Chinese Sticky Rice Stuffed Mini Pumpkins

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This is a great way to use all those cute mini pumpkins you bought as fall decorations and turn them into a fun fusion side dish. I know you’re gonna ditch them for Christmas decor soon anyway so you might as well fill them with savory satisfying sticky rice, sweet Chinese sausage (lap cheong), and umami-rich salted egg yolks.

If you’ve had the lotus leaf bundles filled with sticky rice at dim sum places, that is lo mai gai. Gai means chicken. This recipe is inspired by the dim sum classics but with a couple of differences: there’s no chicken to fiddle with, so the recipe is a lot more foolproof, and instead of wrapping the rice mixture in lotus leaves and steaming the bundles to give the glutinous rice its addictive, sticky texture, the rice is stuffed into raw mini pumpkins! As the pumpkins roast in the oven, the rice gets treated to a cozy steamy environment that gets the same job done. (Note that you will still need a bamboo steamer setup for the first round of cooking the rice.)

I just winged it when I made the rice mixture for these, but I have attempted to capture the necessary info below for you to replicate this idea yourself. This dish is super flexible, and the great thing about making it at home is that you can adjust it to your own tastes! I, for one, am always bummed that there’s only like one little piece of sausage and not enough salted egg yolk when I order lo mai gai, so I included way more here.

Some notes about the ingredients:

• sticky rice: This is an Asian short-grain rice that is often labeled glutinous rice. (It does not contain gluten!). It’s quite firm and starchy so you’ll want to soak it overnight and wash it thoroughly before using.

• lap cheong: This is Chinese cured sausage with a slight sweetness and visible fatty bits. I like the brand Kam Yen Jan.

• dried shiitake mushrooms: You will need to soak these for a few minutes before they can be sliced.

• salted egg yolks: I buy these ready-made in a vacuum-sealed pouch at the Asian supermarket.

• mini pumpkins: All roasted pumpkins are safe to eat! But they definitely vary in texture and flavor. Play around with what you have and make note of what you liked best for next year! If using pumpkins that you’ve had lying around since fall began, be sure to check that they are still unblemished and un-moldy.

Please note that measurements below are estimates. Taste along the way and adjust to your preferences!

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Chinese Sticky Rice Stuffed Mini Pumpkins

Ingredients

1 cup glutinous rice
1–2 tbsp shaoxing wine, or to taste
1–2 tbsp light soy sauce, or to taste
1/8 tsp white pepper
1 tsp kecap manis (optional)
1 large dried shiitake mushroom
2 Chinese sausages (lap cheong), cut on a bias into 1/8-inch slices
about 4–5 salted egg yolks
1–2 scallions, chopped, whites and greens separated
2 water chestnuts, thinly sliced (optional)
about 4–5 mini pumpkins, gutted and seeded
neutral oil (like peanut or avocado)
kosher salt
thyme, for garnish (optional)

Procedure

The night before, leave the glutinous rice to soak in regular water. The next day, transfer the rice to a fine mesh colander and rinse, using your hand to agitate the rice, until the water that comes out is noticeably less starchy.

Get your bamboo steamer setup ready. Pour rice into the middle of a large sheet of parchment paper. Double up the paper if needed. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of shaoxing wine over the rice. Fold up all the sides around the rice to form a bundle that you can place in the bamboo steamer. Steam rice for 20 minutes.

While the rice is steaming, soak the shiitake mushroom in boiling water for 10 minutes, or until soft. Discard tough stem and slice the cap thinly.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

When rice is cool enough to handle, transfer to a mixing bowl. Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, white pepper, and kecap manis. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Add sausage, scallion whites, water chestnuts (if using); mix together.

Brush oil all over the pumpkin bases and lids and season flesh with kosher salt. Place on a foil-lined baking tray. Fill each pumpkin with rice mixture then push a salted egg yolk into the middle. Place matching pumpkin lids on top and bake pumpkins for 40 minutes or until tender.

Fluff up rice. Optionally, you could remove the egg yolk and crumble it on top. Garnish with remaining scallion greens and, optionally, thyme.

When enjoying, be sure to scoop the tender pumpkin flesh and eat it with the rice!

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Chili Garlic Eggplant Salad on Labneh

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Eggplants, aubergines, brinjals. I never understood why people don’t like them. I think people who say it’s a texture thing are eating ones that are not cooked properly. People who say they are bitter must be eating ones that aren’t fresh. When cooked properly and at the right time, eggplants—especially Chinese and Japanese eggplants—shouldn’t be anything but silky flavor sponges. And this recipe features these long eggplants in their very best form, with a completely melt-in-your-mouth texture and a rich, tangy, fragrant, and numbing spicy sauce that is absolutely addictive.

Chili garlic eggplant—as in, the stir-fry kind found on many Chinese restaurant menus in the US—used to be the thing I’d make to treat myself when my anti-eggplant spouse was out of town. He has since come around to admitting that he actually does enjoy eggplant, just not in the crappy eggplant parms he had during his Italian-American upbringing. So I get to have stir-fried chili garlic eggplant a lot more often nowadays. But this is not a recipe for that dish.

I just got back from London where I had dinner at Ottolenghi and every single dish we ordered came with some pool of creamy dippable/scoopable yumminess beneath or next to wonderful soft vegetables, whether it was yogurt, labneh, toum, or whipped feta. It was all so good, and fueled my obsession for serving absolutely everything on a pool of labneh, as if it wasn’t maxed out already (see: here, here, here). So when I got home, I was determined to make my own eggplant-on-labneh dish, but I wanted to put a Chinese spin on it. This is the recipe for that dish.

One thing I was determined to do with this recipe was make sure that the beautiful purple color of the eggplant was preserved and the eggplant did not turn brown when cooked. I was so happy that this cooked eggplant turned out a shade that almost exactly matched the purples I have going on in my garden. Here are some useful resources I came across when I was researching how to preserve the purple color of eggplants after cooking:

• https://noobcook.com/how-to-retain-the-beautiful-purple-of-eggplants-after-cooking/

• https://yingchen.life/2019/06/28/two-methods-to-keep-eggplant-from-turning-brown/

I ended up going with an oil blanching technique because I wanted the eggplants to be ultra silky soft but also have a hint of caramelization from the cooking.

So what does this dish taste like? This dish combines my homemade numbing chili oil + my usual Chinese cold appetizer dressing + silky eggplant + an herby salad + creamy labneh. It’s like the smashed cucumber salad you get at a Sichuan restaurant but with much gentler textures and kicked up a few notches of luxury. It might be the best eggplant dish I’ve ever had and it’s definitely the best I’ve ever made. Note that for experimentation purposes I used a medley of all sorts of herbs (mint, cilantro, Thai basil, Italian basil, arugula, nasturtium, lemon balm) to build out the salad component of this eggplant salad—so that’s what’s in the photos—but I found that the bites with the cilantro tasted far better than the others, so that’s what’s reflected in the written recipe below.

This recipe was adapted from Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s.

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Melt-in-your-Mouth Chili Garlic Eggplant Salad on Labneh

Ingredients

2 Chinese eggplants cut into long wedges
4 cups water
2 tbsp kosher salt
vegetable oil, for frying
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts divided
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp chinkiang vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp homemade mala chili oil, plus more to taste
labneh
cilantro

Procedure

In a large bowl or rectangular tub, dissolve the salt in the water. Add eggplant, and place a plate or something on top to make sure it’s all fully submerged. Let brine for 1 hour.

In the meantime, combine the garlic and olive oil in a small pan and fry gently on medium low, stirring continuously. Once the garlic starts to turn golden, remove from heat and keep stirring to allow the residual heat to cook the garlic through. Then, drain off the oil into a separate bowl and set both aside.

