I still remember sometimes at the end of a Chinese banquet, we would get these round Chinese almond cookies with an almond embedded into them(when it wasn’t orange slices and/or fortune cookies). This recipe was my homage to those, but also combining it with a salted duck egg-creme brulee-type of situation. I had salted duck…
Tag: recipe
Chickpea Cabbage Pancake
This was one of those recipes I came up with because I had a bunch of napa cabbage on hand, and I wanted to make something akin to okonomiyaki(a savory Japanese cabbage pancake). I love okonomiyaki(and hate typing it because I constantly have to pronounce it out to remember which letters to type in what…
Yellow Cake Baked Doughnuts with Mocha Glaze
Yellow cake with chocolate frosting is such a classic, and if there is anything about a classic that I appreciate, it’s a template that can be reinterpreted in a lot of ways. It has been a hot second since I made baked doughnuts(not counting air-fried ones), so I figured, why not go that route? So…
Beef Tongue(Gyutan) Curry with Garlic Rice
Gyutan curry is a personal favorite of mine, after both having it in Japan, and learning how to cook beef tongue in general through other recipes like my gyutan doria. Off cuts like beef tongue, when stewed for forever, just have this luxurious yet tender quality to them, where they almost melt in the mouth…
Sourdough Shio Pan Bagels
So I’ve been seeing videos of shio pan bagels, and it just sounded like a fun idea to use my sourdough starter to recreate! Shio pan, for those unfamiliar, is a Japanese pastry that literally translates to “salt bread”. They are soft, tender, croissant-looking bread rolls that are baked with butter in the middle, so…
Maple-Apple Mont Blanc Tart
It is funny to think that this recipe(and so many others on this site) came from me needing to use up leftover ingredients. It is usually those recipes where I end up getting super creative or I luck into really great flavor combinations. This recipe embraced the latter. And it all started with two egg…
Mafaldine with Poached Chicken, Pine Nuts, and Kale
This recipe is my homage to the classic pesto chicken pasta with sun dried tomatoes. But somewhat turned on its head. I went with chicken breast(which I prefer thighs to) because I wanted to test something. I have done yogurt-marinated chicken breast in the past for things like chicken tikka masala. The yogurt marinade makes…
Roast Endive with Mortadella Risotto
I was playing around with the concept of cured pork-stuffed roast cabbage, and that is kind of how this dish came about. I switched from cabbage to endive, which is more bitter and more dainty, and instead of doing prosciutto, I used mortadella, which is an Italian bologna. I love using mortadella because it is…
Delta Old Fashioned Donut
To conclude my three-part Legends Z-A Old Fashioned Donut series, and to celebrate Pokemon Day, we have the Delta Old Fashioned Donut(or doughnut, depending on how you choose to spell it, but I’m usually in the doughnut camp, not the donut camp). Able to summon the Sky High Pokemon Rayquaza, the Delta Old Fashioned Donut…
Omega Old Fashioned Donut
With Pokemon Day coming up, I wanted to celebrate with my second of three Pokemon Legends: Z-A-inspired Pokemon doughnuts! In the case of this recipe, we are going with the Omega Old Fashioned Donut, inspired by Groudon, the Continent Pokemon, from Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Omega Ruby. Groudon is a giant red dinosaur-looking creature, said…
Alpha Old Fashioned Donut
With this week leading up to the always much-anticipated Pokemon Day, I figured I would celebrate the week(in hopes that Generation 10 is right around the corner), by making three Pokemon-themed doughnuts, inspired by the most recent game, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, specifically from the DLC, Mega Dimensions! Now, I’ve been obsessed with the Legends Z-A…
Vegan Cauliflower Risotto
Now this is a recipe that started a long, long time ago during the pandemic when I was making vegan “scallops” using braised cauliflower stems. I did this by trimming down the stems, braising them in a flavorful umami-packed stock so that they actually tasted like something, and then searing them to look like scallops….
Light as Air Funfetti Cake
This cake is somewhat my revisitation of the classic Milkbar Birthday Cake, but making it as light as a cloud. I still look back at my time at Milkbar fondly, just because it was a great vibe. Everyone was outgoing, friendly, and quirky, it always felt like we were a bunch of misfits and goofballs,…
Caramel Macchiato Bear Mousse Cake
Caramel macchiatos will always remind me of my old sister, Kim. When we worked together in D.C., she would always get them at Starbucks, and after I tried one myself, I understood the obsession. Sweet caramel cuts through the bitter coffee, while adding a light bitterness on its own, and the layer of milk or…
Raspberry-Pink Peppercorn Red Velvet Cake
This red velvet cake was inspired by that dreamy cake aesthetic that I’ve captured in the past with some of my other 6-inch cakes, like the hummingbird or scarecrow ones. There is just something very fun and satisfying on making a smaller 2-layer cake, and playing around with flavors, colors, and textures off of a…
Beef Heart Stroganoff
I heart beef heart. I wanted to make a dish that is somewhat romantic(pasta with a soft, creamy sauce), and figured, why not put some actual heart. on it? Yes, I might have a problem. Beef heart has a slightly chewier, yet crunchier texture compared your usual steak, and I just love that. People are…
New York Strip with Potato Mochi
Meat and potatoes is a classic that I’ve done spins on before on this blog, and I figured, New Year, new take on meat and potatoes? In this case, I wanted to do another steak, but for the potato portion, I wanted to combine experienced from my recent trips to Germany and Japan, paying homage…
Chocolate-Marshmallow Entremet
This was a fun cake to make. I wanted to make a dreamy chocolate mousse cake, featuring layers of black cacao chiffon soaked with hot chocolate, dark chocolate ganache, semi sweet potato mousse, slathered in a cascade of more dark chocolate ganache, and torched Swiss meringue marshmallow. It kind of looks like a snowscape meets…
Pomelo Entremet
I don’t love winter. I might be a winter baby(Capricorn, which might explain things to those of you who are religious about zodiac signs), but I never liked the cold. I tried that for four years living in Boston, and while I loved the shoulder seasons, winter was brutal, with me being Taiwan-born, and SoCal-raised….
Venison with Squash Gnocchi and Blackberry-Sake Jus
Now I already know what you are thinking: that meat is RAW. It’s mooing. So yes, it is very rare, pretty much blue. But when it comes to a lot of game meats, such as venison or elk, cooking any of them past rare either brings out too much gamey flavor, or they turn really…
Freddy's Harajuku 