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…
Category: Plated dishes
I do cook savory food, and I love to plate these kinds of dishes with all of the same focus and finesse as I would a dessert.
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…
Pate Choux Swans
Whenever I think of retro, classic-but-not-trendy desserts, the first two desserts that come to mind are an ice cream sundae, and pate choux swans. I just remember seeing them on every cruise ship dessert menu. Two little cream puff swans with a chocolate sauce underneath to visually represent a lake. Even though I try not…
“A Heart as Pure as Snow”: a plated dessert
When I was thinking of Valentine’s Day desserts, I realized that I somehow have not made a raspberry dessert in over two years. Which means that it was long overdue. So right away, I knew I was going to use raspberries, I wanted this white and red aesthetic, and I wanted it to be a…
“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…
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…
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…
Beef Heart with Lemon-Pecorino Risotto
Beef heart is a very fascinating ingredient. Being a high-activity muscle, heart as an ingredient can eat chewy after being treated with most cooking methods. However, I love preparing it in a marinade, then searing it, almost like how you treat ahi tuna. I actually never touched a beef heart before I made this recipe….
Hidden Rose Apple Krempita
So I was fortunate enough to procure some hidden rose apples, and I just had to use them in a couple recipes while I had the chance! Hidden rose apples are usually available in a relatively short span between November and December, so I always feel a need to make a couple of recipes with…
Cappelletti with Walnut-Miso Dashi
This literally was a recipe that came about because I had about 8oz of ricotta cheese leftover and I was not 100% sure what to do with it. I made a poll on Instagram, giving a couple of the options I was leaning towards: the choices were: ravioli, cheesecake, doughnuts, or whatever Google told me…
Momotaro Tomato and Bacon Pasta
I love Momotaro tomatoes. They are this pinkish-red Japanese tomato that has a mild sweetness to them. While eating them fresh is usually the way to go, I wanted to try cooking them, and I definitely was not disappointed in the end product: I made a tomato sauce with some of the Momotaro tomatoes, and…
Jalapeno Pork Ribs with Jalapeno-Cheese Cornbread Madelines
Ribs and cornbread is a classic childhood pairing of mine whenever we would go to Chicago For Ribs in Redondo Beach growing up. It’s unfortunate because Chicago For Ribs is closed now, but it featured a variety of barbecued ribs, barbecue or steakhouse dishes, and steakhouse sides like mac n’ cheese, baked potatoes, waffle fries,…
Pinwheel Lasagna Rosettes
When I was looking up potential Italian restaurants for when I was visiting NYC(we settled on Lilia, which was solid), I did come across a restaurant called Don Angie, which featured this really cool looking lasagna. When I think of lasagna, I think of layers of pasta, bechamel, and red sauce, stacked up in a…
Air Fried Blooming Onion with Onion Jus
Let me preface this recipe by saying that I actual blooming onion before. I have wanted to try one, but when I heard that they were the single most unhealthy thing to eat, I just got turned off by the idea. That is until I started using my air fryer more, and figured, why not…
Chili Crisp Chicken Lollipops with Japanese Pickles and Kale-slaw
For a hot minute, I have been trying to make wings using my air fryer. I love ordering wings whenever we get takeout from our local pizzeria – compared to almost every other cut of chicken besides the thigh, wings have a ton of flavor. They are annoying to eat, and you probably will have…
Lomo Saltado with Shishito Aji
Peruvian food is so special in that it is the intersection of Asian and Latin cuisines – because of the Chinese and Japanese immigrants that settled in Peru, Peruvian culture takes on so many of those influences, and I am here for it! With lomo saltado, it is a dish I thoroughly enjoy – seared…
“Forest Floor” Mushroom Tart
This recipe was what I made for the 2023 LoveWorks dinner in Oklahoma City(thank you, Gabriel Lewis for the invite to cook once again!). Last year, I was lucky enough to get the dessert course, but this year, I wanted to be a little bolder, and venture back into savory. Truthfully, after Masterchef: Back to…
Acorn Sticky Toffee Puddings
This recipe came up because my friend and talented chef, Kesha Taro, and I were talking about acorn flour. Kesha worked for Gordon Ramsay doing culinary production for decades. She worked briefly on season 10, but I didn’t meet her until season 11 open casting calls, and she was super kind. Flash forward years later,…
Freddy's Harajuku 