Hot Dish

I met Molly Yeh in Sept 2010 at the Vendy Awards. She was the winner of a month long free schnitzel from the Schnitzel & Things truck. Back then I was taking photos for the owners. The owners had asked Molly to help them at the Vendy and that was how we met and have been friends since then.

It's been awesome seeing Molly's journey. 6 years doesn't seem that long but so much has changed. OMG!

Anyways, go buy her book. I have already made this hot dish 3 times in the last 4 weeks. It's SO GOOD. It's like getting a super awesome warm hug when it's super freezing outside.

3/4 cup peas, fresh or frozen

1 1/2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thigh, cut into 1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

Black pepper

18 ounces frozen Tater Tots

Ketchup, for serving (optional)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

Kosher salt

6 tablespoons flour

3 cups whole milk

Enough chicken broth base to make 3 cups broth

Preheat the oven to 400 F

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium high heat.

Add the onion and carrots and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring until soft, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the flour so that it gets evenly distributed.

Add 1 1/2 cups of the milk, stirring constantly until thickened. Repeat with the remaining 1 1/2 cups milk.

Stir in the chicken broth base, peas, chicken, thyme, and a few turns of pepper and simmer, stirring often, until the chicken is cooked through and no longer pink, 10 to 15 minutes.

Taste the mixture and adjust seasonings if desired.

Transfer the mixture to an 11x8 inch baking dish (or other 3-quart ovenproof dish) and cover the bitch with Tater Tots.

Arrange them snugly and neatly.

Bake until the tots are golden brown.

Begin checking for doneness at 30 minutes.

Let cool slightly and serve with ketchup, if desired.

Chawanmushi

It's cold. It went from a light thin jacket weather to hoodie weather to this morning when I thought about maybe wearing my winter coat. I used to LOVE winter and cold weather.....until I moved to NYC from LA. I never needed a scarf or gloves in LA nor any super thick coats. But now once it dips into the 50s it's all the layers I can wear at one time, knee high socks, thermal undies, two beanies. But you know, it's also comfort food season. It's like gimme all the mac n'cheese, hotdish, beef stew, risotto, congee, lasagna, endless supply of fettuccine alfredo, and butternut squash soup!

My perfect cold day scenario is hugging a bowl of oyakoDON by the fireplace and it's snowing outside and I have a cup of green tea and maybe White Christmas is playing on TBS. Or Forrest Gump, TBS is always playing Forrest Gump. 

You know who is also hugging a bowl (well not an actual bowl)? Cynthia of Two Red Bowls and her husband Andy. They recently welcomed their little boy, Luke. So in honor of this, Stephanie of i am a food blog and Alana of Fix Feast Flair put together a virtual welcome baby Luke celebration. They were super cool to put together a nice group of food bloggers (full list below) and we all made things in bowls! Fun! Here's what I cooked up: CHAWANMUSHI!

This is cold weather comfort food times 100. Chawanmushi is steamed egg custard. It's super easy to make. It's basically eggs and dashi and the filling/toppings can be whatever you like. Though I have mostly seen it with chunks of chicken, fish cakes, shiitake mushroom, and ginkgo nuts.

For any Japanese recipes I only trust one source and that's Francis of Cooking with Dog. Have you seen Francis in action?! The recipe from Francis makes 2 bowls but to be honest it all really depends on the size of your bowls. And for obvious reasons I had to tweak the recipe to make 3 bowls. I had searched through the internet, looking at other chawanmushi recipes and the key is the egg to dashi ratio. What you want to have is 1 cup of eggs to 3 cups of dashi. Just scramble the eggs in a bowl and pour it into a measuring cup. How ever much you get times 3 will be the amount of dashi you'll need. Simple!

Happy days y'all!

