Montenegrin way from watching the Australian cooking competition, My Kitchen Rules, when a contestant, Zana, this snarky, germaphobic, perfectionist Montenegrin-Albanian lawyer made her own phyllo from scratch quite…
Egg and cheese sandwich with apple salad: a brunch dish
Now I normally like to do dessert posts only, but fun fact about myself: I have more savory experiences professionally than sweet. When I used to intern in kitchens, that’s when I’d practice making bread the most, just because I could proof the dough while I was working, then bake it off when I got…
