Food as Art - Artifice Podcast Interview

I was recently invited on as a guest on Emily Merrell’s podcast, Artifice. Here’s a little bit about the podcast:

“Join professional musician Emily Merrell for conversations with artists of all kinds. Together, we examine the mysteries of our own experiences, our muses and fears, our gifts and foibles, our beliefs about the origins of creativity, and the secret magic we’ve discovered in our unique creative processes.”

I was moved by the way that Emily sees and acknowledges art in so many forms, and it felt like such a privilege to represent those of us who use food as our artistic medium. Emily put me as such ease as we did a deep dive of when I first aspired to be an artist as a child, and the winding path I unintentionally journeyed along to get to where I am as a creator today. We talked about everything from collecting antiques, to my almost-crippling imposter syndrome, to how important it is for me to help other people create for the sake of their own happiness.

If you are interested in taking a peek into how my weird brain works, give the interview a listen.

ARTIFICE · Ep. 233: Lily Morello

10 Ways to Make an Edible Flower Bouquet (Without a Garden)

I love flowers just as much as the next girlie girl but what I love to receive more than anything is the gift of good food. And if your Valentine this year is like me, you might want to consider skipping that generic bouquet of roses for something homemade and edible instead!

One of the most frequent questions I get about making pretty food is asking where I buy the flowers I incorporate into my food styling. The answer is that most of them come right from my own backyard—growing your own edible flowers is the best way ensure the freshest and safest blooms that you can eat. I totally understand, though, that not everyone has their own outdoor space to grow in, which is why I also love creating flowers that are made directly out of actual food. The truth about edible flowers like pansies, violas, and zinnias is that while they make your food look beautiful, they don’t actually add that much, taste-wise. That’s why making your own flowers out of food is an even better option!

You won’t need a garden or access to a farmer’s market to make these pretty and impressive edible bouquets below! Whether you are looking to make a thoughtful dish to wow someone on Valentine’s Day or just wanting to treat yourself or your dinner guests with something special for the eyes as well as the palate, here are 10 ideas for how to make your own edible flower bouquet.

Sashimi Rose Rice Bowls

I love making these with salmon sashimi but you could use any kind of sashimi you wish. Use the thinnest piece and roll it into a tight spiral for the center, then continue to wrap pieces of sashimi around until you have formed your desired size for your “rose”. Serve these over a bowl of sushi rice, which will help to hold the rose formation in place. I usually like to style these with leaves cut from cucumbers. Here is where I learned how to do the cucumber leaves. You could also roll Japanese pickled ginger into roses and serve that as part of your edible sushi bouquet as well.

Charcuterie Board Pizza with Charcuterie Roses

My Valentine’s Day tradition with Spouse is to have a chill pizza night at home. You could make your at-home pizza date even more epic and romantic by turning your pizza into an edible bouquet! For this pizza, I was inspired by my love for charcuterie boards and I other than the melty cheese, I actually added most of the ingredients on top of the pizza after it was baked. Rolling slices of charcuterie like salami and pepperoni into roses is an easy way to make one of the most delicious edible bouquets.

I developed the recipe for this Charcuterie Board Pizza for 3 Little Pigs. You can find the full recipe here on their website.

Radish Violas on Toast

Dress up a simple toast with your favorite spread by adding these cute violas made out of purple daikon. Or make a whole bunch of crostini to snack on while having a romantic movie night at home.

Here are step-by-step photos that show how I made these. I used mini toasts for the base and pâté for the spread in the tutorial but you could use whatever spread as you want. You just need something that will hold the cut radish pieces in place.

For an alternative color option, soak the purple daikon slices in something acidic like lemon juice and they will turn hot pink! You could also use white daikon and soak them in some beet juice to make pink flowers if you can’t find purple daikon.

Sweet Potato Roses on Cheddar-Stuffed Focaccia

Unlike actual flowers, baking can often improve the appearance of flowers that are made out of veggies, curling their “petals’ and making them look more natural. I think that is very true when making roses out of sweet potato and baking them into the surface of an easy from-scratch focaccia. You can find the full recipe for this mushroom, sweet potato, and cheddar stuffed focaccia here on my blog.

Tomato Rose Caprese

I love making these tomato roses in the summertime when I can get all sorts of fun varieties of cherry tomatoes from the farmers market. But you can still make them with regular ol’ store-bought cherry or grape tomatoes; I actually find that it is easier to work with tomatoes when they are firmer, and adding a little sprinkle of salt at the end can really help improve the flavor.

Here are photos that show how I made these.

Use these beautiful raw tomato roses to make caprese, serving them with mozzarella (or burrata) and basil or a drizzle of pesto. Or, make an easy caprese-inspired tart by baking up a store-bought puff pastry for the crust, topping with something mild and creamy for a spread, and filling your canvas with these tomato roses before finishing off with some fresh herbs.

Labneh Painted Toast

I always say that toast makes a wonderful edible canvas. And I have found that thick, creamy labneh works great as an edible paint when it is combined with any number of natural powers to make different colors. You can make your own powders by blending dried herbs and freeze-dried fruits in a spice blender until very fine, and then mix that in with the labneh to get your desired shade. Here are some colors I have successfully made:

• red: chili powder, paprika

• orange: paprika + curry powder

• yellow: ground turmeric, curry powder

• green: matcha, moringa powder, spirulina powder

• blue: butterfly pea flower

• purple: elderberry powder, beet powder + butterfly pea

• pink: beet powder

• peach: hibiscus powder

I like to use a mini offset spatula to spread my edible “paints” onto my toast. And I sometimes use bee pollen or sesame seeds as finishing touches.

