A while back, I made a liver and onions picatta dish, and it got me craving more calves liver. Which is hilarious because I love calves liver already. When I made that picatta dish, I went with lighter flavors, using a lot of acid, capers, and caramelized onions for a more dainty feel/contrast. So I…
Tag: Onion
Liver and Onion Piccata
I am one of those weirdos that likes liver and onions, okay? Back in college, when I was learning Montenegrin food, I noticed liver was a commonly used protein in that cuisine. I still remember when I was auditioning for Masterchef season 10, since I mentioned being a heavy baker more than a savory cook,…
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…
Creamy Koji-Stewed Chicken Thighs
I happened to buy a gigantic bag of bone-in chicken thighs, but I ran into a bit of a hiccup when it came time to actually cooking some of them. I was already marinating the thighs in a mixture of soy sauce and koji, but I forgot to buy frier oil(I was originally going to…
Sourdough Bolognese Pizza
While I was experimenting with sourdough pizza crust, I happened to also have meal-prepped a giant vat of bolognese(meat sauce), just to have throughout the week for potential dinners. Originally, this was going to be a bolognese pasta post, but I forgot to photograph that, and decided instead, let’s use the bolognese on the pizza…
Pork Loin with Pommes Aligot and French Onion Jus
This dish was in my to-make list for almost 8 months – I wanted to try my hand at making a French technique-driven dish, featuring a French onion jus and pommes aligot, and this is what came about from that. For those who are unfamiliar with where I was going with, a French onion jus…
Asparagus-Sesame Gazpacho
I purchased some asparagus with no real idea on what I was going to do with them – usually when I think of asparagus, I think of it as a side to a steak or a piece of fish. I did make an asparagus and ricotta pita years ago with my friend Ann, but I…
Air Fried Blooming Onion with Onion Jus
Let me preface this recipe by saying that I actual blooming onion before. I have wanted to try one, but when I heard that they were the single most unhealthy thing to eat, I just got turned off by the idea. That is until I started using my air fryer more, and figured, why not…
Roasted eggplant with spicy lamb marmalade
This recipe is my homage to both an Italian ragout and stewed lamb. I love stewing lamb with lots of chilies and tomatoes, just because it is such has enough gamey-ness to hold up to a lot of flavors. Lamb curries are some of my favorite curries for that reason, but even stewed lamb chops…
Pierogi Bread Rolls
So these rolls were going to be something I would do for Thanksgiving, but then when my sister and I planned out our menu, we realized we have 4 different carbs, and we had to nix these rolls. That being said, the idea was such a good one that I still wanted to make these!…
Japanese Onion Soup
I came up with this because I needed to use up a lot of breadcrumbs, and one of the first things I thought about was doing a take on a French onion soup. Mostly because a few years ago on Masterchef season 10, my plating bestie Bri made one for a bread challenge, that while…
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…
Tea-smoked Miso Cod
This is a recipe that I have been wanting to do since before we filmed Masterchef season 12 in 2021. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to purchase a whole cod, filet it, and set up the tea smoker all in one go, mostly because of laziness, so that’s why it took forever to get…
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…
Lu Rou Fan Rice Bowls
Lu rou fan, or æ»·è‚‰é¥ as it’s written in Chinese, is a Chinese/Taiwanese dish that consists of braised meat, usually pork, with rice, and it’s usually served with pickled daikon and an egg that is usually braised or cooked with the stew. At least that’s how I was raised to eat it. The stew is…
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,…
Tea-smoked duck with green apple and onion
I came up with this dish because I was thinking about what the prettiest duck dish I could make, and this is what I thought up of. I love to tea smoke proteins, and I love tea smoked duck. Smoking the duck in chamomile tea specifically gives it a pleasant earthiness, and I wanted to…
End-of-summer barbecued baby back pork ribs
I love ribs. Like a lot. Growing up, we would always got to a chain restaurant called “Chicago for Ribs”, and I just have fond memories of chowing down on a rack of baby back pork ribs, which were smothered in this smoky, sweet, pretty standard barbecue sauce. But I didn’t care if it was…
(A Semi-traditional) beef noodle soup
So a national dish of my native Taiwan is beef noodle soup. And of course, I’m bastardizing it, because while I am a legal citizen and was born there, I speak less Mandarin than the employees of Panda Express and have less knowledge about Taiwanese traditions and culture than most of the Chinese mainlanders who…
Freddy's Harajuku 