Category Archives: Cooking

Cooking traditions in families

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My paternal grandma was an amazing cook. Like many women of her generation, she cooked simply by feel, taste, and approximation. She never measured out anything, unless you counted pouring things into rice bowls as “measuring.” She made endless Cantonese delicacies like a professional chef, yet I don’t think anyone in my family truly appreciated that about her until she was gone. I was only nine when she passed away, but I have so many fond memories of dishes she would make, from her labor intensive zongzi (dong, or Chinese tamales), savory Toisan style tang yuan (a chicken/shrimp/radish based thick soup studded with chewy plain mochi-like balls, napa cabbage, dried shrimp, and Chinese sausage; to her simple steamed chicken and mushrooms flavored with salted fish.

While I love my mom and my mother-in-law, I will be honest and say that if the two of them had one thing in common, it’s that neither really ever enjoyed cooking; they kind of got forced into it because of the men they chose to marry. My dad does not really think cooking is something a man should do every day; Chris’s dad can barely boil water on his own. So both mothers cooked out of necessity and were never truly passionate about it. Now that my mother-in-law has both her kids grown and out of the house, she does do more experimental cooking and some pretty good baking. And my mom, to her credit, makes a handful of dishes extremely well that I love, from her loaded jook, several variations of pork bone and vegetable soup, Vietnamese fried egg rolls, to her very rarely made Vietnamese braised pork belly and whole shrimp dish. But regardless of these things, I do not really look at either of them and think they have a signature dish or style that I’d necessarily want to replicate.

I was thinking about a basic Vietnamese condiment, nuoc cham, the popular dipping sauce today. And annoyingly enough, even though I’ve made it endless times, it’s never been a consistent result. I think it’s ultimately because my limes are inconsistent in how sweet/sour/bitter they are, and I don’t always remember to taste the “limeade” base before adding the fish sauce. So I texted two of my Vietnamese friends for their mom’s recipe. Of course, their mom had no recipe and went by feel. But she did confirm tasting the “limeade” concoction before adding in the fish sauce, garlic, and chilies first. If the lime is too bitter, it needs to be evened out with a touch of unseasoned rice vinegar — this is a key step, the tasting to see if the limeade is balanced; would you actually want to drink this as a beverage? That’s an easy addition, especially since I always have that on hand. My friends are trying to gradually document all of their mom’s recipes so that they can replicate it on their own. While that would be a labor of love, I think that’s one of the best ways to honor those who come before us — to continue the food traditions that they lovingly shared with us, so that our children after us can hopefully continue to enjoy and make these dishes. After all, food is culture, and culture is food.

First time making Burmese tea leaf salad

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As part of my Christmas gift, Chris got me a bunch of ingredients, some ready to eat, some raw, to make Burmese food. Though we love Burmese food and are particularly obsessed with Burmese tea leaf salad, also known as lahpet thoke, I’ve never made any Burmese food ever. Although we are surrounded by endless high quality Asian supermarkets in New York City, most Burmese ingredients, other than standard things like rice/egg noodles, chickpea flour, fish sauce, etc., still seem obscure. I guess that makes sense when you realize that the number of Burmese restaurants in the city can be counted on a single hand.

The tea leaf salad is actually really simple to make with everyday ingredients like peanuts, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, onion… but the catch is that the dressing has one key ingredient that tends to elude most of us, and that’s fermented tea leaves. Technically, any high quality tea leaf can be fermented after being spent, but the fermentation process for optimal funk and complexity of taste is two to three years long. As much as I love the idea of not wasting my spent tea leaves and repurposing them into a tea leaf dressing, I have zero desire to have a jar of fermenting tea leaves in my apartment for the next 2-3 years. So, with the package that Chris got me, it included fermented tea leaves in multiple forms: straight up fermented tea leaves, tea leaf salad dressing (all ready to eat, maybe with just some added lime juice and garlic, and individual portions of tea leaf salad dressing for one serving of salad.