Savory Custard Tart with Veggie Flowers

This savory cheesy tart is more custardy than a quiche or frittata, but any of these eggy tart options are a great vessel for holding together a veggie bouquet. Simply make your egg mixture as you normally would, arrange your vegetable pieces, and then bake according to your recipe. I made these roses out of orange bell peppers; I used a sharp knife to cut off the exterior, keeping it intact as one long strip. Then I rolled the strip into a spiral to form a rose. I cut leaves out of zucchini using the same method that I used for the cucumber in the sashimi bowls above.

Root Vegetable Rose Bouquet Tart

Pretty much any veggie ingredient that can be thinly-sliced and made soft can be turned into edible roses. I love making them with beets and fall squash because of the beautiful rich color that the beets bring to the edible bouquet.

My general formula that I have used for the many bouquet tarts I’ve made like this is to make a flavorful short crust and bake it all the way in the tart pan. Then, fill it with a cheesy spreadable filling that does not require baking. Then fill it up with a whole bunch of edible roses! For this specific version that I made a couple of autumns ago, you can find the full recipe here on my blog.

Pickled Pattypan Squash Toast

The cross-section of pattypan squash already looks like the shape of a flower to me so that’s how this idea came to be. Slicing the squash thin with a mandolin and then quick-pickling them allows the slices to become softer and more pliable for shaping them into flowers!

Bell Pepper Poppy Focaccia

I think I have saved the easiest idea for last! Inspired by the beautiful California poppies that grow in my neighborhood, I made this focaccia bouquet design using orange bell peppers to resemble poppies. I just cut the bottoms off of the bell peppers and did a tiny bit of shaping to define the petal shapes a little better. Any tender green stems and herbs would work great for leaves, including even the carrot fronds that I used here.

I hope this list will inspired to make your own edible bouquets at home! If you try one of these ideas and share it on Instagram, please tag me so I can admire how it turned out!

How To Make Perfect Jammy Eggs

I am pretty sure the term “jammy eggs” is a term that only exists on Instagram. It is used to describe when the yolk of a boiled egg still has a ways to go before becoming the dry, chalky grossness called for in old-school deviled egg recipes, but it holds together much better than a completely runny or raw yolk. There’s a supple, gooey, almost gelatinous look and consistency to the yolks in this in-between zone, and that’s why they end up getting called jammy eggs.

But there is more to the perfect jammy egg (I’ve also seen them sometimes referred to as soft-boiled egg) than getting the texture of the yolk just right. There’s also the look of the egg as a whole when you cut into it. Even if your timing is perfect for cooking the egg to get that jammy yolk consistency, there are still things that can prevent your egg from being picture-perfect, such as a yolk that is completely off to one side, a big air bubble causing the shape to look completely wonky, or a bunch of the egg white getting stuck to the shell when you try to peel it.

I’ve made a lot of eggs for the ‘gram over the past few years. A lot of this is largely thanks to my ongoing partnership with Pete & Gerry’s who have been a wonderful supporter and sponsor of my work. (This blog post is NOT sponsored but I can honestly say their eggs are delicious and gorgeous, and that very lovely people work at the company.) But making eggs for sponsored work or a client shoot means even more pressure to get them to look perfect, which can be stressful for shooting a food preparation where so much can go wrong. So after cooking probably several dozen eggs in this style, I can share all that I have learned to set all the rest of you up for success in your future egg-making ventures too!

Phase 1: Choosing What Eggs to Use for the Best Looking Jammy Eggs

• Use good-quality eggs that are fresh from the grocery store. (I have not used eggs directly from the body of a chicken before so can’t attest to the nuances of eggs that fresh.) There is info online about how the shells will be harder to peel off when the eggs are fresher, but I’ll address how to overcome this in Phase 3.

  • What happens if you skip this tip: You want fresher eggs because the air bubble inside of them will be smaller, resulting in a nicer boiled egg shape. Over time, due to moisture loss within the egg, the air bubble at the wider end of the egg gets bigger. Using an old egg will result in the boiled egg having a big crater in the bottom, because the big air bubble prevents the egg white from fully taking on the shape of the egg shell.

Phase 2: Boiling the eggs

• Step 1: Use a safety pin to poke a hole in the wider end of each egg. This allows airflow in and out of the egg and can also help mitigate the impact of the air bubble inside the egg on the shape of the final result. Keep the eggs out on the counter to bring them closer to room temp after this step.

  • What happens if you skip this tip: Pressure can build up as the contents of the egg get heated in the boiling water. This could cause the egg to crack and some of the white to leak out, ruining your perfect boiled egg shape.

• Step 2: Bring a pot of water to boil on high heat. Make sure there’s enough depth to fully submerge the eggs. While you’re waiting, you could also get an ice bath ready for the end.

• Step 3: Gently lower the eggs into the boiling water. Set your timer according to the guide below:

  • 6.5 minutes: Fully set whites and runny yolks. Perfect for ramen.

  • 7 minutes: Jammy yolk consistency on the outer parts of the yolk, liquid gold right in the middle

  • 7.5 minutes: Perfect jammy yolk consistency throughout

  • 8 minutes: Jammy yolks that aren’t going anywhere. Perfect for tamago sandos like the one shown above.

