So this is a dish I made a while back for the Plant Your Vote challenge in the 2020 election. The concept was to post a plant-based dish, and this mapo tofu gnocchi dish is 100% vegan. I wanted to post it now, since Chinese New Years is coming up, and I wanted to switch…
Tag: Shallot
Crunchy mala-spiced popcorn
Whenever I go running, I always come up with really fun food ideas. I don’t know why, maybe it is because my body is craving certain kinds of foods while I am exercising, or the adrenaline is going to my head and it helps me think better or more creatively, but this recipe, regardless of…
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….
Duck fat-grilled onigiri
These rice balls were just a way for me to utilize a bucketload of leftover brown rice. With rice of any kind, it can be very bland. In the case of brown rice, that is no exception. I knew that I had to inject as much flavor as I could into it, so I wanted…
High tea on high teas: a plated dish
I really wanted to just dabble more with savory cooking, just because I do so much with dessert, and not nearly enough with actual cooking. When I was conceptualizing this dish, I was actually running. Some of the best (or most original) ideas come to me when I’m experiencing an adrenaline high, and everything is…
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…
Prince of the Dawning Sky: a plated dish
This would have been my main course for the finale. Inspired by the sun-filled sky, and the morning, it is duck and mushroom congee with ponzu-black garlic puree, duck egg yolk, braised duck thigh meat, crispy shallots, cilantro duck fat, caramelized mushrooms, and micro cilantro to garnish. The idea has multiple folds behind the inspiration….
Phoenix in the Hawker Stall: a plated dish
So continuing on with my experiences in the lovely, most amazing MasterChef Kitchen (I hope I had enough adjectives there), there was actually a challenge where we had to cook with chicken. This challenge, not to brag, would have been a cakewalk for me, because I practiced breaking down chickens regularly in college (mostly because…
The Kitchen Garden: a plated dish
I still remember back in 2013, watching MasterChef UK, and being mystified by one particular dish. It was a rabbit salad dish prepared by a solicitor named Rukmini, who was known for her gorgeous plating and really delicious flavors. Back then, I really had no idea what it meant to make a plate look whimsical…
Fred Bread Buns with Roast Duck and Scallions
I love making “Fred Bread”, which is my take on Japanese milk bread. I also adore making steamed buns with duck. So I figured, why not combine the two? The end result? A really light, fluffy steamed bun with a buttery crumb. It’s pretty awesome. We made these for new years, and since the recipe…
(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 