Heat enough vegetable oil to deep fry the eggplant in a Dutch oven. In the meantime, pat the eggplant dry.

Dry off your brining bowl and use it to make the dressing. Whisk together the garlic-infused olive oil plus the white parts of the scallions, sugar, both vinegars, soy sauce, and 1 tablespoon of chili oil. Set aside.

On another burner/hob, get a dry wok ready on very high heat.

Oil blanch all the eggplant by adding it at once to the dutch oven. Once you start to see some browning on the edges, remove the eggplant and allow it to drain well. Then, add it to the super hot dry walk, cut side down. As you start to see caramelization occurring, remove the pieces of eggplant from the wok and add it to the dressing bowl.

After all the eggplant has been caramelized and blistered, toss it around in the dressing.

Coat your serving platter with a thin, swoopy layer of labneh. Add the eggplant. Drizzle on extra chili oil to taste. Then sprinkle on the fried garlic, sliced scallion greens, and lots of cilantro.

Poached Eggs in Burrata and Sambal Butter

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I don’t have an exact recipe for this but it is maybe my favorite breakfast that I have ever made for myself so I had to document it here, if anything so that I could remember what I did. This is another poached egg bowl born out of my obsession for çilbir, which is known in English as Turkish eggs. Çilbir is a dish of garlicky yogurt topped with poached eggs and then drizzled with a chili butter made with a Turkish chili. This one has those general components (creamy base, eggs, spicy melted butter) but done a little differently in favor of some of my other obsessions.

This post is not sponsored but it uses some of my favorite storebought products to bring together a most epic of flavor combos:

• Toom garlic dip: I love this when I am too lazy to make Lebanese toum from scratch

• BelGioioso black truffle burrata: My absolute favorite burrata, I’m obsessed! Great stracciatella action inside with a thin casing and the perfect amount of truffle flavor.

• Azalina’s sambal: A Malaysian company local to me in SF! I feel grateful to have them around to stay connected to the flavors of my heritage.

• Mizkan Sushi Seasoning: This is my cheat for when I want a simple salad vinaigrette and I am too lazy to make one.

This dish also includes a beautiful little salad that I made out of mostly things I “foraged” from my backyard garden. Now that my edible garden is well underway and in full bloom, I love being able to go out there and snip little bits of leaves from here and there to make an herbaceous salad whenever I want to bring some freshness to a dish. This would also be great with a salad of any tender herbs you have remnants of in your fridge, or mild cresses, or baby arugula.

Oh yes, and a delicious bread is an absolute must to serve with this dish, to spoon on all the creamy goodness and mop up the bowl. Here, I had it with slices of a garlic loaf from my favorite Bay Area bakery, Wild Flower Bread!

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Poached Eggs in Burrata and Sambal Butter (with a little herby salad)

Ingredients

2 eggs
white vinegar, for poaching eggs (optional)
scoop of Lebanese toum (garlic dip)
4 oz ball of black truffle burrata
1 persian cucumber, sliced into ribbons with a veggie peeler
4 tbsp salted butter
Malaysian sambal
a small handful of fresh tender greens
seasoned sushi vinegar
chopped dill
chopped chives

Procedure

Make the poached eggs. (I keep wavering between doing the whirlpool method vs not. In this case I thought the shape would be better for the dish without the whirlpool so here’s what I did instead:) Bring about 4 inches of water to boil in a pot. Crack the eggs into small bowls. Turn the heat down to low, add a small splash of vinegar, and slowly tip in the eggs. Turn the heat up to medium-low and allow eggs to poach for 3 minutes. Transfer eggs to an ice bath.

Smear a scoop of toum into the bottom of your bowl. Break up the burrata and add it evenly on top of the toum to form a base for the eggs.

Arrange the cucumber ribbons and poached eggs on top.

In a small pan, melt the butter on medium-low heat. When it starts to foam, add in as much sambal as is to your taste. Break down the sambal paste with a spatula and mix it in with the butter until fully incorporated.

Toss your little collection of greens with a splash of the sushi seasoning.

Pour the sambal butter over everything in the bowl. Add the salad to one side and then sprinkle dill and chives over everything.

Serve with some amazing bread.

Baguette au Brie with Roasted Tomatoes

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In Berkeley, California, my college town, there is the cutest little Provençal restaurant called La Note where baguette au brie is on the menu. I have many fond memories of eating at La Note, one of those places choc-a-bloc with mismatched wood chairs and vintage French mixing bowls, mugs, and salt and pepper shakers that you would expect to find in some grandma’s country cottage. It was too expensive for us to eat there as poor college students so I never went while I was in school at UC Berkeley. And it is one of those places that draws crowds and over an hour’s long waitlist for their weekend brunch. So, there was only a very specific window of my life when I could have eaten at La Note—one where I was old enough to afford a cute brunch treat but young enough to have the patience to wait that long for a table—and sadly, that window has now passed, in favor of my current curmudgeonly state.

But when I did eat there for brunch, my go-to choice was the baguette au brie and I would never skimp on the buy-up to add roasted tomatoes. I remember the tomatoes being very simply done, maybe not even the most flavorful and just a quick blister with a little sprinkle of herbes de provence. But somehow that combo of the crusty baguette, that rich creamy brie, and the juicy tomatoes translated to perfection in its simplicity when all chewed together in my mouth.

A sad early attempt at food photography, circa late 2013.

What’s nice about such a simple yet perfect combination is that it can easily be replicated at home! I’ve been doing as much for years but now I finally have some nice photos to show for it. I’m also sharing one of my earliest attempts at taking food photography seriously, above, and I hope you can see some improvement has been made since then. Incidentally, that old photo from 2013 was taken with a real DSLR camera, whereas the hero photo on this post was taken with my iPhone (as is my modus operandi these days)—proof, I hope, that it’s not about the equipment when it comes to taking a good food photo. (If you are interested in hearing more about how I shoot professionally on an iPhone now, check out my interview on the My Food Lens podcast here.)

Anyway, about this recipe. Obviously not a “recipe” recipe because toasty bread based meals like these are, I believe, so much more about what feels like the right amounts (or the amounts that fit) verses exact measurements. Just use a good French baguette, the creamiest European style butter, and your favorite brie. For the roasted tomatoes, mine are probably much more time consuming that what they did at La Note, but it shows in the amount of flavor that they will bring if you use my technique—found here.

How to Make Baguette au Brie with Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients

1 French baguette, halved lengthwise
brie, sliced somewhat thinly
European style salted butter, softened
roasted tomatoes (see recipe here)
fresh herbs, such as thyme or oregano (optional)
cracked black pepper (optional)

Procedure

Slice baguette halves into desired lengths. Generously spread butter over the cut surfaces. Arrange an even layer of brie slices on top. Place on a baking sheet and put under the broiler; watch carefully and broil until the brie just begins to melt.

Immediately place slices of roasted tomato on top of the melted brie. If desired, garnish with fresh herbs and finish off with pepper.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

How I Make Roasted Tomatoes (in the Winter)

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I miss tomato season. Seeing piles of heirloom tomatoes at the store and being able to pop down to my backyard to pull off ripe cherry tomatoes from the vine brings me unparalleled joy. But when we’re in the dregs of winter and the piles of (albeit pretty) citrus and root veg are just not cutting it for me, I get my tomato fix by roasting them to concentrate what flavors those crummy winter tomatoes grown who-knows-where have to offer. I go to Costco and get a few big containers of them so I can make a big batch; in past years they’ve been roma tomatoes but this year they had camparis, which looked surprisingly red and vibrant.