• Step 4: Keep the eggs moving! Use a slotted spoon to continuously spin the eggs around their own axes as well as occasionally lift them out of the water and immediately lower them back in. Do this for the entire cook time. The centrifugal motion will keep the yolk positioned nicely as the egg white cooks, and lifting the egg in and out might help with reducing the impact of that pesky air bubble (if the eggs are relatively fresh).

  • What happens if you skip this tip: The yolk will settle in the egg before the egg white has had a chance to cook/solidify. When you cut it open, you will find that the yolk is in a weird spot and you have an ugly cross-section.

  • Credit to Eat With Your Eyes Closed for teaching me about egg yolk centrifuge.

• Step 5: When the timer is up immediately transfer the eggs into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Move them around for a bit to really allow the heat to disperse and get the eggs to cool down.

Phase 3: Cooling and Peeling the Eggs

You could cook the eggs perfectly and still end up with ugly eggs if you don’t get this post-production phase right. If you followed Phase 1 correctly and used store-fresh eggs, they can be notoriously hard to peel, resulting in frustration and little bits of egg white (and all your hopes and dreams of a perfect-looking egg) being lost. Patience and cooling time are the keys to doing this phase right.

• After your eggs are cool to the touch from resting in the ice bath, gently knock them against each other or a countertop to make little hairline fractures in the shells. I like to grasp the egg and encircle it with my palm when I do this, to help support the egg structure.

• Especially concentrate on creating fracture lines at the wider bottom of the shell. Due to that air bubble, it will be easiest to start on this end anyway when you peel.

• Place the unpeeled eggs in a bowl of cold water and put them in the fridge. Let them continue to chill for as long as you can, up to overnight! The cold temperature will cause things to shrink inside the shell and water will seep in between the cooked egg and the shell, creating separation.

• When it is time to peel, start from that wider end and go gently and slowly, continuing to fracture the shell into little pieces as you go, rather than trying to peel off a big chunk at once.

  • What happens if you skip these tips: The egg white may stick to the shell!

Phase 4: Enjoying the Eggs!

Now you are ready to take photos of your eggs if you so choose, but more importantly, you are ready to eat them! Below is some inspiration for how to incorporate jammy eggs into your meals. I hope you found this blog post helpful, and I wish you eggcellent jammy eggs in your future!

How to Turn Your Favorite Dinner Roll Recipe into Pumpkin-Shaped Buns

Cozy sweaters, the crunch of colorful leaves under your boots, and pumpkin spice everything—admit it, fall is a season that has a special place in your heart. Why else would you be reading this blog post? But if you are a lover of both hygge vibes and savory flavors, perhaps you don’t wish for every fall baking project to be flavored with sweet cinnamon and clove. Perhaps you’re looking for another way to create something yummy and pumpkin themed, that satisfies your savory cravings too?

In this blog post, I am going to walk you through how to turn your favorite dinner roll recipe into pumpkin-shaped buns that are perfect for hamburgers or decadent breakfast sandwiches.

These instructions should work with any gluten-based dinner roll recipe that typically makes 12 rolls in a 9”x13” baking dish (I have not tried it with alternative/gluten-free flours). We are instead going to divide that dough recipe up into 8 equal parts to make 8 pumpkin-shaped buns that are sized like a fluffy hamburger bun. For mine, I used @arjolee’s cheesy everything bun recipe, which is my go-to recipe for making the tastiest savory buns that are plenty full of flavor to eat just on their own. (You could also follow the same shaping steps with an existing favorite hamburger bun recipe.)

Most dinner roll recipes have you first allow the dough to rise until doubled in size, and then undergo a second proof in the baking dish after the individual rolls have been divided and shaped. However, in this case, it will realistically take a bit of time for you to do all the tying of twine that is needed to create those pumpkin shapes, so the dough effectively undergos that second proof in that time.

If you love pretzels and you’re looking for something to snack on with a little more chew while satisfying your autumnal obsession with all things pumpkin shaped, then I have a more precise recipe for pumpkin-shaped pretzel buns too, which you can check out here.

Here’s how to turn your favorite dinner roll recipe into pumpkin-shaped buns:

Start by making your batch of dough as you normally would. You can use whatever gluten-based 9”x13” bun/roll recipe you’d like and it should work, but I recommend using my pal Ariel Lee’s recipe, which is the one I used in the photos. Allow the dough to undergo the first proof.

While the dough is proofing, prep your twine so you can do all the shaping efficiently when the dough is ready. Tying twine around the balls of dough is what creates those indentations of the pumpkin shape as the dough expands in the oven. Cut thin, food-safe baker’s twine into about 10-inch pieces. You will need 4 pieces of twine per bun and we’re making 8 buns, so you’ll need to prep 32 pieces of twine.

Preheat the oven according to your recipe.

After the first proof, divide the dough evenly into 8 portions. As you work with each portion, leave the others covered under a damp tea towel. Dust your hands lightly with bench flour but don’t use too much on your work surface as you’ll need a bit of surface tension.

Roll each portion of dough into a ball gently using the method used for shaping a boule: Flip the ball over and pull all of the edges into the middle to form a little pouch. Then flip it over again. Cup your palm and fingers gently around the ball to form a cage and roll the dough in a circular motion, using the tension with the work surface to seal the seams on the bottom and create an even ball shape. This will result in a nice domed surface on top while gently handling the dough to keep it light and airy. Repeat with all 8 pieces of dough.

