Meals – Page 7 – Freddy's Harajuku

Shoyu-koji chicken under a brick

I literally came up with this recipe when I was shopping at my local Japanese market, and found rice koji. For those unfamiliar with the product, koji is a bacteria found on rice or grains that can be mixed with soy beans to create miso. It has a ton of umami, and it can be…

Squash blossom and ricotta pizza

This pizza is my love letter to Pizzeria Mozza in West Hollywood. Namely because I love that restaurant, but driving all the way over there from the South Bay area in Southern California is a giant pain. They have this wonderful pizza with Nancy Silverton’s perfected O.G. La Brea Bakery bread that has a blanket…

Ricotta gnocchi with squash, fennel, and salsa verde

So this dish was actually inspired from when I was watching The Chef’s Line on Netflix. For those unfamiliar with the program, it’s a cooking competition show that was originally in Australia, before it premiered on Netflix as well. Sadly the show is no longer running, but there were a lot of cool recipes and…

Mini milk bread toasts with homemade bread and jams

I just randomly had an epiphany the other day to make mini brick toasts with ricotta and jam. Mostly because I was missing the brick toasts from Sqirl(yes I know that’s controversial to be a fan of that restaurant with all of the moldy jam and recipe-stealing scandals, but you can’t deny that the food…

Beef cappelletti with brodo and fennel

I really only came up with this dish because I had a lot of oxtail and oxtail broth leftover, and wanted to use it in something. So I came up with this idea to make a stuffed pasta with the leftover oxtail meat, and serve it in the broth to finish. But that just felt…

Tea-smoked duck with green apple and onion

I came up with this dish because I was thinking about what the prettiest duck dish I could make, and this is what I thought up of. I love to tea smoke proteins, and I love tea smoked duck. Smoking the duck in chamomile tea specifically gives it a pleasant earthiness, and I wanted to…

Roasted cornish hen with umami rice cabbage roll

I really came up with this dish because I wanted to do a cornish hen dish for a while, but was not fully sure where to go with it, initially. I wanted to do something a little European, but obviously a little Asian as well, and that’s how I came to the dish I came…

Milk bread gua bao

So I had been reading the Mr. Jiu’s cookbook recently, and something that inspired me was seeing them take milk bread dough and turning that into buns. I have done something like that before with my “Fred bread”, but seeing it done by a restaurant that I really look up to just validates my decisions…

Banana’s Foster Souffle Pancakes

I really wanted to make souffle pancakes again for quite some time, so that’s where this recipe really came about from. I just love how soft and fluffy these pancakes are, since they use a heavily whipped egg white just to get them to that light and airy consistency. The Banana’s Foster adds a playful…

Roasted cabbage with pork belly and mushroom dashi

So this is a dish inspired directly from mille feuille nabe. I wanted to do a dish that featured layers of roasted cabbage and pork in an umami-rich mushroom broth. I could imagine these soft, tender layers of cabbage that are steamed with the rendered pork fat from the belly slices between each leaf, sponging…

Scallion pancakes with braised oxtail and bone broth

So I was inspired by birria tacos, but knowing that I cannot make them authentically, I figured, why not take dishes and ingredients from my own culture, but just serve them in the same fashion? So I took the concept of a wrap with a dipping broth, and essentially made it Chinese/Taiwanese. I still remember…

Mapo tofu gnocchi

So this is a dish I made a while back for the Plant Your Vote challenge in the 2020 election. The concept was to post a plant-based dish, and this mapo tofu gnocchi dish is 100% vegan. I wanted to post it now, since Chinese New Years is coming up, and I wanted to switch…

Pork belly and almond cream stew with vegan “cheesy” scallion and herb biscuits

So this recipe was actually a part of a collaboration a bunch of us Masterchef contestants did with Imperfect foods a while back! The company, Imperfect Foods, takes the produce that grocery stores and farmers don’t sell due to visual imperfections, and gives them to consumers at a cheaper price, which I adore, being somebody…

Vegan tofu gnocchi with shiitakes and chili oil

I came up with these gnocchi when I had the epiphany that tofu, being so similar to cheese, is whippable. Because it is whippable, you can use the tofu just like a ricotta or mascarpone, and in the case of the former, ricotta gnocchi is a thing, so surely tofu gnocchi could work, right? And…

Chawanmushi with edamame, mushrooms, and radishes

So I actually made this dish for my parents on their anniversary. What had happened was that they were out playing golf, but they did not have any dinner plans, or even anything special planned. I didn’t realize this until maybe 4pm, so I decided that I would make them at least something special to…

Pork belly and mushroom cream stew

I love making cream stew. In Japan, they make it all the time, and it’s this velvety, creamy(as the name would suggest) sauce with braised meat and vegetables in it. If you have ever had Japanese curry before, it’s like that, but without the spices, making for a very delicate flavor profile. Truthfully, it has…

Pork and vegetable fried rice

No matter who you ask, one of the first Chinese dishes anyone has any exposure to is fried rice. It is a quintessential Chinese dish! So many different varieties too, truthfully. For me, it always starts with cooking a thin layer of egg, then breaking it up and stirring in my already-cooked rice into that….

Something comforting: a plated dish

I really love stewed chickpeas. Actually I just love chickpeas in general. And luckily, I got to cook with them more often these days because I need them for their aquafaba. However, with all of the vegan meringue I have been making, I still need to get rid of the actual chickpeas themselves. So this…

Pork belly okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes)

Okonomiyaki are one of my personal favorite things to make. The first time I ever had one was with my cousins, and it was delicious. It’s a Japanese pancake batter that can have a variety of things in it, but typically you would find cabbage, pork, and a delicious sauce and Japanese mayonnaise. A lot…

Duck fat-grilled onigiri

These rice balls were just a way for me to utilize a bucketload of leftover brown rice. With rice of any kind, it can be very bland. In the case of brown rice, that is no exception. I knew that I had to inject as much flavor as I could into it, so I wanted…