Prince of the Dawning Sky: a plated dish

This would have been my main course for the finale. Inspired by the sun-filled sky, and the morning, it is duck and mushroom congee with ponzu-black garlic puree, duck egg yolk, braised duck thigh meat, crispy shallots, cilantro duck fat, caramelized mushrooms, and micro cilantro to garnish. The idea has multiple folds behind the inspiration….

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Prince of the Sea Angels: a plated dish

So even though I was eliminated in top 10, I actually did have dishes in mind for the finale. The amount of thought you saw put into the crab lantern dish, trust me, a lot more were put into these. So while it is a shame I could not make these dishes for the judges,…

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IDGAF(ilet mignon): a plated dish

When I was preparing for season 10, I did cook with a lot of different kinds of meats and proteins. Lamb, duck, pork, chicken, scallops, fileting and then cooking with whole fish such as salmon, rainbow trout, black cod, I even practiced cooking ribeye for steaks. I never thought to practice with filet mignon. And…

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frambroise au chocolat cake

In my continued conquest of baking my way through Lady M’s menu, my next target was the frambroise au chocolate cake. It is a layer of dark chocolate cake topped with dark chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis. So relatively simple, but it might just take a hot second for everything to set is all. For…

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Mapo tofu mandu

When I was coming up with creative new dumpling ideas, I wanted to do something with mapo tofu. Upon doing a little research, I found out that Korea’s national dumpling, the mandu, actually contains kimchi and tofu in it! I knew right away that I could sub out the kimchi with spicy bean paste, and…

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michi: lemon-blueberry tartlets

I have always wanted to make those ovular tarts that I see on Instagram, but the issue was that I didn’t own the right tart tins. This should be the part where I say “until now”, but it’s not. I still don’t. But I do own aluminum foil, and from my previous experiences with using…

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Sunset horizons: a plated dessert

This dessert was inspired by the delicious end to a meal I had at Providence Restaurant in. The dessert itself was a chocolate ganache, two ways, with apricots, glazed and poached in vanilla as well as an apricot sorbet and puree. I was addicted to the combination before realizing that these were the flavors of…

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digging deep: a carrot cake

I actually quite like carrot cake. Ever since I started as a baker, carrot cake was one of those desserts that I came to appreciate, because it takes a lot of ingredients to transform a vegetable into a dessert, in my opinion. I really love the idea of making a carrot cake that resembles digging…

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Frangipane, chocolate, and miso de leche babka

I actually never made babka before making it for this specific recipe. I really just was inspired to make it because I love using yeast-leavened doughs, and this one seemed really fun and playful to make, with all of the different layers of bread and chocolate. Traditionally, babka is like a brioche that is layered…

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Pork belly, apple, and cauliflower bowl

I really just came up with this dish after reading through the “Everything I want to eat” cookbook by Sqirl LA’s Jessica Koslow. In the book, there was this delicious pork belly bowl, and I wanted to make my own version of it. They paired the housemade bacon with a sorrel pesto, farro, ricotta cheese,…

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