For each portion of dough, lay out 4 pieces of twine to form an asterisk. They don’t have to be perfectly symmetrical; if you wish for your pumpkins to be a little more wonky because that is part of their charm, go ahead. However, I tried both irregular criss-crossing of the twine and others where I tried to make them as neat as possible and I found that the ones where I tried to keep them even are the ones that turned out looking the most pumpkin-like. The uneven shapes were more reminiscent to me of heirloom tomatoes.

After laying out the twine on your work surface, place a ball of dough face-down in the middle and tie both ends of each individual length of twine into a double knot. Take care to have them just gently curving around the ball of dough; do not make a tight loop around the dough. The dough will expand significantly by the time it is done baking, so you don’t want the twine to be cutting in too deeply into the final shape.

When all 4 knots are tied, trim off the excess twine and flip the ball over. Make any adjustments needed.

Place your trussed dough baby on a parchment-lined tray and cover with a damp towel.

As you repeat the process with the other dough balls, give the buns at least 3 inches of space around them on the tray because they will expand! By the time I was done tying up all the dough, the earlier ones had already started to rise quite significantly, starting to form that pumpkin shape. Unless you’re working in a very cold place—or you’re exceptionally fast at typing knots—you probably won’t need much of a second proof.

Here’s what mine looked like by the time I was done tying them all and getting my eggwash ready. Let yours proof until they are starting to puff beyond the loops of twine, like you see below; it should just take a few minutes unless it’s super cold! (Note that after taking this photo, I divided them onto two trays so that there could be more space between them. Don’t overcrowd your trays!)

At this point I brushed a beaten egg yolk over the surfaces of the buns. Using just the egg yolk for the eggwash is what gave them their rich brown color and glossy finish so I definitely recommend it! The everything seasoning is optional, but tasty!

After brushing on the eggwash, bake the buns according to your recipe’s instructions. I found the baking time to be the same for these 8 larger buns as for making 12 smaller buns packed together in a baking dish.

When the buns have baked, allow them to cool a bit for safe handling. You’ll find that the twine is now embedded into the buns and they’ve baked up around it, and you of course need to remove all the twine before serving/eating. I do not own a bread lame, but that would be very useful here. Instead, I used a faux lame in the form of a stainless steel razor blade. I gently cut into the surface of the buns along the lines created by the twine, in order to free the twine cleanly without the bread getting torn up. Be sure to remove all the twine before eating!

To finish things off, I added a little pepita/pumpkin seed into each bun to resemble the pumpkin stem.

I hope these step-by-step instructions help guide you to making the pumpkin-shaped buns of your cozy fall baking dreams. If you found these instructions helpful in making your own, please be sure to tag me, @lilybubbletea, on Instagram so I can see your creations!

My Lazy Caesar Salad Dressing Recipe

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Call me basic but I am a sucker for a good caesar salad. I know all about how the dramatic tableside-tossed caesar salad spectacle was invented in Mexico but to me, the best caesar salads are the ones that are served up at nice pizza spots—they have to be good so that people actually enjoy eating them instead of just ordering them out of obligation to have something leafy and green to go with their pizza. I love the ones where a nice, thick, anchovy-based dressing is evenly coating every lettuce leaf before being dusted in freshly grated parmesan cheese, and I actually look forward to them just as much as I look forward to the pizza!

The original caesar salad dressing allegedly wasn’t all that thick and didn’t even contain anchovies, but for once, I have to argue that time and adaptations have improved the recipe. So, the dressing I’m paying tribute to here is the modern version that most Americans are probably more familiar with nowadays.

The bottled caesar salad dressings from the grocery store just don’t cut it for me, though. They just don’t have the same special umami. So, I always make my own. But keep in mind that I am really quite lazy. Salads are a go-to for weekday lunches at my place but in those instances I am most definitely not busting out a mortar and pestle for pounding an anchovy paste nor any sort of food processor/immersion blender to make a thick emulsion, nor do I wish to clean any of those instruments thereafter. So, this is my lazy cheater version of a caesar salad dressing that I am willing to throw together on weekdays, and I finally really tried to get the measurements right so I could share it with you.

The secret ingredient in my cheater caesar dressing recipes is fish sauce. It’s my secret ingredient in a lot of recipes, really, but I don’t think it could be any more fitting than in this one. After all, caesar dressing gets its distinct umami undercurrent from salted anchovies getting turned into a paste—fish sauce is exactly that same flavor in convenient bottled liquid form! I thought I was pretty dang clever when I first came up with this hack.

Rather than having to worry about combining egg and oil just right to create a thick emulsion, my other cheat is to use yogurt to get a nice thick dressing. Some recipes use a jarred mayo, but yogurt is perhaps a bit healthier (and less off-putting for mayo haters like my spouse). I always have some Greek yogurt in my fridge, and including it in any dressing guarantees a nice creamy and thick consistency. The resulting dressing does not taste identical to the kind I love at nice pizza joints but rather like a good yogurty version of it. For quick weekday lunches, it does the trick and is plenty tasty!

To make the salad shown in the photos, I tossed baby gems lettuce leaves with enough dressing to thinly and evenly coat the leaves and then tossed the dressed leaves with lots and lots of freshly grated parm. I made crispy prosciutto by baking twisted up slices of prosciutto on a parchment-lined tray at 425°F for 10 minutes. Then, I made grilled cheese sandwich with a cheddar and gruyere blend and cut it up into 1-inch cubes to use as croutons. A sprinkle of chopped chives and more grated parm were the finishing touches.

