Sad about the world? This might help your mood, if nothing else.
Read MoreThai Slow Cooker Beef Curry
in Gluten Free, Meat
Meat
Lemony Chicken and Feta Orzo Bake
This is just a really nice, hassle-free weeknight meal to have in your back pocket. Minimal prep, maximum flavor, and you literally can’t mess it up.
Read MoreBlack Pepper Beef (糊椒牛肉)
in Chinese Food, Gluten Free, Meat
Looking for something that literally takes less than 10 minutes to make and is loaded with flavor and nutrition? Look no further. Black pepper beef is on the menu!
Read MoreBeef and Sweet Potato Curry
in Gluten Free, Meat
This slow cooker beef and sweet potato curry is one of my favorite things I’ve cooked this year, and the kids devoured it. You can serve it with rice, or do like I did and just eat it out of the serving dish like a stew.
Read MoreJapanese Curry
I finally did it - I figured out how to make Japanese curry without curry blocks!
Read MoreCassoulet
in Meat
Cassoulet is from the Languedoc region of France, but the one I had in Paris was the best I’ve come across. They used chicken thigh instead of the customary duck, which was great for me when recreating the dish at home because duck is incredibly difficult to source in the part of New York City I’m currently living in. The cassoulet I had in Paris was indirectly smoked because it was cooked in a woodfire oven, and I didn’t think I could achieve that with my conventional oven, and I also wanted to add a little spice, so I substituted Kielbasa for the traditional salt pork and pork belly. In the end it had a bit of a more Creole flair to it, but it had the flavor profile I wanted, and was still luxuriant and rich. The beans serve to soak up all the flavor from the braising liquid, but also impart an unexpected creaminess to the overall mouthfeel of each bite. Adding this one to my weekly rotation for sure.
Read MoreTaiwanese Chicken and Corn Egg Drop Soup (雞蛋玉米羹)
in Chinese Food, Gluten Free, Meat, Soup
I can confidently say that this is actually my favorite soup of all time, and I make it any time I find ground chicken in my fridge. I’ve been craving Taiwanese food more and more lately since my work hasn’t been bringing me to Asia as much, and this soup is so transportative, I can almost close my eyes and imagine being there. I aggressively season with white pepper and sesame oil, and I don’t use as much cornstarch as most recipes, so the soup is light but very very flavorful, and the smell of it alone is enough to make you think you’re about to sit down to some sort of 20 course meal in a Chinese banquet hall (though for me the soup itself is enough of a feast because I always eat at least 5 bowls of it).
Read More"Mongolian" Chicken
I’ve actually never seen Mongolian chicken anywhere in China. It’s an American Chinese food in my mind, but it’s inauthenticity doesn’t make it any less delicious. It’s a deeply umami, slightly sweet, sleek and sticky lick-your-fingers flavor bomb as well as a textural journey of crunchy chicken mingling with tiny pops of green onion, effectively offset by a fluffy cloud of white rice. In the absence of a vegetable, this dish could be a bit cloying, which is why I upped the amount of ginger; it adds just the right amount of freshness so as not to detract from the well known flavor profile of this dish, but to just hum in the background as a way of harmonizing the other strong flavors.
Read MoreChicken Souvlaki
in Meat, Gluten Free
This chicken souvlaki is actually, dare i say it, better than what I had in Greece, especially with all of the accompaniments I use, which enable a different experience with every bite, but never a bad one.
Read MoreClassic Kung Pao Chicken
in Chinese Food, Gluten Free, Meat
You should all know by now that Kung Pao Chicken, which I refer to simply as KPC, is my favorite meal on the planet. Obviously I love all food, but I could eat KPC for every meal and be perfectly happy. Unfortunately, the numbing sweetness of Sichuan peppercorn is crucial to my enjoyment of the dish, and since moving to the Bay Area, I’ve actually had a surprisingly hard time finding it in the Asian markets. I’ve been thus unable to satisfy my KPC cravings since before Covid started - the Chinese restaurants in my area don’t include Sichuan peppercorn in their KPCs for some reason. Maybe they also find it difficult to source? Anyway I finally went to work a few weeks ago for the first time in over a year and stopped by some obscure Vietnamese market near the office, about 40 minutes from my house, and omg they had some in stock! I rushed home and made as many Chinese dishes as I could think of. Obviously KPC came first.
Read MoreSpicy Thai Basil Chicken (Pad Krapow Gai)
in Gluten Free, Meat
My quest for spice has lead me down some pretty deep rabbit holes, culminating finally in this beautiful Thai masterpiece of a dish, which is simultaneously fresh and sweet and tangy as well as an ultimate embodiment of the screaming, scorching hellfire that can only be expected from a dish that literally drips with the oils of 15 Thai chilis.