So today, I finally opened the ready-made packet and created my salad mise en place: I added minced red onion, chopped cucumber, diced tomatoes, shredded baby gem lettuce, fried garlic chips (from the Burmese package), roasted chana dal I made this morning, roasted peanuts, roasted sesame seeds, and the tea leaf salad. I added some minced garlic and drizzled freshly squeezed lime juice on top. And it was delicious – just like in the restaurants!

I guess this means that more Burmese tea leaf salads are to come at home!

An autumn take on a beloved “pick me up”: pumpkin tiramisu!

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I have a very long list of all-time favorite desserts. But high on that list, if not on the top of that list, is tiramisu. In Italian, tiramisu translates to “pick me up,” which is exactly what this dessert delivers. It’s light and fluffy because of the soaked ladyfingers, usually in a mixture of strong coffee/espresso and a liqueur, traditionally marsala, but oftentimes substituted with dark rum, coffee liqueur like kahlua, or amaretto. And it’s creamy because of the whipped dreamy mixture of mascarpone, cream, sugar, flavorings like vanilla, and airy egg yolks.

I’ve oftentimes been inspired to make different versions of tiramisu given how easily the format of it lends to different flavors. I’ve seen delicious, tempting versions, ranging from blended mango, matcha, hojicha, and even ube. But the issue is usually, when you make a tiramisu, it makes a HUGE portion, usually in a 9×13″ pan. So when I knew that one of my best friends and her mom would be coming over for dinner on Thursday, I figured this was my last opportunity this year to make a dessert at home, so I make a pumpkin version I found that was recently published on Serious Eats. Kaia and I spent some time on Wednesday night making it by whipping the mascarpone mixture, dipping the ladyfingers (pre bought) into the coffee / dark rum mixture, and then layering the soaked lady fingers with the mascarpone. We let it soak and meld almost 24 hours before serving it. And I’ll be honest and say: this no-bake effort was very worth it. The ladyfingers were perfectly soaked and soft. And the mascarpone mixture with it was like little soft pillows of sweetness in the mouth, with hints of autumn spices throughout. This recipe was definitely a keeper.

Kaia unfortunately did not appreciate the tiramisu when she had a lick. Instead, she tried to pick off all the chocolate shavings I topped the tiramisu with. But hey, that just meant more dessert for the adults, and more frozen tiramisu from when we’re back from Australia and Asia in the new year!

Roasting “whole” chickens, bones, and stock

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After 2.5 years of never buying any whole chicken, I finally got a whole, organic, air-chilled chicken from Whole Foods this past week since it was on sale. Nowadays, I always chuckle a little to myself thinking about “whole chickens” in the U.S. because when you buy a “whole chicken,” it is never really whole unless you are getting it alive or directly from a farm and asking for it to be presented to you in a certain way. What I mean is: if you pick up a whole chicken at Albertson’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or a related grocery store chain, your “whole chicken” will have no head, neck, or feet attached. All the organs will be removed. And of course, it will be completely de-feathered. If you buy a non-kosher bird, you’ll likely have a little wax packet on the inside cavity of the bird that contains its heart and neck. Our experience of buying a “whole chicken” in the U.S. is so far removed from, say, how people buy “whole chickens” in Asia. I remember going through different markets in countries from Vietnam to Thailand to Cambodia and actually seeing the legs, claws, necks, and heads still attached. People would freak out here if they saw those things. While I don’t necessarily have any desire to gut or defeather a chicken I am cooking, I would appreciate having things like the feet still in tact or at least included; all those chicken feet could be gathered for some collagen rich chicken stock, which I always like to make after I roast at least two chickens, save all the bones, and have enough vegetable scraps gathered in my freezer. 

I spatchcocked my chicken, removing the back bone and flattening the body, and roasted it for 45 minutes undisturbed. While it roasted, I made an au jus with the chicken neck I cut up, along with some mirepoix, water, and my remaining dry sherry I use for cooking. I reduced it and strained it. And we had the chicken. I forgot after all this time how satisfying it was to roast a whole bird (“whole” in the American sense). I realized how much I missed doing this more semi-regularly and accumulating all my roasted bones for stock. Most of the stock I’ve made this year have been vegetable or bean based, plus a couple dashi batches I made from seaweed and bonito I got from a Japanese market. I made a mental note to make chicken stock more regularly next year. 