The purpose of this post is to share with you how I roast tomatoes in the winter. I am sure there are other ways to do it but I started doing this years and years ago and I have always been thrilled with the results so I haven’t bothered to experiment with other processes. My way—and here’s your warning—takes a bit of time and can get pretty messy. But think of it as a metamorphosis because this process will take your sad, bland, mealy off-season tomatoes and transform them into delicate morsels of concentrated tomato flavor, a little sweet and tangy like the best ripe tomato and with a silky, rich mouthfeel from mingling with all that good extra virgin olive oil. Their flavor is very similar to sun-dried tomatoes but of course they are soft and juicy instead of hard and wrinkly.

There are no measurements for this recipe because it’s the technique that’s important. Season things conservatively to your taste and let the concentrated tomato flavor be the star. Keep in mind that the tomatoes will really shrink down as they get rid of their excess moisture; about 4–6 pounds of tomatoes ends up being only one pint jar full of these glorious bursts of flavor.

The key to my method (and what makes it messy) is having the tomato slices spend some time on a hot griddle before they go into the oven. There will be oil splatter. But not only does this allow them to get a bit of sear right away but more critically, it causes the tomatoes to release their excess water, which you can then drain away (and use in pasta sauce) before placing the slices on a baking tray for roasting. Otherwise, you would end up with tomato slices poaching or simmering in their own juices instead of allowing their flavors to get concentrated by way of roasting.

I like to line my largest metal baking trays with foil for easy clean-up before I add the tomatoes. I’ve read that you are not supposed to cook tomatoes or other acidic things on aluminum foil but I have also read that the reaction is not enough to cause any concern. (I’m still alive!) You are welcomed to try your own large, flat baking vessel and an alternative form of protection like parchment paper, but I have not tried these methods and cannot guarantee the same results!

Here is some visual inspiration for how to use the literal fruits of your labor:

How I Make Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients

4 lbs (or more!) of firm, off-season tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
a few garlic cloves, thinly sliced
fresh thyme, rosemary, and/or oregano

Procedure

Cut tomatoes lengthwise into 1/2-inch pieces. Drain off any excess juices and seeds.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line large rimmed baking trays with foil for easier clean-up.

Heat a large, flat, non-stick griddle pan on high heat. Drizzle some olive oil across the cooking surface, then add as many tomato slices as will fit in a single layer. Drizzle more olive oil over the tomatoes, and season with a light, even sprinkle of kosher salt. (Note: There will be splatter as the tomatoes release juices that get incorporated with the hot oil.)

After 1–2 minutes, regularly check the tomato slices that are on the hottest part of the pan. When some searing is visible, start carefully flipping the tomato slices. When the other sides begin to sear, transfer tomatoes to lined baking trays. Pour away any excess oil and tomato juices/seeds (but save all this to incorporate into a future pasta dish!). Repeat the griddle process as needed until all the tomato slices have been seared.

Lightly drizzle more olive oil over the tomatoes. Place trays of tomato slices in the preheated oven. Set the oven temperature down to 325°F. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the trays from the oven and scatter garlic slices and herbs over the tomatoes. Return trays to the oven for another 30 minutes of baking.

Allow roasted tomato slices to cool and set before transferring to a jar. I like to cover them in olive oil before storing them in the fridge.

Mini Pickle Galettes

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I love how every culture seems to have its own version of pickles but today we are going to be talking about the “kosher” dill pickle. These are the sour pickles made with small cucumbers, and with garlic and dill added to a salt brine, and according to Wikipedia they are so called because they originate from Jewish pickle makers in New York City (but they are not always actually Kosher). I am a big fan of this type of pickle, and have yet to really encounter an application of them that I did not like. For example, when I first learned about pickleback shots, my mind was blown… You mean it’s socially acceptable to just straight up drink the pickle brine??? Please count me in.

And then I found out about pickle pizza from this video on YouTube. There is a place in New York that started making pickle pizzas and by that, I mean they are really going all in with pretty much just pickles and cheese as the toppings. It sounded so interesting to me, and it inspired me think about what else I could make to celebrate such a beloved food. Pizza is awesome, but wouldn’t it be fun to take this humblest of ingredients (which was borne entirely out of the necessity of food preservation) and really celebrate its complexity of flavor by putting it in something a little fancy? I decided to make mini galettes because they are like somewhere between a pizza and a fancy pastry, and they are so easy to make with some storebought pie dough.

The filling of these galettes has three major components:

• Sauce: a garlic-infused béchamel that helps to serve as a creamy bridge between the pastry and the pickles. I think I saw some recipes for pickle pizzas online that used ranch, and ranch is obviously amazing with pickles, but I wanted to do something a little unexpected. I thought it would be kinda twisted to go for a French mother sauce and use it in a thing so radical as a pastry full of pickles. I went really heavy on the sauce in these and it gave them an almost alfredo-y vibe that complimented the brininess of the pickles really well, since thick creamy fatty things and tart things balance each other out.

• Cheese: I just used good ol’ shredded skim mozzarella here, inspired by the pickle pizza. Please grate your own because it will melt more smoothly than the packaged stuff.

• Pickle slices: You could go as much or as little as you want here. I like to buy these individually wrapped pickles by Oh Snap and keep them stashed in my fridge because they are a manageable size and I can cut them up however I like. I probably used about 1.5 of these 3-ounce pickles for my three mini galettes.

The result was something so balanced between creamy and briny. It felt like something that could be served at a cute cafe or brunch place but at the same time harkened to weird fair food. Just as I had hoped, these turned out to be a playful celebration of contrasts and breaking expectations. If you are a pickle fan, I hope my rough “recipe” is enough to help you give them a go.

(For other easy galette recipes, you can check out this everything but the bagel galette with cold smoked salmon, this scallion galette that is sort of my twist on scallion pancakes, and my fresh strawberry galette.)

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Mini Pickle Galettes

Ingredients

4 tbsp salted butter
garlic, minced, to taste
2 tbsp AP flour
milk
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1 sheet ready-made pie dough, room temp
~ 1 1/2 cups dry skim mozzarella cheese, freshly grated
1–2 small dill pickles, thinly sliced
1 egg, beaten
everything seasoning (optional)
fresh dill, for garnish

Procedure

To make the sauce, combine butter and garlic in a small saucepan set on low heat. Allow the butter to slowly melt and for the garlic to cook gently and infuse. Once the garlic is fragrant, turn up the heat to medium-low. When it starts to bubble, whisk in flour. Cook, mixing continuously until there is a slightly golden paste. Whisk in milk, 1/4 cup at a time, until the sauce is thick but no longer paste-like (the consistency should be thicker than a traditional béchamel). Whisk in pepper then set aside.

Preheat oven to 450°F. On a floured surface, divide the pie crust evenly into 3 pieces. Shape each piece into a round disk and then roll out into a thin circle, about 6–7 inches in diameter. Place each on a piece of parchment paper.

Fill each piece of pie dough: Spread a generous amount of sauce in the middle of one piece, leaving a 3/4–1-inch empty border all the way around. Fill the middle with cheese, lay on a layer of pickle slices, add a light sprinkle of cheese on top, and then add more pickle slices if desired.

Brush the border with some beaten egg and fold small sections over the filling to form a galette-style crust. Brush the pleated crust thoroughly with egg wash, making sure to get it in all the folds and crannies. If using, sprinkle everything seasoning all over the crust. Repeat with the remaining 2 pieces of pie dough.

Slide parchment papers and galettes onto baking trays and bake for 20 minutes on the middle rack, rotating once halfway.

Top with fresh dill for garnish.

Green Tomato and Chili Cheese Toast

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Green tomatoes are not easy to come by in my part of the country but I think they have such a great tart flavor. When I saw one in the pile of mixed tomatoes at the store, I snatched it up, but then it sat in my fridge for a while. It didn’t seem worth heating up a bunch of oil to make just one fried green tomato. I googled what else to do with a green tomato and saw lots of examples which pair pimento cheese with them. Apparently this combination is a common thing where fried green tomatoes are popular—I had no idea, but I can see why! They are delicious together!

