This dish was really meant to be a homey meal, hence why it kind of looks like a giant pile of slop in a bowl. Those kinds of dishes are indicative of the fall/winter, being super cozy, comforting dishes that are ugly-delicious. In this case, I wanted to do chicken cacciatorre, an Italian dish consisting…
Tag: Kale
Kale Crespelles with Mushrooms and Hazeluts
This dish has been on my to-make list for ages. I always loved the combination of hazelnut, brown butter, and thyme, mostly because it is woodsy and earthy. While I usually make desserts with that flavor combination, it made just as much sense to do something savory with it as well(since it is an inherently…
Koji Sirloin with Miso Risotto
This recipe is my East Meets West take on steak and risotto. I wanted to make a risotto with steak and kale, which is something we might eat for dinner for a special occasion, but using some Japanese ingredients to give it a new identity and keep things new and different. So with the steak,…
Chorizo Chicken Thighs with Cavatelli
A while ago, I was trying to make a dish with chorizo, but accidentally grabbed Mexican chorizo instead of Spanish chorizo. To confirm the differences here, Mexican chorizo is more like a mince or sausage meat, meant to be cooked to be crumbly. Spanish chorizo is dried and is more like a cured meat product…
Crab Cake with Kale Salad
Whenever I purchase lump crab meat, I feel like there is always a doomsday timer floating over my head, making sure to remind me that if I don’t make something/eat this crab meat quickly enough, it will go rancid and my entire fridge will smell for it. These crab cakes were my solution to using…
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…
Creamy Napolitan Pasta
This post is loosely inspired by my friend Ahran’s Kimchi-Bacon Cream Pasta recipe, which sounded absolutely delicious. Pasta, a creamy sauce with umami and heat, and pork product, there’s a lot of good things going on conceptually there, and I wanted to dig right in myself when I heard the description of that recipe. In…
Egg Sandwiches with Homemade Milk Bread
This recipe is a thank-you letter to my mom, since she not only taught me how to make the perfect boiled egg, but gifted me with this super cute bento box, and I have been dying to use it to plate something. Between eggs and the bento, it just made sense to either do something…
Brioche and pesto buns
I have been meaning to make these for a couple months now. A few years ago, my sister and I were watching Mind of a Chef, and more specifically, an episode that featured chef April Bloomfield. In that episode, she was making these “breakfast buns”, which consisted of puff pastry and a broccoli rabe pesto….
Chicken cacciatore with egg noodles
This was literally a simple dinner that I whipped together after I butchered a chicken and had to figure out how I was going to cook the thighs. I love chicken cacciatore, the latter word in the term being the Italian word for “hunter”, because it is this super hearty dish. Think of chicken stewed…
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….
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…
Pork belly and mushroom cream stew
I love making cream stew. In Japan, they make it all the time, and it’s this velvety, creamy(as the name would suggest) sauce with braised meat and vegetables in it. If you have ever had Japanese curry before, it’s like that, but without the spices, making for a very delicate flavor profile. Truthfully, it has…
Pork and vegetable fried rice
No matter who you ask, one of the first Chinese dishes anyone has any exposure to is fried rice. It is a quintessential Chinese dish! So many different varieties too, truthfully. For me, it always starts with cooking a thin layer of egg, then breaking it up and stirring in my already-cooked rice into that….
Rabbit rack with carrot puree and warm kale salad
For my second rabbit dish, I wanted to feature the loin and rack instead. I always loved the look of a chop of meat, be it a tomahawk steak or a lamb rack, because it appeals to that carnal instinct we all have from being descendants of cavemen. Despite that being an inspiration, I wanted…
Beef and kale arancini
I really love arancini. For those of you who don’t know what they are, arancini are deep fried risotto balls. Truthfully, I don’t make them often enough, but that’s because I would first have to make risotto, and then make the arancini out of that, and that’s far too much labor for a snack. However,…
All for one: a plated dish
Whenever I have a whole duck, I love to go to town. Being a butcher, it’s a ton of fun to work with the whole animal. In this case, I wanted to do duck three ways. The first was braising and roasting the leg. The second was a seared duck breast. The third, it was…
“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…
Fried chicken sandwich with brown butter pretzel bun, furikake corn, and sesame slaw
I’ve seen spicy fried chicken sandwiches popping up since last year when I was watching Top Chef: California, where my favorite contestant, Marjorie Meek-Bradley, prepared one for a quickfire challenge. Since then, it has resurfaced with Shake Shack, and is a favorite guilty pleasure of my older sister’s. Now personally, I’m a big wuss the…
Kale Fagottini
When I first heard of the name of this pasta, I tried really hard not to react. The term, fagottini, I pronounce the “g” like a “j”, just because I don’t want to accidentally offend anyone. The pasta itself is a purse-like dumpling, stuffed with traditionally sausage or ground mince meat. However, when I prepared…
Freddy's Harajuku 