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…

Pumpkin Toast with Koji Mascarpone

This is one of those rare instances where all of the ingredients for this recipe happened to be all there in my refrigerator already. I had leftover pumpkin from making a cake with it, I had bread from a failed milk bread sandwich attempt, and I had both heavy cream and koji as my usual…

Calabaza en Tacha Clafoutis with Cajeta

I came up with this dessert when I was conceptualizing a dish for a gala for a nonprofit called Loveworks, based in Oklahoma City(shoutout to Gabriel Lewis for inviting me to help out with this event!). The dinner took place in November, so because of that, I wanted to focus on whatever was seasonal to…

Pumpkin Toast

Back when I was a college student, one thing I would make to feed myself was pumpkin toast. A thick cut piece of bread that is toasted, and topped with sweetened miso paste, roasted kabocha squash/pumpkin, and goat cheese. You got toasty, crunchy, a little sweet, tangy, it was just a pleasant bite all around…

Pumpkin Cream Puffs

This recipe only came about because my friend Naama gave me a squash that was grown by her friend. Squash could refer to a lot of things, but in this case, think like a butternut or kabocha squash, so basically a pumpkin. I figured since the flavor of it was so sweet, it would work…

Deep Dive: a plated dish

Of the five dishes from the “Namie” pop-up, I would say this was probably the one with the least amount of true Asian influence. While I took more inspiration from Halal/Middle Eastern flavors, it would be a stretch to say that it took influence from Halal-Chinese food, when it was more Jordanian with sprinkles of…

Squash blossom and ricotta pizza

This pizza is my love letter to Pizzeria Mozza in West Hollywood. Namely because I love that restaurant, but driving all the way over there from the South Bay area in Southern California is a giant pain. They have this wonderful pizza with Nancy Silverton’s perfected O.G. La Brea Bakery bread that has a blanket…

Ricotta gnocchi with squash, fennel, and salsa verde

So this dish was actually inspired from when I was watching The Chef’s Line on Netflix. For those unfamiliar with the program, it’s a cooking competition show that was originally in Australia, before it premiered on Netflix as well. Sadly the show is no longer running, but there were a lot of cool recipes and…

Can you feel the sunshine?: a plated dish

Even since MasterChef season 10, there were three things I sought to learn more about/perfect. The first was tarte tatin, the second was cooking in a cast iron, and the third, which I finally have gotten around to doing, is learning more about Latin flavors. After that disastrous showing with prickly pear, I knew I…