Bo kho and lemongrass

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I had two pounds of beef chuck leftover in the freezer from a Costco run back in the spring from an original bulk purchase of four pounds of beef chuck cubes. I used the original two pounds for beef rendang using the Sambal Lady’s rendang spice blend. The second two pounds were TBD what I wanted to use it for, but after being reminded of bo kho, or Vietnamese beef stew with lemongrass and five spiced powder, I decided that this would be my next stewed beef dish. 

I’ve had bo kho a few times in restaurants, but I’d never actually made it before despite it being fairly straightforward to make. It’s made with beef chuck cubes, five spice powder, whole spices like star anise, clove, and bay leaf, aromatics like garlic, ginger, and freshly pounded lemongrass, and fish sauce as seasoning. You add carrots and pureed tomatoes for additional flavor and body. It’s braised for several hours until the beef is fork tender and the liquid is reduced down into a thicker liquid, great on top of noodles and rice. Oftentimes, if you order this dish in a restaurant, it will be served with a fresh baguette to dip into the stew juices. 

While I was preparing this dish, I realized that I actually hadn’t purchased any fresh lemongrass since we lived on the Upper East Side. I had forgotten how aromatic and delicious it was. The reason I haven’t bought it is that lemongrass is pretty annoying to prepare. It’s hard, woody, and annoying to chop properly so that you can actually eat it. In this stew, you don’t eat the lemongrass pieces; they need to be plucked out because they’re used just to flavor the stew. I ended up having to spend all this time manually picking out all the pieces after braising so that I wouldn’t have to annoy myself or Chris later with picking it out while eating. 

After several hours of braising and reducing the stew liquid down, I tasted the stew and decided it was done. As I started ladling it into my storage containers last night, I realized that in a time when I feel like I have little control over the world and life events, the few things I do have control over include what I cook and eat. And cooking is something I enjoy all the time, and it especially provides comfort during a time when I feel like the world is loveless. So I will savor this stew tomorrow and try to hope for a brighter tomorrow. 

Brothy beans and the magic that is Malaysian sambal

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A friend I made late last year and I have been bonding about all things fancy food related. She gets most of her meat and beef bones from a local farm that is a short driving distance from her apartment in New Jersey. She also has been purchasing Rancho Gordo heirloom beans, and at around the same time I made my first (and so far, only) order from them. She told me she has been so ruined by these beans that she doesn’t think she can buy regular beans anymore. Given that I still want value, I’m definitely still buying regular beans, but I plan to reserve the Rancho Gordo beans for recipes and dishes where the main flavor I want is the bean (instead of any strong spices). So sorry to Indian dals, but I won’t be using Rancho Gordo for you — at least, not yet! When I last saw her during the AFSP walk, she had told me she’d just made a big pot of Rancho Gordo beans. I asked her how she prepared them. And she said that all she did was boil them with some basic vegetables (onions, carrots, bay leaf, etc.), seasoned, and ate them just like that, with the delicious bean broth and all. So I thought…. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should do that, too. I should stop overthinking the preparation and just take advantage of the fact that the Rancho Gordo beans yield a delicious bean broth and eat them as is!

So I took out a bag of heirloom Jacob’s cattle beans this week, soaked them for four hours, then threw them in a pot with water and a parmigianno reggiano rind and simmered for another three. Once they were done, I stored them in glass jars with the bean broth and all. When serving, I added some grated parm, salt, pepper, and that was it. It was delicious on its own, but I wanted to add some heat to it, so I took out the Sambal Lady’s hot chili sambal and dolloped a small amount on top of our bowls. And that really made it special! I have honestly been neglecting the hot chili sambal, and seeing how much it enhanced my brothy beans here, I knew it was a reminder to me to use it more!