What made things even more perfect is that I happened to have a cornmeal-crusted jalapeño and garlic loaf from my favorite local-ish bakery, Wild Flour Bread on hand. It was the perfect bread for this toast combo, but a nice slice of crusty sourdough or rye would taste amazing too.

I topped off the otherwise Southern-inspired combo with a chili oil fried egg because I couldn’t resist bringing some extra spice to the toast. You can learn how I made this fried egg in more detail here.

How to Make Green Tomato & Chili Cheese Toast

Ingredients

1 slice of bread, toasted
1/2 green tomato, thinly sliced
~1/4 cup pimento cheese
1 chili oil fried egg
red pepper flakes, to taste
dill, for garnish

Procedure

Generously spread pimento cheese over the toast (I used the one from Trader Joe’s). Top with a few thin slices of green tomato, and then with the fried egg. Sprinkle red pepper flakes over everything and garnish with fresh dill and/or dill flowers.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Toasts with Labneh and Burst Tomatoes in Paprika Butter

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Making these quick burst tomatoes in some sort of flavored butter is one of my favorite things to do with my homegrown cherry tomatoes at this time of year. There is no denying that a tomato grown at home tastes better than one from the store, so there is no need to do much to them in terms of cooking; I prefer to enjoy that natural sweet flavor without much fuss or distraction. So I throw them in hot melted butter and just wait for them to barely blister and burst and that is pretty much good to go for me.

Lately, though, I have been loving mixing summer fruit with smoked paprika; the sweetness of the fruit seems to go so well with it. I have been using the smoked Spanish paprika that I received from Spice Tribe and it is so so good—while I do other sponsored content in partnership with them, this post is not sponsored and this is truly one of my favorite products of theirs that I use in regular life. Allowing the spice to bloom just a little bit in the hot butter adds an incredible depth of flavor to this otherwise simple and simple to make toast combo.

How to Make Toasts with Labneh and Burst Tomatoes in Paprika Butter

Ingredients

1 cup cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp salted butter
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (or to taste)
2–3 slices of toast
labneh
fresh basil leaves (I used Thai basil)
flaky salt

Procedure

In a skillet on medium high heat, add the butter. Once melted, add the cherry tomatoes and allow them to sit in the skillet until they start to burst (could get a bit messy). Roll them around a bit to heat through, then put them to the side of the pan and add the paprika to the excess melted butter. Once the paprika and butter become very fragrant, gently fold everything together and turn off the heat.

Swirl labneh on top of the toast, forming areas for the melted butter to pool. Spoon the tomatoes and melted butter on top. Finish with a few fresh basil leaves and some flaky salt.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Inside-Out Pizza Toasts

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The last time I shared a photo of pizza toast on Instagram, I got a surprising number of people asking me for a recipe. Though I am always filled with gratitude when someone tells me they feel inspired to recreate something I shared, in this case I was also slightly disheartened, if I am being completely honest; pizza toast, or at least some rudimentary version of it, was one of the very first foods I made for myself as a child, so to me, it should always be something borne of imagination and improvisation, and one should never feel beholden to following a recipe for it.

One kind soul clarified, however, that they wanted the recipe for my garlicky tomato sauce. Okay, that’s fair! So this time around, I really wanted to make the sauce the star of the pizza toasts, and I kind of have a recipe to share for them now. I was inspired by Detroit style pizza (which I’ve been really into lately) to use the sauce as a topping. The sauce in this recipe is going to be thicker than what you would normally find on pizza, because the time in the oven is going to be much less and you want the flavor to have a big impact. As such, the sauce also features my special ingredient for any tomato-based recipe: fish sauce! Trust me, the fish sauce is a game changer when added to tomato sauce.

Beyond the sauce, however, feel free to add your choice of toppings. I kept it very simple: a very very thin layer of sauce on the bread, gobs of mozzarella melted on, and slices of homemade pickled Fresno chilies. Then, dollops of more thick sauce and basil added after the oven. But do not allow yourself to be confined by this recipe—pizza toast is only limited by the boundaries of your pizza toast eating desires.

How to Make Inside-Out Pizza Toast

Ingredients for the sauce

4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp good olive oil
8 oz canned tomato sauce
a splash of water
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp harissa paste
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp fish sauce
2 pinches dried oregano

Ingredients for the Toasts

4 slices of good bread
~ 8 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced or torn
sweet pickled chilies
fresh basil leaves

Procedure

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Sauté the garlic in olive oil until fragrant.

Add tomato sauce, a splash of water to rinse out the can, and all the other sauce ingredients. Simmer on low, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens; when dragging a spoon along the bottom of the pot, it should close up very slowly.

Spread the thinnest layer possible of sauce on each slice of bread. Place bread on an unlined baking tray* and dot with mozzarella, then top with pickled chilies (or whatever toppings you want).

Bake the toasts at 400°F for 3–4 minutes, or until the bottom of the bread is lightly toasted, then broil the toasts until the cheese is bubbly. Top with dollops of the remaining prepared sauce, and then with basil leaves.

* Seriously, do not line your tray with parchment paper! I tried this before with visions of easy clean-up dancing in my head, and quickly learned that parchment paper + open flame broiler does not make a successful toast!

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Citrus and Prosciutto Toast

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Welcome to another installment of my Toast Post series where I try to provide you vague guidelines for how I made a toast. For the record, I do not believe that toast requires a recipe, so I am only sharing these for those who could benefit from some added guidance. Fell free to make changes, use what you have, and treat toast as your own blank canvas for culinary expression and love for your tastebuds.

About this Toast

I made these toasts to commemorate the 3-year anniversary of my Instagram account. The color palette was strongly influenced by the colors of the flowers that were growing in my backyard at the time, and I actually chose the other ingredients for the toast based on the sunset color scheme I wanted to capture. Here are some shoutouts to some of the foods I used and love to use:

• Sourdough: Country Bread by Josey Baker Bread

• Chèvre: I LOVE the truffle chèvre by Laura Chenel; it has converted Spouse into a chèvre enthusiast

• Burrata: I have tried various brands and BelGioioso is my favorite.

• Prosciutto: If you like what is available at your local deli, get that by all means. But lately I have been loving the packaged version by Creminelli Fine Meats. It’s often on sale at Whole Foods and I like how nicely the slices stay intact as I pull them apart. You can tell they are paper thin yet structurally sound in the photo.

How to Make Citrus & Proscuitto Toast

Ingredients

3 slices of country sourdough
extra virgin olive oil for toasting
~ 3 oz truffle chèvre, room temp
1 cara cara orange
1 blood orange
2 oz sliced prosciutto
1 ball of burrata
purple radish microgreens
sumac
bee pollen
everything seasoning
edible flowers

Procedure

Slice the peels off of the oranges and slice them into cross-sections or segments.

Toast the bread to your preference. I heated olive oil in a skillet, toasted one side in the oil and then flipped over and turned off the heat. This allows the toasted side to withstand the toppings and provide crunch, but prevents the bread from becoming a gum-cutter.

Spread the goat cheese over the toast. Arrange the prosciutto and orange pieces on top however you like, then fill any empty spaces with burrata.

Top with the remaining ingredients as desired.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Avocado and Burrata Toast with Pickled Carrot Ribbons

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The toast series: An Introduction

I never set out to be a toast account on Instagram but people seem to like the toasts I make. And I get asked all the time for recipes for my toasts. Personally, I do not think that toasts should require a recipe. Toasted bread is like a tasty blank canvas. Put whatever the hell you want on it, you don’t need me to tell you what to do. I am the kind of person that would find a toast recipe incredibly stifling, and I urge you to get to a point where feel confident enough in your abilities in the kitchen to feel the same way.

