Freddy's Harajuku

Halva, almond, and apricot tart

So I made this tart because of two reasons: I had a ton of halva in my freezer that I wanted to use in a dessert, and I was seeing my former-pastry chef friend, Janae, and I wanted to make something for her(which ended up being these tarts!). For those unfamiliar with halva, it is…

Peaches and cream soufflé pancakes

These were literally on my list to make for weeks, ever since my mother gifted me with some white peaches to eat/cook with. For me, white peaches symbolize the summer, because we had a peach tree growing up in Torrance in our backyard, and it just made summer a season more to look forward to(besides…

Head in the clouds: a plated dessert

The inspiration for this dessert came from me testing out a couple new techniques – using sago, which are little tapioca pearls, to make a strawberry flavored “caviar”, and using lychee juice to make a foam. I wanted to create this sort of ethereal, sea-meets-sky, summery sort of dessert, embracing fresh lychees, and pairing them…

Brown butter and apple pancakes

These were literally inspired by the Dutch pear pancakes from Prune in New York City. Unlike the Dutch Baby pancakes, which is made from baking a loose batter at a high heat to create a giant fluffy pancake, these are more cake-like, and cooked with large visible slices of fruit in the batter. In the…

Bingsu roll cake

So whenever I would visit Taiwan, one of my absolute favorite things to eat was shaved ice(also called “tsuabing” in Mandarin). Fluffy crystals of ice with all sorts of toppings, but typically, some sort of mochi or sweet potato ball, condensed milk, red beans, strawberries, and if I felt especially fat, pudding. Almost every Asian…

Giant ass (toasted milk and brown butter) cookies

I made these cookies to test primarily one thing, and that was how toasted milk powder would taste in a cookie dough. I stumbled upon the concept of toasted milk powder when I was watching a video about a chocolatier in Miami who incorporated that into her milk chocolate. She claimed that it gave her…

Chocolate checkerboard cake

So I actually made this cake for a co-worker’s birthday – her name is Kristina and she is an incredibly kindhearted person and an extremely hardworking sales manager. During the pandemic, when we were extremely understaffed, Kristina literally held down the fort, despite that meaning she had to work 12 hour days for months. Since…

Scallion and bacon bagel bombs

Bagel bombs are my all-time favorite item from Milkbar. While Milkbar is known for their cakes and cookies and ice cream, I feel like their breads tend to be overlooked, when in reality, they are so delicious. Fluffy buns housing exciting and dynamic fillings, ranging from pizza bombs to scrambled egg to my personal favorite,…

Chinese beef ragout with miso orecchiette

One of the first kinds of pasta I learned how to make from scratch is orecchiette. I love making them because it does not require a pasta roller, which not everyone has. You simply just make a log of dough, then cut it, and press it with your thumbs to form an indent. Super easy-peasy….

Salt and pepper pork chop with egg noodles

I feel like when it comes to savory cooking, I have a tendency to gravitate towards similar components – a seared protein, some sort of vegetable, some sort of starch, and a sauce. This would be no different to that. In fact, it would be 100% that. I wanted to do a lighter take on…

Pink pineapple hummingbird cake

So when I was shopping at HMart the other day, I stumbled upon these pink pineapples. On the outside, they looked like a normal pineapple, but the flesh was 100% pink on the inside! I did a little more research on them, and it turns out that they were genetically modified so that instead of…

Air fried poutine with spicy beef gravy

This is honestly the ugliest thing I have ever made. But that’s what poutine is: fries with gravy and cheese curds. What sets this poutine apart from most is that I went with using my air fryer on to potatoes – this does not make them fully guilt-free, but it does alleviate some of that…

Roast pork belly with pork fat potatoes and vegetable ragout

This dish was basically as close as I could get to a one-pot wonder – had I not needed the pot of water to boil things in, this would have literally been achievable in one pot. We have roasted pork belly with potatoes that are cooked in pork fat, a ragout with peas, shallots, and…

“Husk of the Black Forest”: a plated dessert

So when I was conceptualizing different desserts that would use salted duck egg, one of them that I had in mind was with injeolmi, which is a roasted grain mix from Korea, similar to misugaru, but with a less earthy flavor profile. I was first introduced to injeolmi by my friend, Ann, who ordered it…

Tangzhong noodles with miso-sesame dressing and Thai chilies

After I made boba from scratch, I had a bizarre epiphany – if I were to cook flour with water into a gelatinous paste, and use that to make noodles, would they come out super chewy? When you are making boba, you do that process with water and tapioca flour to gelatinize the starch, resulting…

Fortress: a plated dessert

This is sort of my take on a PB&J, with a Jordanian/Albanian spin, using summer produce! I wanted to feature the peaches since we are in peak peach season in the summer, while using white sesame just felt like a great pairing, because more light and delicate than the more robust and hearty black sesame….

Pavé the Way: a plated dessert

I spent about three days trying to figure out what I was making with salted duck eggs. I initially purchased them for my hiyoko manju, but that recipe only used two of the eggs, and the packet I bought came with six. After coming up with several dessert ideas, then realizing that none of them…

Cabbage rolls with bread sauce and roasted cabbage chips

I have made many a cabbage roll back in college. Mostly because green cabbage is 99 cents, and ground meat was really cheap as well. If there was anything I learned during my time at Boston University, it was how to pinch pennies. With my variation on cabbage rolls, I love using panade(a mixture of…

Babka sticky buns with chocolate cake ganache and miso butterscotch

I literally only came up with this recipe because I had a lot of leftover sweet potato paste from making the hiyoko manju. I also had a cake order for a chocolate cake, and whenever I make my layer cakes, I always end up with a decent amount of cake scraps. So with leftover sweet…

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…