This lamb stew came about because I got a bone-less leg of lamb, and was kind of struggling to figure out what to do with it. You see, if the meat came with the bone, I could make a gorgeous lamb stock, or even a meat pie. And the bone itself would be able to…
Tag: Semolina
Semolina-Tahini Cake with Biko and Coconut
While I was going through my sugar fast, I was craving basically everything with sugar. This dessert specifically was one of those sugar-deprived fantasies I conceptualized around two desserts that are notoriously sugar-laden. One of the inspirations was basbousa, an Egyptian semolina cake that is baked with tahini for a nutty texture, and is normally…
Olive Oil-Tangerine-Sesame Cake
It’s funny to see the rise in popularity with olive oil cakes, especially here in Los Angeles, over the past 4 years. It’s almost as if post-pandemic, that became the “it” cake in the city. You would be amazed to see how many bakeries and cafes sell a variation of it, and almost all are…
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…
Plated Yogurt-Semolina Olive Oil Cakes
I always have this craving for semolina-olive oil cake. Olive oil cake has this rich, dense crumb, while semolina gives it an almost corn-like flavor that is mild and pleasant. I came up with this dessert because I bought a gigantic 3 pound tub of yogurt, and while I love yogurt(nowhere as much as Terry…
Milk Tea-Sesame Semolina Cake
I came up with this recipe because I was craving semolina cake. This cake was initially inspired by the Middle Eastern semolina cake called basbousa – a dense semolina flour-based cake that is usually baked with ghee and tahini, which gives it this nutty, toasty flavor profile and a dense, rich texture, and the baked…
Pink Lemon-Olive Oil-Rose Cake
This cake is dedicated to my friend, Na’ama, specifically for her birthday. Fun facts, she was one of my friends that attended my apron battle for season 12(she was in the podium instead of the balcony), and we went to college together, but did not actually know each other back then. Since Boston University was…
Citrus Sfogliatelle
I love sfogliatelle. They are as crunchy, creamy, and delicious as they are tricky to make. These Italian pastries are made with a copious amount of dough that is quite similar to phyllo in composition, and filled with a mixture of semolina, ricotta, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and candied orange peel. The filling MIGHT sound a…
Blackberry-semolina cake with olive oil and Meyer lemons
I literally came up with this recipe because I went to the grocery store, and saw 99-cent cartons of blackberries on sale! I knew it was a sign from whatever powers that be that I had to make something with these, so I bought about three 6oz containers of them! I had a couple of…
“Wishing star”: a plated dessert
I really only came up with this dessert because I wanted to test my new chocolate sphere molds. So I knew chocolate was going to be a central part of the dessert, but then I thought about what I could pair that with. Luckily, there was a large bin of pistachios in front of me,…
Blood orange-rhubarb mimosa cake
I wanted to do a summery, Italian take on mimosa cake with this recipe. I have made mimosa cakes before, but I wanted to do a different take on it. For this cake, I went with a blood orange-olive oil cake, whipped skyr, which is this Icelandic yogurt, a blood orange-amoretti crunch, and macerated blood…
Something comforting: a plated dish
I really love stewed chickpeas. Actually I just love chickpeas in general. And luckily, I got to cook with them more often these days because I need them for their aquafaba. However, with all of the vegan meringue I have been making, I still need to get rid of the actual chickpeas themselves. So this…
One Day Afternoon: a plated dish
For the first Mystery Box of my MasterChef 10 experience, the people who were not saved during the mise en place challenge had to cook with British ingredients and make a dish inspired by Gordon himself! It was a really interesting challenge, and I was actually kind of bummed that I didn’t get to cook…
Yogurt-peach-Turkish delight cake
This dessert came about because we had a fuck-ton of peaches in my fridge that we needed to get rid of. I love yogurt-semolina cake and I knew that it would have the perfect dryness in the crumb to hold up to the moisture in the peaches, so I went that route with baking them…
Semolina knafeh with glazed figs
I really wanted to make knafeh when I saw it in My Kitchen Rules, where Sonya and Hadil, two Jordanian women who were kicked off the show because they got into a fight with another team, prepared it for their instant restaurant. Knafeh is a Middle Eastern cheesecake essentially, soaked with a beautiful rose flavored…
Semolina cake with chocolate-Turkish delight ice cream
Truth be told, this recipe was directly inspired by controversial MKR contestants, Sonya and Hadil, and a dish that they prepared during the Cole’s ice cream challenge, where they made chocolate-Turkish delight ice cream with semolina cake and pistachio biscuit. I know that several people hate them because they got ejected from the show for…
Sfogliatelle or lobster tail pastries
I first heard about these when I moved to Boston for school. The North End, also called Little Italy, had several bakeries that served lobster tail pastries. They were these crunchy bundles that were stuffed with a sweetened ricotta filling. Traditionally, the filling is a mixture of semolina, ricotta, citrus, and sugar, but I decided…
Freddy's Harajuku 