How I Make My Lazy Caesar Salad Dressing

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, pressed or microplaned
3 tbsp lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Greek yogurt
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Procedure

Combine the garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, fish sauce, yogurt, and mustard in a bowl. Whisk thoroughly to combine. Add the olive oil and pepper and whisk again until homogenous. Finally, add the parmesan cheese and whisk thoroughly once again.

(This recipe makes enough dressing for 4–6 two-person meal salads. Add dressing to prepared lettuce leaves one tablespoon at a time and toss thoroughly after each addition until leaves are evenly and thinly coated. Then toss dressed leaves with extra freshly grated parmesan to taste. Serve with chunky croutons on top, or go crazy and add whatever you like!)

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.

Food Photography with a Phone - Interview with the My Food Lens Podcast

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Yes, it’s true—everything that you see on this website, as well as my Instagram, to-date, was shot and edited on my iPhone X.

How I got here was entirely from a combination of happenstance and laziness but at this point, one thing I am most proud of with my work is becoming a champion of phone photography. If I can help others feel encouraged to see that the quality of a photo is about the skill of the photographer and not having “better” (read: more expensive) camera gear, I can die happy knowing I made a positive impact on the world, helping to make one form of artistic expression feel more accessible to more people.

My friend Dyutima recently gave me the opportunity to share this message by inviting me onto her podcast, My Food Lens. This was such a fun experience for me; being someone who doesn’t absorb information as well through audio input, I actually had never listened to a podcast at all prior to listening to my own interview! I was actually pretty shocked, and pleasantly surprised, that listening back to my own voice did not feel completely obnoxious to me, and I am so grateful for the positive feedback I have received so far. Dyutima made me feel like I was just chatting away with a friend that I was meeting “face to face” for the first time, after corresponding for so long via direct messages.

In the episode linked below, I tried to share answers to the following questions:

• Phones can be tricky because of their wide angle lens and lens distortion. What would be your 5 main tips for killer phone photography?

• How important is light in phone photography? How do you work with light shooting with a phone? Do you use manipulators, is there a specific part of the house you shoot in?

• What are your key styling techniques that are suited for photographing with a phone?

• What is your editing application of choice and are there any hacks you can share?

• Has photographing with a phone ever held you back from approaching clients or striking a deal?

• Is it challenging to work with brands if one photographs with a phone? How do you navigate through it?

• Who would you say phone photography is for? Influencers, social media content creators, professional photographers?

• If someone chooses to shoot with a phone, how can they grow as a photographer? What skills should they focus on to improve their photography?

If you’ve been wishing to learn more about my process for shooting and editing all my photos on my phone (including all my client work!), give one of these a listen:

My Basic Brined Party Wings Recipe

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I am now a wing brining covert.

I have been making wings for a long time now, especially getting into it when I noticed that Costco sells these packs of “party wings”. Party wings are the drumnette and flat parts of the chicken wings served as individual segments. It is super convenient for everything to already come as these snackable pieces and not have to deal with the wing tips that most people aren’t that into. In the spirit of these already convenient party wing packs, my past approach had been to keep the whole wing making process as simple as possible, and I thought that surely brining was not worth the hassle.

Recently though, my friend Taleen and I had a crazy impulse-buy moment where we decided to take on the Hot Ones challenge. “Hot Ones” is an interview webseries by First We Feast where celebrities are asked questions while eating progressively spicier wings. Every season involves a different hot sauce lineup for the wings and we bought one of these collections of hot sauces to challenge our spice tolerance. I volunteered to cook the wings, and then our plan was to follow the Covid Era format of the show where everyone participating would dip the wings into the sauce or pour it on to their discretion as we moved down the gauntlet. I really wanted the wings to taste good on their own since I wouldn’t have control over how much sauce everyone at the party would be adding, so I decided to try brining…and wow! I was amazed at how good the wings tasted even without any added sauce or seasoning. I immediately became convinced that the brining made a big difference.

I had looked at a bunch of brining recipes online before trying out the process and they all seemed to involve a horrific amount of salt. I know it becomes totally diluted, but I had had a bad experience with a dry brining recipe before in the past, so I was operating with an abundance of caution. I trusted my instincts and used an amount of salt that did not make me feel uncomfortable, and the wings turned out plenty moist, savory, and flavorful. You can (and probably will) add seasoning or sauce after the wings are cooked, and keep in mind those will add salt to the equation too! Having tested this recipe more since my initial brining revelation, I really am not sure why other recipes need so much salt.

So am I going to be brining my wings from now on? Truthfully, no. If I am planning to immediately coat the wings in something really strong in flavor like a bottled bbq sauce or buffalo wings sauce, these tend to be high in sodium already and my laziness will outweigh the benefits of brining on the juicy interior texture of the wings. But if I’m going to be using a lighter dry seasoning blend or am planning to serve the wings relatively plain with dipping sauces, I’ll definitely be using this brining recipe!

The wings in the photo are salt and pepper wings—inspired by a combination of the Taiwanese popcorn chicken that you get at boba shops and salt and pepper tofu or squid that is found at Cantonese restaurants. After following the steps in the recipe below, I tossed the wings in a seasoning combination of ground Sichuan peppercorns, white pepper, salt, and Chinese five spice (to taste). I then combined the seasoned wings with jalapeño slices, scallions, and fried Thai basil and served them with gochujang crema.

