Freddy's Harajuku

Sunny-Joy Lemon Tart

This was a signature dessert from the now-defunct baked goods delivery service I ran with my friend, Joy. The name was inspired by our two Chinese names, mine being “sun” and hers literally being “joy”. The tart itself was a pate brisee that had panko bread crumbs and goat milk powder in it, just to…

Liz’s banana-chocolate tarte tatin

So this dessert goes out to a very special lady, Ms. Elizabeth Linn. She blew us all away during the tarte tatin challenge(the same one I’m probably never going to fully live down), when she made a banana tarte tatin with chocolate crème anglaise. I remember when we were planning our tarte tatins out, she…

Mixed Berry Opera cake

I made this cake with my friend Adrienne just because I’m still trying to convince her to audition for season 11 of MasterChef and I wanted to see how quickly she can pick up arguably a tricky cake to make. Ever since my first Opera cake, I wanted to do another rendition, but using more…

your silver garden: a plated dessert

This dessert was named after a song by Kalafina, a Japanese music group known for their slightly edgier songs. However, “your silver garden” honestly sounded more like a nursery rhyme, at least compared to some of their darker songs like “Magia” or “heavenly blue”. So I went with that name to symbolize a mint-chocolate dessert!…

Making my way: a plated dessert

As I do have a habit of naming my desserts after songs and lyrics, it is very easy to assume I named this one after “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. And I don’t blame you if you think that, because that is a touching song and it reminds me of White Chicks, a movie that…

Face my fears: tarte tatin redemption

Fucking tarte tatin. Let me tell you now, this was the LAST dessert I expected to ever have PTSD from during my reality cooking competition journey. I love apples, I love caramel, and I love flaky pastry. And I’ve made this before(as the judges let everyone know to the point where they made it seem…

Stronger than you: a plated dish

For this dish, it was my chance to redeem my horrendous performance with the Latin America brief. Being a panicky idiot, I had no clue what to make. So I opted for the snapper, made a yucca puree that was wallpaper glue(fun fact, yucca should NEVER go into a food processor, because the starch content…

colorful: kofta munti with eggplant puree and crispy beet “fattoush”

About a year ago, I made a dish that was extremely similar to this actually. But I guess you can say that this is the revised/upgraded version of that one. For this dish, we have munti, which are Turkish dumplings, stuffed with a lamb kofta filling, where we also have wilted beet greens folded in…

Phoenix in the Hawker Stall: a plated dish

So continuing on with my experiences in the lovely, most amazing MasterChef Kitchen (I hope I had enough adjectives there), there was actually a challenge where we had to cook with chicken. This challenge, not to brag, would have been a cakewalk for me, because I practiced breaking down chickens regularly in college (mostly because…

Vanille: a plated dessert

When I first started learning how to bake, I actually kept a sketchbook where I’d draw out my dessert ideas. One of them was a vanilla cake with apple that I dubbed “Vanille” after an over the top bubbly, bordering on annoying character from Final Fantasy XIII. Let’s not forget I’m as much a weeb…

“Friends in my heart”: a plated dish

This dish was inspired by my MasterChef journey (only the season 10 part, not the very short-lived seasons 8 or 9 parts LOL). I had met two people I became extremely close to, being a young lady from Texas named Mollie, and a guy from Sacramento named David. After I got a certain stage in…

it’s my life: a plated dish

Now you might be saying, if you somehow managed to read through ALL of my blog posts, that I had already made something with this as the name. That was a dessert. This is a savory course. I’m allowed to have a dessert and a dish share the same name, since they can be different…

One Day Afternoon: a plated dish

For the first Mystery Box of my MasterChef 10 experience, the people who were not saved during the mise en place challenge had to cook with British ingredients and make a dish inspired by Gordon himself! It was a really interesting challenge, and I was actually kind of bummed that I didn’t get to cook…

Got me going’: a plated dessert

Back when I was thinking of signature dishes for MasterChef, this was one of the four that I came up with, being a back-up dessert to my chocolate cake. Normally, when you think of a signature dessert, you’d think like a cake, tart, cream puff, something where a dough or batter takes the center stage….

“Moon Crying”: a plated dish

Back when I was thinking of signature dishes for MasterChef, I wanted to make sure I covered my bases, so I had this dish in my back pocket in the event I had to make a fish dish. I named it Moon Crying, again after a Koda Kumi song, because she’s by far my favorite…

For Mollie: a plated dish

So during the beginning part of my MasterChef journey, I had made several close friends, besides my bestie Bri. There was Sage, the 18 year old from Long Beach(my neighboring beach town!) who competed on MasterChef Junior, season 1(and sadly didn’t make it to the top 36). David, my fellow skinny Asian/straight clone from NorCal….

“Now or never”: a plated dish

This dish was meant to be more of a compliment to my signature chocolate cake, “Shines forever”, hence the rhyming names. For this dish, it is a seared ribeye(aka the only steak I really can confidently cook), with beef fat-wilted kale, crispy kale chip, red wine-mushroom-beef reduction, and a homemade phyllo-duxelle tart, garnished with shaved…

“Shines Forever”: my signature malted chocolate cake

This chocolate cake recipe is the very same chocolate cake that actually won me my white apron in season 10 of the American version of MasterChef! During the casting process, we had to submit four signature dishes that we could make in 45 minutes, and this was the one I had practiced the most (before…

Thai tea-coconut cheesecake

The combination of Thai tea and coconut milk is an absolute no-brainer. I had made a similar dessert to this about a year ago, actually. But for this rendition, I really wanted to make something a bit more presentable (and with the cross section not resembling a hot dog), so I kind of figured that…

Semolina-Tangerine Upside-down Cake

Honestly, this is one the simplest desserts I have ever made. In that it’s literally just a cake with cream. The only real pressure point here is maintaining the moisture in your tangerines, and even then, that ain’t rocket science. For the dessert, we have a semolina cake, tangerine syrup, a layer of tangerines, and…