My spouse always is there to lend a different perspective, though. He can’t do anything in the kitchen without a recipe, and even then, I think he doesn’t have enough cooking experience to grasp the nuance of things; how time sensitive something cooking on the stove can be and that sort of thing. He reminds me that just because I have that confidence and intuition to cobble things together and make it taste good, doesn’t mean everyone does, and maybe that confidence can be built over time but it needs to start with the practice that comes from following a recipe first.

So, okay, I hear you. I’m gonna try to capture “recipes” for my favorite toasts, but I urge you not to depend on measurements (which won’t always be there) and rather use this as an ingredient list or a starting point. And don’t let getting caught up in precise details prevent you from enjoying the process of assembling your own toasts! Now, let’s get that bread, literally.

About this Toast

I made this toast as a celebratory post on the 2-year anniversary of my Instagram account. I think the curly scallions and the carrot ribbon swirls resemble party streamers. The flowers all came from my backyard garden (violas, marigolds, and chive blossoms) and the pea leaves and tendrils came from seeds that a neighbor planted in the communal area right outside my house.

How to Make Avocado & Burrata Toast with Pickled Carrot Ribbons

Ingredients for the Pickled Carrot Ribbons

1 carrot
4 tsp sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup hot water
salt

other ingredients for this toast

2 slices of sourdough
butter, for toasting
1 avocado
1 ball of burrata
1 scallion
everything seasoning
pea tendrils
edible flowers

Procedure

Prepare quick-pickled carrot ribbons. Using a vegetable peeler, remove rough outer skin of carrot and discard. Continue using the vegetable peeler to shave thin “ribbons” of carrot. Rotate as necessary until reaching the core of the carrot. (Feel free to snack on the carrot core!) In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup hot water (does not need to be boiling; hot tap water is fine) and sugar; mix until sugar is dissolved. Mix in rice vinegar and a pinch of salt. Add carrot ribbons and allow to marinade for 15 minutes to (in the fridge) overnight. Note: You will have more than you need for this recipe.

Slice scallion lengthwise into thin strips. Place in a bowl with ice water, and place bowl in the fridge to allow them to curl up. This can also be done in advance of making the toasts.

Toast the bread to your preference. I like to melt some butter in a skillet, toast one side in the butter, and then flip over and turn off the heat. This allows the toasted side to withstand the toppings and provide crunch, but prevents the bread from becoming a gum-cutter.

Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and carefully peel off the skin. Thinly slice crosswise, and fan out one half over each of the pieces of toast. Grab small globs of burrata and arrange them over the avocado. Top with the remaining ingredients as desired.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Everything But the Bagel Galette

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I’ve flattered myself into believing that this is the kind of novelty family-style menu item that people would wait in line to order at a cute brunch place—you know, back when that was a thing. But look at it! Can’t you see it too, if you use your imagination to think of a time when people were gathered on cute restaurant patios on sunny Sunday mornings sipping mimosas? A light, flaky galette encrusted with everything seasoning, filled with two kinds of creamy cheese and then topped with cold smoked salmon, pickled red (purple) onions, fried capers, and fresh dill and chives.

My inspiration for this galette was this Martha Stewart recipe that takes bagel toppings and puts them on a big flatbread instead. I happened to have an extra frozen pie crust sheet from Trader Joe’s in my freezer, and thought I’d try the concept as a galette instead, and it turned out pretty dang awesome!

I find that with at least the TJ’s frozen pie crust, the dough completely falls apart when you try to unroll it, but do not be discouraged by this! I just ball the whole thing together and roll it out again and it is always still incredibly flaky and puffy when it bakes. I won’t be ditching my from-scratch galette pastry dough recipe any time soon (a galette with heavy fillings like fruit or vegetables would require something sturdier) but for light toppings like these, the storebought pie crust works in a pinch (or a bout of laziness). The result is something quite delicate and crispy—the opposite of a bagel but delicious with the smoked salmon and other bagel toppings nonetheless.

Awkwardly Vague instructions for the
Everything But the Bagel Galette

Ingredients for the base

1 sheet ready-made pie dough, room temp
5 oz Boursin cheese
4–5 slices fresh mozzarella
1 egg, beaten
everything seasoning

Ingredients for the Pickled Onions

1/4 large red onion, sliced lengthwise
~2 tbsp sugar
red wine vinegar
salt

Ingredients for the fried capers

capers
neutral oil

other toppings

lox or cold smoked salmon
chives, finely chopped
dill

Procedure

To make the pickled onions: Place onion slices in a small jar (as small as they will fit). Bring some water to a boil. Add sugar and a pinch of salt to the jar. Add boiling water to the jar until three-quarters of the height of the onions are submerged. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add vinegar just until the onions are submerged. Stir everything together and refrigerate when cooled. Make this at least 1 hour beforehand, overnight recommended.

To make the fried capers: Drain capers and pat dry on paper towels as much as you can. Add enough oil in a small pan to match the height of the capers. Once oil it hot, carefully add the capers (they will likely splatter a bit). Fry until the capers are “bloomed” and the splattering sound is subdued, but before they turn brown. Drain on paper towels.

To make the galette base: Preheat oven to 450°F. On a floured surface, roll out the pie crust to a 14-inch circle. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper.

Spread Boursin cheese evenly in the middle, leaving an empty 1-inch border all the way around. Tear mozzarella and dot all over the filling area. Brush the border with beaten egg and fold small sections over the filling to form a galette-style crust. Brush the pleated crust thoroughly with egg, making sure to get it in all the folds and crannies. Sprinkle everything seasoning all over the crust. Slide parchment paper onto an inverted baking tray and bake for 20 minutes on the middle rack, rotating once halfway.

Slide the galette base onto your serving board and top with bagel toppings as desired.

Orange Chicken Wings

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Sweet, sour, glossy, sticky wings! I’m sharing this as an idea for a fun Chinese New Year party idea (within your household) even though I am fully aware that “orange chicken” is a Chinese-American invention—not at all a traditional dish to serve at a new year celebration. However, there is so much rich history to the Chinese-American restaurant industry, so much to be said about the way Chinese immigrants adapted to make a living here, that I think the cuisine that developed is worth celebrating. Something especially unique about orange chicken that I learned from Chinese Cooking Demystified is that its orange sauce has also since somehow been adapted back to suit Chinese palates in China, and is now served on ribs in some areas in the south. That’s how special orange chicken is.

I also thought this would be a pretty good Chinese New Year dish because oranges are such a prominent part of the celebrations. I remember my parents exchanging oranges as gifts with their friends during Chinese New Year, as oranges—especially mandarin or satsuma oranges—are supposed to represent gold, wealth, and good fortune.

For Chinese-Americans like myself, this recipe should be super easy as the sauce really only requires 3 ingredients. Plum sauce and hoisin sauce are total staples in our pantries. But if you are someone who is not familiar with these ingredients, or maybe you know them from Chinese takeout but you have never purchased them yourself before—my hope is that you will be inspired to go to your local Chinatown if you have one and pick these ingredients up. You’ll find that they are incredibly delicious and versatile condiments, even straight out of the jar.

This isn’t a precise recipe below because I really don’t think it needs to be. Give that hoisin sauce and plum sauce a try first, and that will allow you to gauge how much you want each ingredient to contribute to your version. If you want more tang, use more plum sauce. If you want more deep umami, use more hoisin. They both have enough sweetness to make your wings super snackable and addictive, and really any combination of those three ingredients—freshly squeezed orange juice, plum sauce, and hoisin sauce—will be delicious on these delicately crusted, fried wings.