What’s your favorite way to season or sauce up your party wings? Let me know in the comments below!

How I Make Brined Fried Party Wings

Ingredients

~2.5 lbs wing segments, cleaned
2 cups water, room temp
1/4 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup kosher salt
2 cups water, cold
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
~1 cup cornstarch
3+ cups frying oil (e.g. canola or vegetable)

Procedure

In a small sauce pan, combine 2 cups regular water, sugar, and salt and begin to heat on low. Stir gently until the sugar and salt are completely resolved. Remove from heat. And pour into a very large non-reactive bowl. Add cold water and—if needed—allow to rest until cool to the touch.

Stir in apple cider vinegar and carefully add the wings to the bowl. Place bowl in the refrigerator and allow to brine for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Drain the brined wings and squeeze each one gently with a paper towel to remove excess liquid.

Place 1/2 cup cornstarch in a wide, shallow bowl and coat wings one at a time thoroughly in the cornstarch, making sure each is completely covered, including all the nooks and crannies. Dust off excess cornstarch and place on a dry tray. Continue to add cornstarch to the bowl as needed, and repeat process until all the wings are coated.

Turn on oven to 175°F (or warming setting).

In a Dutch oven, heat 2 inches of oil on high; oil is ready when a tiny pinch of cornstarch sizzles immediately when added. Add a small batch of wings to the hot oil and cook until golden brown, turning occasionally (about 8–10 minutes). Place cooked wings on a large tray in the oven to keep warm. Continue working in small batches to fry the wings.

Once wings are fried, they can be tossed in dry seasoning or sauced to your desire.

How I Make My Mala Chili Oil

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Here’s my recipe for mala chili oil. Mala means “numbing spicy” and it is the flavor and sensation that is iconic to Sichuan/Szechuan cuisine. This is my go-to process for when I want to make my own chili oil at home!

The ma, or numbing part, comes from what is commonly called “Sichuan peppercorns” in the States, but it is actually the husks that are used in cooking these types of dishes. Sichuan pepper husks are super unique in that they contain a molecule that causes a tingling sensation on your tongue. It is not at all like the feeling of eating a spicy chili, where it burns like your tongue is on fire. Instead, it is a tingling, numbing sensation like when your foot “falls asleep”.

The la, or spicy part, of mala usually comes from adding spicy chili peppers to the dish. I really like the emphasis on the numbing quality in mala dishes, and prefer to get the chili flavors without having it be flaming spicy. So for my chili oil recipe, I use Korean red pepper flakes, or gochugaru. I think these have a nice robust chili flavor but they don’t add that much heat.

I make my chili oil by first combining the gochugaru, salt, and aromatics into a heat-safe bowl. Then I basically steep the sichuan pepper husks in the oil gradually, until they impart their numbing quality into the oil. (Remember to keep in mind that I like mine really numbing!) Then, I pour the hot oil over the chili flakes and aromatics to awaken all of their flavors. The hot oil splatters and bubbles when you pour it on the other ingredients, so be sure to proceed with caution!

This numbing spicy chili oil is great on dumplings, eggs, noodles, and more! Combining it with a little soy sauce and black vinegar turns it into an awesome easy sauce for my hand-torn noodles, or you can see it in use in my Dan Dan Dumplings recipe. I will probably add to this list of recipes in the future, because this chili oil is the foundation of so many ideas I have yet to write down. I hope you love it as much as I do!

How to Make My Special Recipe for Numbing Chili Oil

Ingredients

2 tbsp coarse Chinese or Korean chili flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 scallion, thinly sliced
4 tsp pink Sichuan pepper
2 star anise
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup high smoke point neutral oil

Procedure

In a heat-safe bowl, combine chili flakes, garlic, scallions, and salt.

In a small saucepot, combine oil, Sichuan pepper, and star anise. Heat on medium-low heat until the lighter interior parts of the peppercorn husks begin to turn brown, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for the pepper to turn fully dark brown, about 1 more minute.

Carefully pour oil through a fine mesh strainer over the ingredients in the bowl. Stir everything in the bowl together and allow to sit for at least 10 minutes (more is recommended) to let the flavors integrate and the garlic cook through.

Recipe: Ginger Scallion Garlic Oil

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Ginger scallion oil is something I remember my mom making to serve with her chicken rice. I don’t want to call it Hainanese chicken rice because her version was a lot more casual and homestyle and she did not follow the precise poaching method for Hainanese chicken rice. But she would basically boil the whole chicken and cleaver it into smaller pieces for serving with chicken rice and the broth on the side. Occasionally she would make a ginger scallion oil sauce as a condiment and that make the meal so much more exciting. The sharp bite of raw ginger was cooked away but what remained was its fresh spicy flavor; that plus the scallions added just enough flavor boost to the boiled chicken without taking away from the fact that the dish was a celebration of simple flavors.

I tried making my mom’s recipe for her ginger scallion paste, which I, at some point in college, wrote on a little grocery list notepad paper and tucked into my notebook of other handwritten recipes I collected from my mom’s cookbook collection. For some reason, when I made this recipe it didn’t turn out how I remembered. The recipe said to fry the ginger until it was dry, and the result ended up being a bunch of fibrous clumps.

