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…
Tag: Cooking
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…
Rayquaza-themed Mugwort-Kinako Parfait
So this recipe was the result of me being asked by The Pokemon Company to make a Rayquaza-themed dessert! The very first English Pokemon game I ever played was Pokemon Sapphire, and I loved beating the Elite Four, climbing the Sky Pillar, and catching Rayquaza. Rayquaza is a green serpentine Dragon/Flying-Pokemon that is meant to…
Gjetost-Azuki Basque Cheesecakes
Sometimes when you have accidents, you just have to pivot. That, or dump your mistakes into a parchment-lined springform pan, throw them into a burning hot oven, and throw a hail, Mary. This recipe was that. Originally, these were going to be cheese tarts, stuffed with a gjetost(caramelized cheese) and azuki filling, but I overfolded…
“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…
Mortadella and Pistachio Pizza
This recipe was originally going to be a revisitation of my old squash blossom and burrata pizza I did years ago. Except that I could not find squash blossoms anywhere, and so I had to pivot. I wanted to try out a fun recipe using my sourdough starter, and making this airy, high-hydration, pizza dough…
Sourdough Smash Burgers
Now I get it. When you think a recipe by Fred, you would never think hamburger. The last time I ever made a burger was probably in college, where I made the patties too thick and almost unhinged my jaw attempting to bite into one. But I have learned a few tricks since then, namely…
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…
Tonka Bean and Yuzu Paris Brest
I made this dessert for my friends’ highbrow-lowbrow caviar night. We sometimes do this thing where we buy caviar to be bougie, and pair it with fancy things(like champagne and charcuterie) or less fancy things(like chips and fried chicken). In my case, I wanted to go the fancy route, since I am a bougie bitch…
Ajitama Onigiri
This recipe is inspired by an onigiri I saw when I was traveling in Japan earlier this February. We were staying in Shinjuku, and had about 4 days(including travel) to explore Tokyo. While we were at Tokyo Skytree, there was an onigiri store in the department store, and I saw this onigiri that was triangular…
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…
Gyutan (Beef Tongue) Doria
Doria is a Japanese rice gratin, consisting of steamed rice with a white sauce or cheese poured over it and the entire thing is then broiled until golden-brown. I truthfully never had doria until this year, and that is a HUGE shock to me, given that I’ve been to Japan over 5 times, lived there…
Chocolate Chip-Ricotta Pancakes
Back during the summer, I had a decently-sized tub of ricotta, which I only used a small portion of for lasagna. And that left me with a large amount of ricotta cheese that I had to stretch across about 4 different recipes. This was one of them. But I chose to post this specific recipe…
Beef Moussaka
This recipe came about because I had a bunch of leftover potatoes, and I happened to purchase some graffiti eggplant the other day. Graffiti eggplant is just an eggplant that has a striped white and purple skin. Besides that, it literally tastes the same, and is just another eggplant, aka perfect to cook in a…
Devil’s Food Cauldron Cakes
This recipe was me creating my take on Cauldron Cakes from the Harry Potter series. I did get the Cauldron Cakes from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, and while it was not terrible by any means, my one gripe was that the cauldron part of the cake was just a silicone…
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….
Cottonee Matcha Tea-ramisu
These tea-ramisu were the end result of me wanting to use these silicone cloud molds I purchased, and wanting to do something Pokemon-themed. So after thinking through what I could do, it just made sense to go the route of Cottonee. Cottonee, as the name may imply, is a cotton ball-themed Grass/Fairy type Pokemon. It…
Sourdough Black Pepper Biscuits
Biscuits are always a guilty pleasure for me. Flaky or fluffy, light, and buttery, all words I would use to describe the perfect biscuit. Back in college, I was fortunate enough to go to school in Boston, where Sweet Cheeks Q is located. Sweet Cheeks is known for their iconic biscuit, which is the size…
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…
Freddy's Harajuku 