October 15, 2021 In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets

Halloween spiral pastry stuffed with pumpkin and cheddar

It's always hard to entice someone to try, let alone spend time to cook something which they share utterly zero cultural or emotional connections with.  We are after all, creatures of habits and comforts, and both were properly brought up to not speak to strangers.  For this particular reason, one might even call it an excuse, I have been hiding from you one of my all-time favorite pastries. I'm obsessed with this stuff.  But what is it exactly?  Even nowadays when Asian is the new Italian culinarily speaking, It's still so foreign and

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February 28, 2017 In All recipes, Meat

DIM SUM MONTH: PORK BELLY BUN W/ PEANUT BUTTER AND CAPER

[ezcol_1half] DIM SUM MONTH CONTINUES… WHAT:  Super cute and tiny steamed buns stuffed with braised pork belly, pan-fried capers and smooth peanut butter. WHY:  It's pork bun in baby form!  It's pork bun in two-bites size!  It's pork bun but pop-able!  Dispute settled. HOW:  The idea is to create an over-the-top, porky, fatty and gooey bun-tasy with a built-in acidic element to balance it all out, and this is what came out on the other side.  Inspired by traditional Taiwanese guabao (which is the former life of David Chang's infamous "pork bun"), the pork belly is first braised with aromatics and spices until melty and tender, but instead of ground peanuts that's used in guabao, smooth peanut butter is being introduced.  Just when pork belly and peanut butter - both fatty, gooey and intense - are locking tongues in your mouth, the taste buds get a sharp and pleasant zing of acidity and pickle-ness from pan-fried capers, all swirling and dancing inside this slightly sweet and chewy dough.  What's more wrong?  Eating just one or more?  I can't decide. By the way, most of the recipes in DIM SUM MONTH is designed to be prepared ahead of time.  Make each items and store them in the freezer, and at

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September 10, 2015 In All recipes, Poultry

NASHED-UP HOT CHICKEN CUTLET SANDWICH

HOT DICKS SO BIG [ezcol_1half] [/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end] Today is the 4th day, the longest duration since 2002, the year I moved to New York, that I've ever gone without ingesting a drop of coffee.  Not a drop. Because on September 6th 2015, an otherwise wonderfully uneventful morning, my coffee-stash abruptly ran out on me without a warning as if it was premeditated, leaving me in a cold-turkey caffeine withdrawal that I'm frankly too sleepy to wrestle.  Right of course, I don't live in a no-man's land.  There's a convenience store downstair just 3 minutes of walking from where my ass sits, ready to supply me lacking but coffee-like substances that will ease the cold sweats and wobbling mind.  But more to my own surprise than anything else, I didn't go.  In the passing 96 hours of brain-paralysis, waiting for my online coffee shipment which hasn't came yet, I just stayed inside my bunker chewing and spitting out green tea-leaves, mainly trying to open my eyes without much success.  Shit, I can't even open them now.  Did you know you can type with your eyes closed?  Uh Whast was thsr? This episode told me something about myself.  You know I would never sell my sloth short of its worth, God bless its noble

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January 7, 2015 In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Poultry

BLACK SESAME AND GINGR CHICKEN NOODLE SALAD

ONCE YOU GO BLACK, YOU NEVER GO BACK. [ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third_end][/ezcol_1third_end][ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third_end][/ezcol_1third_end] [ezcol_1third] Do you know what it feels to always live under the shadow of someone else? Well, say heh-lloooo to black sesame. You see

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September 10, 2014 In All recipes, Seafood

TAIWAN BEER-HOUSE WOKED CLAMS

[ezcol_1fifth] [/ezcol_1fifth] [ezcol_3fifth] IT WAS A CRADLE FOR UNDERAGE DRINKING AND SECOND-HAND SMOKE, AND WE LOVED IT LIKE MOTHER'S MILK [/ezcol_3fifth] [ezcol_1fifth_end] [/ezcol_1fifth_end] [ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end][/ezcol_1half_end] [ezcol_1half] TONIGHT is an event. I hear my parents, hastening by the front door, as I ready myself in my yellow-painted bedroom. There is festivity and jittering even in the motion of putting on my flower-printed socks. Somebody barges in and forces an extra jacket over my reluctant shoulder, my sweater itches, and my brother, as usual, looks as unapproachable as yesterday. But none of that dampens my excitement, because like I said, something big is going on tonight. I ride in a car pierced with noises which I realize later, are probably all of my own, but playing a game of fantasy Galaga with the blinking tail-lights from the front cars, is the only peaceful diplomatic relation I have with my temperamentally unpredictable sibling, which as usual, ends unfavourably for me shortly before destination

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