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Orange Chicken Wings

Ingredients for the Wings

~ 18 party wings, a mix of drums and flats
salt
cornstarch
neutral oil, for frying

Ingredients for the Sauce

2 oranges
plum sauce
hoisin sauce
red pepper flakes (optional)

optional Garnishes

dried red chilies
sesame seeds, toasted
scallions, sliced

Procedure

Season wings on both sides with salt. Coat them thoroughly in a thin layer of cornstarch, making sure to get cornstarch into all crevices. Shake off excess and place in a single layer. Set aside.

Zest 1 of the oranges. Then juice 1.5 of the oranges, reserving half of the unzested orange. Cut that half orange into semicircles and set them aside for the garnish.

Deep fry the chicken wings (in batches, if necessary) and allow them to drain on a rack or paper towels while you prepare the sauce.

In a pan large enough to hold all the wings, add the orange juice and zest and bring to a simmer. Add a couple large dollops of plum sauce, a big squirt of hoisin sauce, and a couple pinches of red pepper flakes (if using). Stir everything together until homogenous. When the sauce starts to thicken and look syrupy, add the fried wings and toss to coat. Add red chilies and toss to combine.

Plate the wings and garnish with the orange slices. Top with sesame seeds and scallions.

Chicken Ramen with 40++ Cloves of Garlic

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Ramen broth is one of those things that I think is less about strictly following a recipe, and more about following your heart. And my heart led me to this idea for turning the French classic “chicken and 40 cloves of garlic” into a ramen. So, be warned that what follows is just a loose guideline moreso than a recipe.

Ina Garten’s Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic was the first (only?) French “fancy” dish that I made regularly when I started cooking in college. Is it even fancy? It feels more like countryside/provençal vibes to me in hindsight but it felt very luxurious then. Back then, I also skipped the cognac and used two-buck Chuck for the white wine, which honestly still sounds perfectly good to me now. While other college kids were eating Top Ramen, I was ditching class and learning how to cook by watching hours and hours of the Food Network, seduced by the soothingness of Ina Garten’s voice. So, this recipe is a tribute to that time in my life.

How I even came up with the idea to turn this French chicken and garlic dish into ramen in the first place was when I came across Mandy Lee’s Vampire Slayer Ramen recipe, but I think you will find that these renditions of ramen are quite different from one another.

This awkwardly vague recipe should guide you to a very subtle, creamy broth that is naturally sweet from the braised garlic and some satisfying fall-of-the-bone wings that provide bites of umami as you slurp. As is a common practice with these creamy broths, I tried a version with Asian style unsweetened soy milk but did not notice it making much impact in taste or texture, so I left it out below. I kept the seasoning quite minimal, adding just enough salt to make the other flavors known, but you may find that a little drizzle of soy sauce might make things more in line with the saltier restaurant ramens you are used to.

One more thing I need to tell you about this, though, is that I experienced some pretty rowdy stomach noises in the 24 hours that followed. The kind that made me google “does garlic make you gassy”. (Spoiler alert: It does.) In my opinion, a small price to pay to indulge in a garlic lover’s noodle bowl dream. But you have been warned.

How to Make Chicken Ramen with 40++ Cloves of Garlic

Ingredients for the broth

6–8 party wings, flats recommended
salt
butter
40–50 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/2 onion
shao xing wine
24 oz high-quality bone broth
thyme
miscellaneous food scraps
soy sauce, to taste

For the Bowl

2 servings of fresh ramen noodles
5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
neutral oil
2 ramen eggs, plus a few spoons of marinade*
other garnishes, such as black garlic, seaweed snacks, sliced scallions, pea shoots (optional)

*I have found this recipe very helpful for making ramen eggs.

Procedure

To make the broth: Season wings all over with salt. In a large dutch oven, heat a generous knob of butter. Add chicken wings and brown on each side, lowering the heat as needed to avoid burning too quickly. Remove browned wings and add garlic and onion. Cook until they begin to caramelize, then deglaze the pot with a splash of shao xing wine. Add bone broth, a few sprigs of thyme, and whatever food scraps you have around for making stock (such as onion skins, carrot peels, bones, skin, etc). Return the wings to the pot. Cover and simmer on low until the wings are tender, then remove the wings and set aside.

Continue simmering the broth as desired, until the garlic cloves are mushy and it tastes naturally sweet from the aromatics. Remove thyme stems and any inedible food scraps. Transfer the remaining contents of the pot into a blender and carefully blend until completely smooth. (Please exercise caution when blending hot liquids, and allow the liquid to cool a bit first if you have time.) Return broth to the pot and season to taste. Keep warm on low heat while preparing the rest of the ramen bowls.

To make the wings: Bring some of the marinade from the ramen eggs to a simmer in a small pan. Add the cooked chicken wings and cook in the marinade, flipping occasionally, until the wings look flavorfully glazed and most or all of the marinade has evaporated.

To make the fried garlic chips: Spread the thinly sliced garlic out evenly in a small pan and add enough oil to cover. Fry on medium low to low heat until the garlic starts to turn golden brown (watch carefully). Remove pieces as they brown and transfer to a paper towel. Reserve the garlic-infused oil when the frying is complete.

To assemble: Cook noodles and divide between 2 bowls. Top with wings and egg, then pour in the broth from the side. Garnish with garlic chips and any other toppings. Drizzle some garlic-infused oil over the top.

Shortcut Beef Rendang Sauce for Biang Biang Noodles

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Lunar New Year is coming up, and for the occasion, we Chinese folks eat long noodles to symbolize longevity. Well, there is no longer type of noodle than a biang biang noodle! In some restaurants, bowls of biang biang noodles are served up where the entire dish comprises of one super long noodle. I’m not THAT good at noodle stretching yet, but I am pretty proud of how long I can get the biang biang noodles I make at home, and I believe you can make those super long noodles at home too! You can find my easy recipe for how to make them here!

Even though biang biang noodles famously come from the Xi’an area of China, they are a glorious blank canvas for any sort of sauce. For this batch of biang biang noodles, I was in the mood for something inspired by the Malaysian flavors that are a big part of my heritage. Malaysian curries and stews are so loaded with flavor—usually a mix of chilies, spices, lemongrass, and coconut—and the wide, chewy noodles always go great balanced with punchy flavors like these. For this fusion dish, I took inspiration from fellow Malaysian-Chinese food enthusiast Jun Loh and his Rendang Rigatoni. Rendang is an iconic Malaysian stewed beef dish, simmered in coconut milk until the solids separate from the oil and get caramelized and sticky, acting as glue to encase the tender pieces of meat with spices. It’s usually eaten with rice. If you’ve seen my goulash-inspired spaghetti and meatballs recipe, though, you’ll know that I love converting beef stew gravies into pasta sauces, so Jun’s idea of turning rendang into a twist on bolognese really spoke to me. I’ve made Jun’s recipe before and it was awesome, a combination of two of my great loves (pasta and Malaysian food).

When I make the noodles from scratch, though, I tend to get lazy with the sauces. So, much like my version of cumin lamb noodles, this vague sauce recipe leans heavily on a storebought paste to make easy work of getting those rendang flavors. I like using this rendang paste; I can find it at most large Asian supermarkets in my area. Give it a taste and decide how much of it you want to use. For sauces like this, listening to your tastebuds is more important than following an exact recipe. The ingredients described below go great together and are tried and true combinations in Malaysian cooking, so you really can’t go wrong throwing them together in different quantities. Don’t expect a very “wet” sauce though; much like how rendang is thick and paste-like, you should aim for something that just coats the noodles and doesn’t weigh them down.