Read MoreChicken Tikka Masala
in Gluten Free, Meat
I don’t care if it’s basic - Chicken Tikka Masala is my all-time favorite thing to eat… but since I moved from San Diego to the Bay Area two years ago, I haven’t been able to find even one restaurant with an acceptable rendering of my most favorite dish. Now, at last, I have finally found a recipe I love, so I can make this for myself and eat it for every meal for the rest of my life like I’ve always wanted to. That’s it - life goal accomplished!
Read MoreKung Pao Chicken with Cauliflower
in Meat, Gluten Free, Chinese Food
Kung Pao Chicken has been an obsession of mine for several years - I even considered writing a cookbook called Kung Pao Kitchen - and I finally found a good recipe for it. Obviously there are tons of regional variations of this classic Chinese dish, and this actually isn’t my favorite version (no Sichuan peppercorn - huge bummer), but it’s by far the best I’ve made with ingredients which are readily available in most US supermarkets. It really tastes like something you might find in an American Chinese restaurant, like, a good one too. I’ve made it probably 8 times in the past two months, and I’m really happy with the little tweaks and improvements I’ve made over that time. I made it for dinner tonight actually, and I couldn’t think of any way to make it better, which almost never happens.
Read MoreThai Basil Chicken
in Gluten Free, Meat
I’ve been growing Thai basil and Japanese eggplants in my garden since July for the express purpose of making Thai green curry from scratch using only ingredients I grew myself. I even got a curry tree (who knew that curry leaves came from a tree?)… but then some kind of bug or something burrowed its way into my eggplants and stunted their growth so my dream is dead. Meanwhile, my basil plants are growing out of control, so I just trimmed the bushes and threw the wok on the stove, and 20 minutes later this beautiful bowl of chicken was sitting in front of me. P.S. I grew that nasturtium flower from a seed!!!
Read MoreGoulash with Scallion Drop Biscuits
Continuing on with my Eastern European theme, after my recent trip to Budapest, i had to try my hand at making goulash. American goulash, from what I can tell, consists of elbow macaroni and canned chili, which I find to be fundamentally abhorent, so when I tried the true Hungarian version, I was blown away. Obviously they inundate it with Hungarian paprika (actually an import from Turkey, I learned), and it almost served the same purpose as MSG in Chinese food - it basically enhances the amount of drool that you invariably and uncontrollably produce after consuming a tiny amount of it. Other than that, there’s not much to it. I think it’s not really necessary to add much. It’s perfect in its simplicity.
Read MoreCreamy Artichoke Pasta
Life has been crazy over the past couple months. But mainly it’s been mega hot summer misery - Every time I cook, I end up needing a shower after just to clean off all the sweat. Boiling water and cooking meats especially is a killer on the temperature inside the house. Opening windows is clearly not an option, because spiders live outside. Needless to say, kitchen time has been kept to a minimum. That being said, I still require pasta.
Read MoreChicken Soup
in Gluten Free, Meat, Soup
I went to Maine (Portland is pretty cool!) over the weekend for my brother’s bachelor party. I can’t remember much of the weekend, but I do remember being generally cold. After living in California for 8 years, I am absolutely no longer acclimated to the weather in the North East. Anyway, what do I crave when it is unbearably cold outside? Soup!
Read MoreUpdated Miso Soup
I made this soup three times this past week. It took me about 20 minutes total, each time. Cleaning is a breeze because you basically only need a pot, a pan, and two bowls. But that’s all logistics. the flavor is the true success of this dish. The Miso mixed with the fat from the pork results in this beautiful velvety broth. The Fresno chili is no joke - they pack a spicy punch and cut the richness. The orange and lime serve a similar purpose, and add some sweetness. The ginger is fresh and bright. The rest is a textural dream.
Read MoreClassic Bolognese
To be honest, Bolognese is a bit of a luxury item in my home. It has three kinds of meat in it…. THREE! That, paired with the sheer amount I produce, makes it a pretty cost-prohibitive meal. But fuck it, this is worth the splurge.
Read MoreThanksgiving Stack
in American Food, Gluten, Meat
And I’m back! After a few crazy months in Taiwan and all over the US, I am back in California and ready to ruin your New Years diets. I don’t have a kitchen, so I’ll be posting recipes for some old Instagram posts until I’m able to be a fully functioning cook in my own home. In that vain, this post will have the recipe to the Thanksgiving Stack I made, well, for Thanksgiving, about a million years (one month) ago.
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