Since I always love tinkering, sometimes it’s hard for me to appreciate that less can be more. In this case, these simple brothy beans made our week. Pookster was obsessed with these brothy beans; she’s already had second helpings two days this week at dinner time!

Porcini mushrooms are too expensive

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I get a few emails a week from Food & Wine magazine, along with a number of other food bloggers/writers/cookbook authors, as an inspiration for what to cook and what to add to my “to cook” list. This can get a bit overwhelming, especially when you add all the recipes I’ve already been wanting to make because I just want to, and all the dishes I get inspired by on Instagram. But I suppose we all have something to live for and look forward to! The latest recipe I decided to make this week was pork and porcini mushroom meatballs. We went up to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx this past weekend and restocked on tinned San Marzano tomatoes and some high quality dried pasta. I also picked up a gorgeous bunch of fresh basil and onions. We stopped by Casa Della Mozzarella and got a pound of their fresh mozzarella bocaccini balls. And luckily, Borgatti’s was open, so we got a pound of fresh egg noodles (pappardelle, of course!), a large pack of porcini and ricotta ravioli, along with some jam and tinned clams. Given this, I figured we’d have some pappardelle with a side of the pork and porcini meatballs. But when I looked at multiple shops for the required dried porcini mushrooms for the meatball recipe, I was shocked: a pound of dried porcini mushrooms would cost at least $60! I couldn’t stomach paying this much for any mushroom, so I decided to take the more frugal road out and instead used chopped fresh cremini mushrooms.

The meatballs still came out delicious and satisfying, especially when paired with my pappardelle tossed in a creamy San Marzano tomato sauce I had simmering for over an hour. I don’t know when the price of porcini mushrooms will go down. The price just made no sense. Even with fresh chanterelles, which require you to go foraging since they cannot be domesticated, at their peak price, they are $30/pound when fresh. I just couldn’t wrap my head around how anyone could justify paying so much for dried mushrooms. And I suppose many others agreed with me: every time I picked up a bag of the insanely priced dried porcini mushrooms, they all had a thin layer of dust on them, as if to indicate no one had touched them or even considered buying them for a long time. Given this, I wonder if dried mushrooms can actually… stale?

First butternut squash of this autumn season, and first butternut squash soup (!)

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In my mind, there are three things that personally ring in fall / autumn for me: making my first pumpkin dessert (usually pumpkin bread since it’s easy and delicious), my first apple dessert (as first started during the pandemic year of 2020, when I made a German style apple cake (apfelkuchen) that was inspired by the amazing apple cake we had during our first trip to Germany, and 3) my first butternut squash purchase, followed by peeling and cutting up my first butternut for cooking, and SOUP!

I made a quick pumpkin cake with maple cream cheese frosting for our New Jersey play date in late September. Then, when my friend just came to visit, I made an apple fritter cake, which tasted just like an apple-laden apple cider donut, just without all the oil from frying. Yesterday, I peeled, cut, and roasted my first butternut squash of this autumn. Today, I used it to make a quick butternut squash and white bean soup. I had leftover white beans from cooking last week, and so I decided to puree it into my soup, which worked extremely well! I’m looking for more ways to incorporate beans into our diet for added protein (and just because they’re SO good for you), and this was a perfect way to get them in. The white beans added a velvety texture to the soup, and it gave the soup even more body, thickness, and creaminess. I definitely did not make the same mistake I made last year by using a crappy cartoned vegetable stock from Trader Joe’s; this time, I used some dashi I had made from last week, and the umami flavor really complimented the squash and beans well. With my three items checked off, it’s definitely and officially fall in our kitchen!

I’m looking forward to cooking with even more butternut squash and other autumn squash favorites, like buttercup and kabocha, very soon. Autumn/winter squash is truly the best squash. Take THAT, zucchini and yellow summer squash!