I admit that this noodle dish isn’t the prettiest, so especially if you are serving it for Lunar New Year, I recommend you make some pickled red chilies to go on top! In Malaysia, pickled green chilies are served as an accompaniment to wonton mee, but I like to pickle red Fresno chilies (especially when I grow them in my backyard in warmer months). I always keep a jar in my fridge, made loosely based on this recipe.

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Beef Rendang Noodles

Ingredients

3/4 lb ground beef
1/4 onion, finely diced
2 cinnamon sticks
lots of chopped garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp Chinese or Korean chili flakes
pinch of salt
~ 1/2 cup Malaysian rendang curry paste (like this one)
1/2 cup coconut cream
1/2 pandan leaf, finely shredded (optional)
juice from 1 lime
coconut oil
Thai basil, for garnish
cilantro, for garnish
pickled red chilies
raw hand-pulled noodles

Procedure

Prepare your large pot of boiling water for the noodles.

In a wok, heat oil and stirfry onions. Add cinnamon stick and stirfry until fragrant. Add beef and garlic. Season with cumin, chili flakes, and salt. Continue to stirfry until beef looks just about cooked. Add curry paste and stir to combine. Mix in coconut cream and pandan leaf. Mix in lime juice. Simmer on low.

Cook biang biang noodles as described in the noodle recipe.

Add cooked noodles directly on top of sauce mixture. Toss to coat the noodles and add extra salt if necessary, to taste.

Garnish with Thai basil and cilantro. If desired, add pickled red chilies on top.

My Best 9 of 2020

I rounded up my best 9 photos from 2020 on Instagram—not based on the greatest number of likes received, but the photos that I was the most proud of this past year. Here’s a little more detail about the dishes in the photos I chose.

Gochujang Fried Chicken Bao

You can get ready-made lotus leaf bao at Asian supermarkets. I always have some handy in my freezer, and when I want to use them, I place them on pieces of parchment paper and steam them in my bamboo steamer.

To make the spicy fried chicken, I cut chicken thighs into small pieces and then coated them in a mixture of beaten egg and soy sauce, and then rolled them in corn starch. After deep frying, I tossed the crispy chicken pieces in this bottled sauce*, tucked them into the steamed bao, and garnished with sesame seeds and sliced scallions.

*This was a client’s product but this recipe was not sponsored.

Avocado and Burrata Toast

I made these celebratory toasts to mark the 2-year anniversary of my Instagram account. I used four-grain sourdough from an awesome little local bakery called Fox and Lion Bread. I topped them with:

• sliced avocado

• gobs of burrata

• pickled carrot ribbons (recipe here)

• curly scallions (slice scallions lengthwise and soak in iced water)

• pea shoots

• everything seasoning

• edible flowers from my backyard garden

Viet-Cajun-Inspired Vermicelli Bowl

Frozen shrimp became a stable in my freezer during lockdown, and I always keep rice vermicelli in my pantry. You can tell that I made this when I was really trying to limit my grocery trips and had run out of fresh garlic, because my nước chấm dressing features a last-resort use of bottled fried garlic that really was not the same. To assemble the rest of the bowl:

• Soak rice vermicelli in boiling water for 5 minutes. Rinse in cold water and drain.

• Pat shrimp dry and toss in cajun spices and a bit of brown sugar. Sear in a cast iron skillet on both sides to get that namesake blackened shrimp look.

• Prep your choice of herbs and greens. All of mine were grown in my garden! I used: mint, red shiso, sorrel, chard, mixed microgreens, and scallions.

• Add other produce odds and ends that you have on hand! I used cucumbers and pickled carrot ribbons (recipe here) because I had them.

Vegan Jackfruit Tacos & Homemade Pink Tortillas

To make corn tortillas from scratch, I simply follow the ratios from the tortilla recipe on the bag of Maseca brand masa harina**. For 8 pink tortillas, I combined 1 cup of white masa harina, 2/3 cup hot water, a pinch of salt, and a little bit of beetroot powder; kneaded it together; and rested under a damp towel for 20 minutes before I divided them evenly into 8 balls. I cut open a gallon-sized ziplock bag to use to prevent the dough from sticking to my tortilla press. This is the cast iron tortilla press I use**; I usually press and then rotate the dough a couple of times to get a nicely rounded, thin tortilla. Then I cook them on a super hot griddle pan.

Canned green jackfruit in brine or water is a common item in Asian supermarkets, but lately it has become so popular as a vegan shredded meat substitute that they even have it at Trader Joe’s. I don’t think it tastes like meat, but it does have a nice texture for tacos and holds on to seasonings well. I squeezed out the liquid, simmered with a mole-inspired sauce, and shredded it up.

Make Your Own Fresh Spring Rolls Night

This was one of my ideas for turning dinner into an interactive experience during lockdown. You can get rice paper sheets in various sizes at Asian supermarkets; I like to get the smaller ones so each roll is just a couple of bites. Serve at the table with a big platter of boiled shrimp, fresh veggies and herbs, and rice vermicelli…or whatever you have lying around that is fresh and easy to roll up! Take turns soaking the rice paper briefly to soften it, roll up your fillings, dip, and eat! I found that my leftovers of homemade Korean ssamjang made for an awesome dipping sauce for fresh rolls, even though that’s obviously not a traditional accompaniment to these Vietnamese-inspired rolls. Get the recipe for my ssamjang here.

Easy Semi-Homemade Donuts

My mom taught me how to make these semi-homemade donuts out of canned biscuit dough when I was a kid; I have no idea where she got this brilliant idea because she did not grow up with access to this type of canned product. But all you do is cut or poke a hole in the middle of each raw biscuit, then deep fry. Just keep the oil temperature a little lower than you would for other deep-fried foods because the dough can burn fast! I love that this dough is more on the savory side than normal donut dough, so it balances well with the glaze.

To make the glaze, I used this recipe by my friend Kristina. Then I slowly took my time decorating with chopped pistachios and edible flowers collected from my backyard garden.

Roasted Root Vegetable Roses on Toast

For Halloween, I made this toast and styled the photo inspired by Miss Havisham from Great Expectations (or maybe the “Helena” music video by My Chemical Romance?). The spread is a mix of miso and black sesame tahini and the roses are thinly sliced roasted beets and sweet potatoes. The original idea and recipe for the roses is by Amiee Twigger, and can be found here—I love how realistic and pretty they turned out! The chard leaves came from my garden.

Malaysian Snack Platter

I was given the opportunity to participate in a sponsored campaign where home chefs shared dishes that celebrated their heritage. Getting to partner with a company that encourages bloggers to stay authentic and share stories from diverse cultures is such a big deal, and felt especially significant this past year. I made this platter where I reimagined Malaysian classics in mini, bite-sized form, inspired by nasi lemak and other memories from my visits to the country where my parents were born. I included:

• acar, or Malaysian-style turmeric pickled vegetables

• mini chicken satay on cocktail picks; recipe for my satay marinade here

• peanut sauce; instructions for how to make it using leftover satay marinade here

• coconut rice balls; you can find my coconut rice recipe here, but omit the butterfly pea tea and mold into bite-sized balls

• sliced onion, green beans, and cucumber

• shrimp chips, red skinned peanuts, and salted egg fish skin

• fried anchovies and sambal ikan bilis

• dragonfruit and rambutan

• boiled 6.5-minute egg

Pumpkin-Shaped Pretzel Buns

In 2020, I overcame my intimidation from yeast-based dough recipes and got really into make pretzels of different shapes and sizes. You can find my recipe for these pumpkin-shaped pretzel buns here.

