This citrus tart is my take on a lemon meringue pie, but with a few twists. Obviously the term “citrus” would imply that I am using more than just lemon, which is true: my friend Karen was gracious enough to gift me with lemons and limes that she grew herself, so I wanted to use…
Tag: Lime
Cereal Milk Dreamsicle Funfetti Cake
This cake was the result of me craving Fruity Pebbles, and trying to figure out a more technical, gourmet way to consume them. There is just something about Fruity Pebbles, probably the artificial citric acid taste and the crunchy texture, that I just crave from time to time. And no, this is not a sponsored…
“Chicken and Dumplings”: a plated dish
This dish is a revisited version of a recipe I made a few years ago, but as a more composed plated dish. The dish itself was what I made for a collaboration dinner at Mader Lao in Oklahoma, with my friends Gabriel and Dara(from season 12 of Masterchef!). I offered to do the entree, which…
Goat Milk and Lime Basque Cheesecake
I have previously made a larger basque cheesecake recipe using Meyer lemon, and tried to split it in half. While it was not bad by any means, I felt like the cheesecakes were very flat, and needed to be baked into a singular cheesecake to have the appropriate height to width ratio. Funnily enough, when…
Mango Sticky Rice with coconut and pandan
Whenever I think of Southeast Asian desserts, mango sticky rice is probably at the top of my list for things that come to mind. Glutinous rice with ripe, fresh mango, and this salty coconut milk, the contrast and flavors are very different than what most people would associate with desserts. Some variations have toasted sesame…
Sloth-acado Eclairs
So for my Sylvie(if you watched my audition on season 12, you will better remember her as “Fred’s Friend” who was making all of that commentary about my chocolate LOL)’s birthday, I wanted to make a fun dessert that was unlike anything I have previously attempted. Sylvie is obsessed with this sweet passionfruit-avocado tart that…
Masa strawberry shortcakes
There is always a debate on what exactly is a strawberry shortcake. Outside of America, it would be fluffy white cake with strawberries and cream. I grew up on that version while I lived in Taiwan. Ironically, the first strawberry shortcake I had featured a yellow cake with strawberries and cream, which I had while…
Lengua(pork tongue) mole with corn tortillas
I have made many moles in 2021, and this was one that I found to be perfect for the winter. By using lengua, or pork tongue, you have this rich, stewed meat that just soaks up all of those beautiful spices and chilies. I grew up eating a lot of pork and beef tongue, just…
Nigredo: a plated dish
This was one of those dishes that I had on my to-make list for months, but I just never got around to it, mostly out of laziness – I wanted to practice doing a Oaxacan style black mole, using black garlic, but I just never got around to buying the chilies for it until more…
Ocean Lily: a plated dish
Out of the five dishes I served at my “Namie” pop-up for 4Foodie, I would say that this one was the one I was most excited about. I never actually tried to do a sashimi dish before, at least without the help of somebody else slicing the fish for me. However, in this case, I…
Gluten-free coconut-lime cheesecakes
I have been craving Magnolia Bakery’s lime and coconut cheesecake since I had it years ago when I visited New York. While one can make the argument that I could just drive to Downtown L.A. to get it, I’m lazy. Lazy enough to try making my own version of it, anyways. So for the cake,…
Ube, mango, and pandan layer cake
So I actually made this cake as an order for one of my closest friends’ boyfriend’s birthday! She requested it to have ube since he’s Filipino, and he loves the color purple. So I went with an ube cake with a mango-lime pudding layer, as well as a pandan-buko French buttercream, and ube crumble as…
Duck banh mi with homemade baguette and purple yam chips
One of my absolute favorite sandwiches is the banh mi. A Vietnamese-French hybrid, it features a baguette that has pate, some sort of meat, pickled vegetables, chilies, and cilantro on it. It’s been one of my favorites for years ever since I had one from Lee’s Sandwiches(yes, I know it’s a chain, but still, the banh…
Feelings of make-pretend: a plated dessert
I came up with this dessert half out of needing to get rid of my leftover vegan macaron components, and half because I just wanted to do something playful and elegant. With what I already had made, being the ice cream and the gelee, I was able to come up with a couple different ideas,…
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,…
Butter chicken potstickers
In continuation with my dumpling project(where I take dishes and translate them into little parcels of love and joy), I wanted to try merging butter chicken with potstickers, just because I felt like the two could have a lot of potential to really compliment one another. So we have the chicken thighs that are marinated…
Beef and Broccoli Revised: a plated dish
On the back of that wedding challenge, the elimination that followed was a freaking outdoor grilling challenge, in the patio where we all stood during the helicopter intro! It was crazy! The contestants on the losing Red Team had to choose from a huge variety of steaks and grill a dish in an hour. Which…
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…
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….
Waiting for the rain: a plated concept
The inspiration for this dessert came from Maaya Sakamoto’s song, “Waiting for the Rain”. It was a song I first listened to my senior year when I was going through some serious shit. Maybe not the best thing to listen to, because it was a beautiful, but sad song. The lyrics really stood out to…
Freddy's Harajuku 