Eventually I experimented with another technique that I had learned while researching how to make chili oil, and encountered again when learning how to make simple sauces for biang biang noodles. In both cases, spices or aromatics are piled up in a bowl and then almost-smoking hot oil is poured on top to bloom them and bring their flavors to life. I tried this approach with the ginger scallion oil idea (adding garlic along the way because damn do I love garlic) and it totally gave me the consistency I wanted. Something you could drizzle over jook, spoon over a plate of chicken rice, or toss with noodles.

In the photo above, my ginger scallion garlic oil is an accompaniment to duck tacos I made from a roast duck that I bought at Yung Kee Restaurant in Oakland Chinatown. Other accompaniments are Asian pear slices tossed in sushi rice seasoning and gochugaru, crispy fried rice noodles, scallions, and cilantro.

How to Make Ginger Scallion Garlic Oil

Ingredients

a big fat 4-inch finger of ginger, peeled and grated*
3 scallions, thinly sliced
3–4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 generous pinches coarse Kosher salt, or to taste
1/2 cup avocado oil, or some other neutral high smoke point oil

*Do not include the long fibers that get stuck to the grater. The texture of your grated ginger should look pulpy but not stringy.

Procedure

Place the ginger on a paper towel and gently squeeze out most of the liquid. You do not need to wring tightly, but squeeze until the ginger looks like a moist paste with no excess moisture.

Combine the ginger, scallions, garlic, and salt in a heat-safe bowl.

Heat the oil until it is almost smoking. (The oil is hot enough if you toss in a small piece of scallion and it sizzles up right away.) Carefully pour the hot oil over the aromatics (there will be some bubbling). When the sizzling stops, stir everything together. Make this at least 20 minutes in advance to allow time for the flavors to infuse into the oil. It keeps fine in the fridge for a few days.

Recipe: Golden Salted Egg Fried Rice

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I first learned about this technique for making golden fried rice from one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels, Aaron and Claire. Their version of golden rice is simply about coating the rice in raw egg yolk before frying to give it that namesake color. But because I am obsessed with salted egg yolk things, I decided to take that golden rice to the next level with my golden salted egg fried rice!

Unlike the fried rice that you get at Chinese-American takeout places, this fried rice recipe does not include veggies or meat to turn it into a whole meal. Instead, it is meant to be a flavorsome and visually stunning base that is best eaten with anything where you would normally eat plain rice. It is great with char siu as seen below! The eggy taste from both the raw and cured egg yolks is subtle, but combining these ingredients with the rice transforms it into a luxurious-feeling, salted carby base that then helps bring out the flavors of whatever you’re eating it with.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, salted egg yolk is simply an egg yolk that has been cured salt. It is quite a common salty umami flavor in Chinese food, and can be found coating vegetables in a stir fry or inside dim sum items like lo mai gai (sticky rice packets with chicken and Chinese sausage) or as the center of a mooncake. It has become quite a popular flavoring for packaged snacks like potato chips or fish skins. Unlike in European cooking, cheese is really not present at all in Chinese cooking, and I have seen the addition of salted egg yolk being compared to adding parmesan to a dish; though they do not taste the same at all, I get where this analogy is coming from because they both have a deep salty umami and a rich mouth feel.

The traditional way to make salted eggs is to cure whole duck eggs in their shells in a salt brine for an extended period, but lately I have seen a lot of recipes for separating out regular chicken egg yolks and burying them in a big bowl of salt for a few days. I always just buy the salted yolks ready to go in vacuum sealed packs from the Asian supermarket. If you are able to find those, this recipe will be super easy!

How to Make Golden Salted Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients

1 cup jasmine rice
1 1/8 cup water
3 egg yolks*
1 tbsp shao xing wine
1 tbsp fish sauce or soy sauce
2 tbsp ghee or neutral oil
2 salted egg yolks
salt, to taste

*If the color of your yolks are not very rich or saturated, add 1/2 tsp turmeric to compensate

Procedure

Make the rice the night before. Wash rice a few times, drain thoroughly, then add the water. Cook in a rice cooker, cool, and refrigerate overnight.

The next day: When ready to cook, transfer the cold rice to a large mixing bowl. Add shao xing wine and fish sauce (or soy sauce) and use the added liquids to help break up the rice until no clumps remain. Add the egg yolks and mix until each grain of rice is coated.

in another bowl, crumble the salted egg yolks into fine crumbs.

Heat up a wok on high. Add the ghee (or oil) then add the crumbled salted egg yolks. Stir until the mixture is completely foamy, then add the rice. Stir fry until the rice no longer feels sticky or wet. Add salt to taste.

How to Make Malaysian-Style Half-Boiled Eggs

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Malaysian half-boiled eggs were the most iconic preparation of my childhood. American kids probably grew up more familiar with scrambled or hard boiled eggs, but I didn’t realize that half-boiled eggs were basically unheard of outside of Southeast Asia until much later in life.

What are half-boiled eggs? Poached inside their shells in a hot water bath, half-boiled eggs are like a more humble onsen or sous vide egg. This recipe will produce eggs where there is a thin layer of set whites that you can scoop out of the inside of the shells; some other softer, barely set whites; and an extremely runny yolk.

Pictured above are elements of a typical kopitiam/Malaysian coffeeshop breakfast: A couple of half-boiled eggs scooped into a bowl and topped with soy sauce and white pepper, and some kaya toast for dipping. When I was a kid, my parents and I used regular American sliced bread for dipping.