Fall spiced cooking and baking – apple fritter cake

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While I love spring and summer and all the delicious produce that comes with it, I will be honest and say that my favorite time to bake is most definitely in the fall. Autumn spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger are some of my favorites to use in baking, and they always go well with autumn produce, like apples, endless squash, pumpkin, and pears. While I love summer fruit desserts, summer is not my favorite time to have my oven on, which would make my house even hotter than it already is. Having the oven on for baking in autumn and winter make the house smell and feel more cozy, plus they also help to heat up the place when the temperature drops. For me, from a cooking perspective, I ring in the fall by baking something with apple or pumpkin in it. Last weekend, I made a light pumpkin cake to bring over for Kaia’s play date. This week, since my friend is visiting from out of town, I decided to use it as an excuse to bake another autumn treat that has been on my list, which was Scientifically Sweet’s latest cinnamon apple fritter cake.

A few years ago, I made apple cider donuts from scratch at home in the fall. While they were absolutely delicious and fun to make, it was time consuming since they were yeast donuts. Plus, they took an ungodly amount of coconut oil to shallow fry, which was both messy and expensive since coconut oil is not cheap. I’ve previously made a German style apple cake a couple autumns, which I enjoyed; Chris had even said it was likely the best dessert I’d ever made at that point in time. This autumn, I wanted something that was more of a mashup, and so this apple fritter cake was the perfect marriage of these desires. Scientifically Sweet describes it as tasting like “a cinnamon apple donut without all the oiliness from deep frying.” Granted, I think the best donuts do not feel oily, nor do they taste heavy at all; in fact, the very, very best donuts are so deceptively light that they feel like you can eat half a dozen of them and not even realize you ate that many. But regardless, this description sounded perfect to me.

I also just purchased a new bag of all-purpose flour so that I can start baking some breads. Chris requested breads that he could enjoy with jam, so I’m likely going to make no-knead brioche soon. And then I also want to make some yeast-based rolls, so I also have sweet potato yeast rolls on my list to make. Baking yeast bread in summer never seems fun, but baking it in the fall and winter seem like the perfect indoor activity. Who knows – maybe Kaia will want to get involved, too. Or… maybe she’ll just eat it all.

Beef rendang, coconut rice, and the rice cooker that decided to stop working

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It seems to be a once-a-year activity now: I decided to defrost the beef chuck I picked up at Costco a few months ago to make a batch of rendang using the Sambal Lady’s rendang spice packet (in partnership with Burlap and Barrel, who I have grown to love and admire). Last year, I made the rendang with a leg of lamb I cut up. In 2022, I made it with beef chuck I purchased on sale at Whole Foods. Just like the previous two years, while the process was simplified greatly given I didn’t have to source all the different spices with Auria’s spice blend packet, it was still a labor of love since it takes low and slow cooking and stirring over the course of four hours. Prior to having a fully remote job, this would have been unthinkable as a weeknight meal unless I did it on the Sunday before Monday dinner. But I was able to adjust the heat and stir the beef mixture between meetings and work tasks yesterday, and the beef rendang came out beautifully.

I planned to serve the rendang with coconut rice (infused with some cardamom pods) made in our rice cooker, but I was sad to see that after 14 years of operation, the rice cooker decided to stop working. I had to salvage the partially boiled rice by dumping it all into a sauce pan and finishing it over the stove. RIP rice cooker, and hello to your updated replacement (the same brand) coming in a couple days!

I wasn’t sure if Kaia would enjoy the rendang given these spice packets were the original hot ones, and she’s recently been complaining about spicy food (that friggin’ Dragons Love Tacos book that demonizes spicy food!). So I was very pleasantly surprised to see her carefully inspecting the beef shreds, tearing them apart, and daintily placing small pieces in her mouth and chewing. She’d hesitate, ask for water or milk, then go back for seconds, thirds, and fourths. She did say the rendang was spicy, but she kept going back for more. This is ALL a good sign! I’m trying to raise a spice/heat loving little eater!

Was the rendang a big effort? Yes. But was it worth it? Darn right it was. And we have plenty of tasty leftovers for the next few days to keep the ROI going.