Thank you so much for supporting my content this past year!
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Easy 5-Ingredient (ish) Festive Yogurt Dip

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The truth is, I have no idea how many ingredients constitutes a 5-ingredient recipe. It can obviously mean literally 5 ingredients, but I have also seen “5-ingredient” recipes with way more than that because it’s 5 plus “pantry ingredients you’ll always have on hand.” Sure, everyone who cooks is probably going to have salt, pepper, and some kind of cooking oil, but I’ve seen ones where random vinegars aren’t getting counted, and that’s where it starts to get dicey—each type of cuisine has it’s own go-to vinegar, and each has such a distinctly different flavor.

So, this yogurt dip recipe has literally just 5 ingredients…but in a kind of cheating way because one of them is the “everything but the bagel” seasoning blend. And to be honest, it wouldn’t be that much harder to add a few more ingredients if say, you prefer things more heavily salted, or you want to introduce more complexity by chopping up 3 different herbs at the same time instead of 1. Personally, I don’t know why dips require recipes in the first place, since you can always taste as you go and keep adding stuff until you get something you like—but I wrote this recipe for another site where I am a contributor, so I thought I might as well post it here. Think of it as a guideline.

I think the takeaway is that if you have a ton of mint growing all crazily in your backyard like I do, then combining it with pomegranate seeds is a quick and easy way to throw together a festive looking topping for anything.

How to Make a Festive Yogurt Dip

Ingredients

~ 2 cups full-fat Greek yogurt
big handful of fresh mint leaves
~ 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
extra virgin olive oil
everything seasoning

Procedure

Reserve a few mint leaves for garnish and roughly chop the rest.

Mix half of the chopped mint with the Greek yogurt (and salt, if desired) and transfer to a serving bowl. Use the back of the spoon to create swirls and texture on the surface.

Top with the remaining chopped mint, pomegranate seeds, and a generous sprinkle of everything seasoning. Drizzle olive oil over the top and add the final reserved mint leaves as garnish.

Serve with your favorite crackers or crudités.

Shortcut Mala Cumin Lamb for Biang Biang Noodles

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To be clear, these are not your traditional or typical Xi’an cumin lamb noodles. If you are looking for a recipe for those, I am afraid you have come to the wrong place (especially since this is not really a recipe at all). I love those noodles too, and have very fond, special memories of trying them for the first time at Xi’an Famous Foods during a solo trip to New York, being blown away about how they somehow exceeded the hype.

But while this recipe is obviously inspired by those flavors, I personally don’t like the idea of trying to replicate a specific restaurant dish at home. Maybe that’s just me. Restaurant cookbooks are gorgeous to look at, but I never buy them. I am happy to accept the reality that the force of my home gas range is never going to replicate that of a restaurants, my 0 days of professional culinary training is not going to produce the same outcome as those who have studied and devoted their lives to the culinary arts. And anyway, I like (liked—before Covid) the idea of going to a restaurant to eat dishes that are wholly different from what I can cook myself at home.

So I am calling this my Cumin Lamb Noodles, but they are very different cumin lamb noodles from what you’ve likely to experienced in a restaurant before. They are a sort of hybrid of a Xi’an-inspired dish and the texture of bolognese but also heavy on the mala (numbing spicy) associated with Szechuan cuisine. Using ground lamb means not worrying about sliced meat getting tough and overcooked, and it almost becomes a part of the sauce—something that can cling to those wide swaths of noodles. I use this storebought mala hot pot mix (link) for the base of the sauce because I am not an expert at Chinese spice blends in the slightest and this is a shortcut recipe, after all.

I really do recommend that you make your own wide biang biang noodles for this (recipe here) but if you are too lazy or don’t have time, I totally get it. Due to their short-lived nature, I have never seen biang biang noodles sold at the Asian grocery store before, so if you are looking for a storebought alternative to use with this sauce, I recommend buying fresh pappardelle.

The recipe below is awkwardly vague because I really don’t believe in measuring when it comes to sauces for noodles. Let it guide you in your interest in making a Xi’an x Szechuan x bolognese hybrid, but be sure to adjust the seasoning to your taste.

Awkwardly Vague instructions for Ground Lamb Cumin Noodles

Ingredients

3/4 lb ground lamb
1/2 small onion, sliced
lots of chopped garlic
lots of cumin
salt
a squeeze of tomato paste
~ 1 oz Szechuan mala hot pot base (like this one)
a heaping tablespoon of gochugaru
avocado oil
cilantro, for garnish
raw hand pulled noodles

Procedure

In a wok, heat oil and stirfry onions. Add lamb and garlic. Season with pinch of salt, lots of cumin. Squeeze in some tomato paste and mix everything together.

Heat some oil (1/6 cup-ish) in separate pot until almost smoking.

At the same time, turn down wok to low heat and cook biang biang noodles in pot of boiling water as described in the noodle recipe.

Add cooked noodles on top of lamb.

Add Szechuan hot pot sauce and gochugaru. Pour hot oil on top of gochugaru.

Toss to combine. Garnish with cilantro.

Focaccia Garden

Really quite proud of this “focaccia garden” that I made the other day. I gathered a little pile of clippings from my backyard garden to decorate it, which included crown daisies, violas, bachelors buttons, parsley, mint, sorrel, and anise hyssop.

Here is the recipe I used for the focaccia, but for this version I did the following modifications:

• After the dough’s first proof, pour some olive oil onto a baking sheet. Shape the dough into an oval on the sheet, cover it with a damp kitchen towel, and let it proof for 20 minutes more.

• After poking holes in the dough and drizzling with olive oil, decorate the dough with the edible flowers and herbs before sprinkling coarse kosher salt over the surface instead of everything seasoning.

Here’s what it looked like before baking:

Birria Taco Slow Cooker Hack

If you follow me on Instagram you know that I am a proponent of the old school slow cooker. I know that kids are all about the Instant Pot these days, but I also know that an Instant Pot is just a smartly-branded pressure cooker, and those things are still terrifying to me. I, however, am perfectly willing to trust that I can turn on my slow cooker and go out and leave it unsupervised in my house all day, and I’ll come home to delicious, tender stew and a house that smells amazing but hasn’t been blown up.

When I make any sort of meat in my slow cooker, I always make enough for at least two meals, and one of those meals is always tacos. But I recently realized that said slow cooker meat could not be more perfect for birria tacos. “Birria” refers to a type of meat stew in Mexican cuisine, but apparently the hot new thing for the taco scene here in California is birria tacos, in which the corn tortillas are dunked in the glorious meat liquid of the stew before being stuffed with the tender meat and lightly crisped on the griddle/comal. There’s a taqueria near my house that takes it ones step further into the realm of awesome and melts a layer of cheese onto the tortilla before stuffing it. That’s the version that I recreated here.

In this episode of awkwardly vague recipes, I’ll attempt to explain how it did it. Also, please excuse the sub-par photos, which were only meant to be used for my Insta Stories before I started to get questions about how to make them.

How to Make Easy Birria Tacos from Leftover Stew

Simmer your leftover stewed meat and braising liquid/broth from your earlier slow cooker or Instant Pot adventure. I made this with brisket that had been stewed in a homemade BBQ sauce that had some notes of Mexican seasonings (mainly, canned chipotles in adobo sauce) but I honestly think it will work with most stews, and you can always add some taco-appropriate hot sauce at this step.

Heat up a non-stick flat griddle, which will stand in for a comal. Take a corn tortilla, fully coat it in the broth, and place it on the griddle. Top it with shredded cheese—I recommend mozzarella, jack, quesillo, or queso chihuahua.

Once the cheese just starts to melt, flip the tortilla and cook the cheese to your desired level of golden brown.

Flip the tortilla back over, top with stewed meat. Fold in half to form the taco and continue to cook until the tortilla shell reaches the desired level of crisp.

Serve with chopped cilantro and onion.