But now as an adult, I have been trying to spread the glory of Malaysian half-boiled eggs by sharing many ways in which they can be enjoyed. They are great for dipping toast soldiers if you put them on an egg holder and gently saber off the top, or they are lovely with noodles or jook or anywhere where you’d enjoy an onsen egg. They are basically the most forgiving and easiest way to make a nice runny egg!

How to Make Malaysian-Style Half-Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

1–2 eggs

Procedure

Bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil. Gently lower the egg(s) into the pot and shut off the heat. Let the egg(s) cook in the hot water for 8 minutes. Remove from the pot and place in an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Disclaimer: consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions. Eat at your own risk and don’t sue me, bro.

Recipe: Mala Chili Oil Fried Egg

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Lately, I have been really into frying eggs in Sichuan pepper chili oil. Why fry an egg in regular, flavorless oil when you can have a fried egg whose every crag and crispy edge is filled with a hint of something numbing spicy?

The inspiration for this was a video I saw of a hawker stall in Malaysia that serves up eggs fried in sambal. (Sambal is a term used in Southeast Asia to refer to various chili sauces and pastes, typically made with pulverized fresh red chilies of some sort.) I’ve tried making this a couple of times but couldn’t get it to look aesthetic enough. It was also horribly messy (and sometimes slightly painful) because the bits of chili and aromatics in the sambal would splatter everywhere once the oil was hot. But it was from this concept that I thought of the idea of frying my eggs in something other than plain ol’ oil. I realized that if I made an infused oil but strained out all the spices, it would essentially be like using regular oil to fry an egg, with no particles to splatter crazily out of the pan.

My mala chili oil fried egg is shown above with a black garlic and scallion cream cheese and the classic Lao Gan Ma chili crisp**, on an everything bagel.

How to Make a Mala Chili Oil Fried Egg

Ingredients For the chili oil

2 tbsp coarse Chinese or Korean chili flakes
4 tsp pink Sichuan pepper
2 star anise
1/2 cup high smoke point neutral oil

You’ll also Need

1 egg (or more)
coarse kosher salt

Procedure

Add chili flakes to a heat-safe bowl. In a small saucepot, combine oil, Sichuan pepper, and star anise. Heat on medium-low heat until the lighter interior parts of the peppercorn husks begin to turn brown, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for the pepper to turn fully dark brown, about 1 more minute. Carefully pour oil through a fine mesh strainer over the chili flakes. Mix together and transfer to a jar when cooled. Allow the chili to infuse with the oil overnight for best results. Then, use this chili oil to fry eggs, or as a base for a dumpling or noodle sauce!

To fry the egg: Skim 1 tablespoon of clear oil from the top of the jar (or pass the contents through a strainer). It is important to only use the oil as any other solids will splatter out of the pan when frying.

Heat the oil in a small nonstick pan, then add the egg (I like to crack the egg into a small bowl first). Spoon some of the hot chili oil over the egg whites to help them cook, and/or cook egg to your preference! Hit it with a little sprinkle of salt (or a drizzle of LGM chili crisp!).

My Basic Jook Recipe

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There are plenty of recipes out there for rice porridge, commonly known as congee, or what my Cantonese family calls jook. I am mostly recording this basic jook recipe down for myself, because I know how I like to make it but I sometimes forget things like: How much was the right amount for our 2-person household? How much water did I start off with? How far in advance of dinner do I need to start it, again…? Getting old sucks, and one of the worst things about it for me so far has been forgetting all the simple little things that used to be so easy for me to recall.

To me, a good basic jook has a silky feel to it. Something that goes down easy without a lot of chewing but isn’t a completely homogenous puree either. Some people like theirs as more like a soupy water with cooked rice floating in it, but that’s not for me. I also like making sure that there is a pleasant mild flavor to it when eating it all on its own, even though a variety of toppings is an absolute must for eating jook in my household. Pickled vegetables, white pepper, and soy sauce where the most common toppings from my childhood. But instead of those, I really went all-out in the photo above to lure you in— And it worked, right?

The jook in the photo features red braised pork belly that I made using Omnivore’s Cookbook/Maggie Zhu’s recipe here. There’s also a poached egg, radish shoots, pea shoots, chopped scallions, crushed chicharrones, and some slices of red Fresno chili. I also served it with a side of you char kueh/youtiao/Chinese donut, which I buy at the Asian supermarket and always keep stashed in my freezer. The best part of eating jook is tossing in a few slices of the fried dough, letting them get soggy, and then eating a big scoop of the soggy donut and jook all at once.

How I Make Basic Jook/Congee

(Makes 2 dinner portions)

Ingredients

1/2 cup jasmine rice
2 cups bone broth
2-4 cups water
2 inches ginger, peeled
2 tbsp shaoxing wine
2 tbsp fish sauce
salt

Procedure

Combine rice, bone broth, and 2 cups of water in a large pot and turn heat on high. Finely grate ginger directly into the pot so it catches all the juice. Add shaoxing wine and fish sauce. Stir everything together.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. If jook looks too dry, add water 1/2 cup at a time along the way. Continue simmering until jook reaches desired consistency. Season to taste.

Serve with yummy accompaniments.

Need a faster recipe? Check out my shortcut Chicken Jook with Ginger-Scallion Oil recipe, using storebought cooked rice and rotisserie chicken (sponsored recipe).