Meals – Page 2 – Freddy's Harajuku

Black Chicken Tsukune with Ginger Broth

This recipe wound up being like an Asian take on an albondigas soup, using black chicken(also called silkie fowl) as the base. Black chicken is a popular ingredient in Asian cuisines because it creates a gorgeous broth. My mother actually loves eating black chicken, which is why I opted to use it to make one…

Stewed Beef Tongue and Prunes

This is the definition of a granny dish. Stewed meat and prunes. Literally a grandma-inspired dish is there ever was one. It is a giant bowl of brown too, yet this is a dish that I really enjoyed making, and eating. Beef tongue is such an under-loved cut, being more popular in Latin dishes(for lengua…

Umami Oil Scallion Pancakes

When I was testing out a recipe for scallion pancakes, I happened to have made an umami oil with celery leaves and scallions, so I figured, why not infuse my dough with some of that? The dough itself was a subtle green color(which might not have photographed too clearly, but I promise you that there…

Sourdough Bolognese Pizza

While I was experimenting with sourdough pizza crust, I happened to also have meal-prepped a giant vat of bolognese(meat sauce), just to have throughout the week for potential dinners. Originally, this was going to be a bolognese pasta post, but I forgot to photograph that, and decided instead, let’s use the bolognese on the pizza…

Haricot Vert and Feta Pita

I had purchased green beans(or haricot vert) on a whim and was trying to figure out a way to use the last few up in a fun and creative way. That was literally how this recipe came about. When I think about haricot vert, I distinctly enjoy their snappy texture, when blanched and shocked properly,…

Hamburg Steak Dinner

This recipe is my slightly bougie-r take on a a meatloaf and mashed potato dinner. I had some ground beef I needed to use up, and I figured why not make a hamburg steak? Hamburg steak is a Japanese yoshoku-style dish that is basically a beefed up(pun semi-intended here) hamburger patty that is seared and…

Red Miso-Black Garlic Pork Belly Baozi

Since I am about to travel in Taiwan/Japan in April, I was starting to think about what dishes from my youth that I missed the most. Baozi, or meat buns, were such a ubiquitous part of my childhood, being something I would eat at dim sum, for breakfast on occasion, and whenever I would visit…

Pork and Shiitake Shumai

I still remember as a little kid watching Chuka Ichiban(a true old-school anime that heavily featured Chinese cooking, so think Shokugeki no Soma, but way less pervy) in Taiwan, and the main character Liao Xiao Ming made a dish called shumai. 5 year old Fred had zero clue what that was, but after asking his…

Cheesy Broccolini Focaccia

This is one of those recipes that came about because I had a lot of leftover broccolini and was trying to figure out what to do with it. I still remember during the pandemic how people would make aesthetically pleasing focaccia landscapes, and figured, why not take a whack at it? Truthfully, I used to…

Lamb-Chickpea-Kataifi Fritters

These fritters were partially inspired by the mala cream shrimp dim sum from the Netflix show, Culinary Class Wars. The dish itself was a mixture of ground shrimp and pork, rolled in julienned spring roll wrappers and deep fried, so that there were these thin strands of crispy-fried dough for extra texture and crunchiness around…

Sweetbreads with Bacon-Caper Brown Butter

This recipe was heavily inspired by the sweetbreads with bacon, capers ,and brown butter from the now-closed Prune restaurant in New York City. Prune was a restaurant owned by chef Gabrielle Hamilton, and it featured food from her French-Italian upbringing. A lot of the dishes they served had this sense of resourcefulness, pulling techniques and…

“Tea and Mooncake”: a plated dish

I’ve been trying on and off to make this recipe for years now, but until recently, I had zero clue to where to buy quail. That is until I finally came across a meat market that sold almost every conceivable protein imaginable, including quail, and I could finally revisit this concept! The idea was to…

Mortadella and Pistachio Pizza

This recipe was originally going to be a revisitation of my old squash blossom and burrata pizza I did years ago. Except that I could not find squash blossoms anywhere, and so I had to pivot. I wanted to try out a fun recipe using my sourdough starter, and making this airy, high-hydration, pizza dough…

Sourdough Smash Burgers

Now I get it. When you think a recipe by Fred, you would never think hamburger. The last time I ever made a burger was probably in college, where I made the patties too thick and almost unhinged my jaw attempting to bite into one. But I have learned a few tricks since then, namely…

Quahog Clam Onigiri

A long, long time ago, I was watching a Japan travel video, where someone purchased these red clam onigiri(rice balls), stored in the clam shells, and enjoyed them on a coastal train ride. Now, I would have totally linked the video, but it was years ago and I honestly could not find it anywhere. But…

Ajitama Onigiri

This recipe is inspired by an onigiri I saw when I was traveling in Japan earlier this February. We were staying in Shinjuku, and had about 4 days(including travel) to explore Tokyo. While we were at Tokyo Skytree, there was an onigiri store in the department store, and I saw this onigiri that was triangular…

Kakuni(Japanese braised pork)

Kakuni is a Japanese dish consisting of braised cubes of pork belly in this sweet soy-based broth, usually served with a braised egg and mustard. I came to really love this dish over the past year, when I first had it at a Japanese restaurant in Torrance, then again almost a week later when I…

Pork Loin with Fennel, Green Apple, and Potato

This is like the most quintessential meat and three veg-type of dish I am putting on my blog. Mostly because it is homey and comforting, but I wanted to plate it in a more elegant and whimsical way. I wanted to do another pork loin dish, but in terms of what I wanted to pair…

Gyutan (Beef Tongue) Doria

Doria is a Japanese rice gratin, consisting of steamed rice with a white sauce or cheese poured over it and the entire thing is then broiled until golden-brown. I truthfully never had doria until this year, and that is a HUGE shock to me, given that I’ve been to Japan over 5 times, lived there…

Chocolate Chip-Ricotta Pancakes

Back during the summer, I had a decently-sized tub of ricotta, which I only used a small portion of for lasagna. And that left me with a large amount of ricotta cheese that I had to stretch across about 4 different recipes. This was one of them. But I chose to post this specific recipe…