• I am a Food Blog | Mac and Kimcheese Dolsot Bibimbap
• Fix Feast Flair | Dishoom's Chicken Ruby Murray
• The Fauxmartha | Mom Lunches
• A Cozy Kitchen | Cornbread Chicken + Dumplings
• Cake Over Steak | Salted Caramel Chocolate Crackles
• The Pancake Princess | Stovetop Pumpkin Bread Pudding
• Snixy Kitchen | Chicken Pot Pie with Chestnut Biscuits
• Lady and Pups | Egg Florentine in Pullman "Bowls"
• Betty Liu | Honeynut Squash Congee
• Style Sweet CA | Date Bourbon Cinnamon Rolls
• Warm Vanilla Sugar | Broccoli Quinoa Bowl with Avocado Sauce
• A Beautiful Plate | Coconut Cauliflower Soup
• Girl Versus Dough | Tomato Grilled Cheese Soup
• Fork to Belly | A Big Hawaiian Fruit Bowl
• Wit & Vinegar | Jerk Chicken Chili
• Constellation Inspiration | Salted Egg Yolk Custard Mochi
• twigg studios | Katsu Udon Soup wth Popcorn Chicken Croutons
• Edible Perspective | Acorn Squash Bowls with Pears, Pecans, and Vanilla Bean Cream
• Coco Cake Land | Asian Bowl Cut Sugar Cookies
• Southern Souffle | Sorghum Apple Biscuits In A Bowl
• The Bojon Gourmet | Smoky Sweet Potato & Lentil Tortilla Soup
• Flourishing Foodie | Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Soup
• What should I eat for breakfast today | Little Bowl with Creamy Polenta, Cheese, Onions and Mushrooms
• Top with Cinnamon | Squash & Crispy Kale Bowls with Pomegranate and Miso-Ginger Dressing
• the broken bread | Roasted Celeriac + Fennel Soup
• Fig+Bleu | Cauliflower Harissa Soup
• my name is yeh | Corn Dog In A Bowl
• Crepes of Wrath | Mini Scallion Pancake Challah Buns
• O&O Eats | Persimmon Cobbler
• Chocolate + Marrow | Parsnip + Potato Soup with Crispy Pancetta
• With Food + Love | Caramelized Golden Beet Soup with Fall Roots + Garlicky Yogurt
• The Pig and Quill | Slow Cooker Pumpkin Curry Beef Stew
• Hungry Girl Por Vida | Rice Cooker Oats with Bruleed Bananas

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RECIPE

Serves 3

- Cut up the chicken thigh into chunks. Each bowl should get at least 3-4 pieces of chicken. Marinate the chicken with 1 teaspoon of sake and 1 teaspoon of soy sauce. Let sit for 10mins to 30mins.

- In a pot, add the 2.25 cups of water. Put on low heat on the stove. Add hondashi, sake, soy sauce, and pinch of salt. Stir to dissolve hondashi. No need to boil the water, just warm enough to dissolve the hondashi. You can use the microwave also. Take pot off the stove to let it cool.

- Scramble the eggs.

- Heat a pan up on medium flames on the stove. Add oil and brown the pieces of chicken. Don't worry about cooking them all the way through since you'll be steaming them later.

- Slice up shiitake, fish cakes, and scallions.

- Make sure the dashi broth has cooled down, you don't want to cook the eggs. Add eggs into dashi broth. Then pour the mixture through a sieve. This ensures a smoooooth custard.

ASSEMBLE!

- Place few pieces of chicken, shiitake, fish cakes, and scallions into each bowl. Pour in the egg/dashi broth.

- Get a steamer ready.

- Before putting the bowls into the steamer, wrap each one with plastic wrap.

- Put the bowls into the steamer and steam on high for 5 mins. Turn the heat down to low and steam for 13-15mins or until the custard is ready. Use a skewer or toothpick or chopstick to poke a hole in the custard. If the liquid is clear, it is done.

OPTIONAL!

- Sprinkle extra scallions or your favorite furikake or shichimi togarashi.

3 eggs

1 chicken thigh

Handful of shiitake mushroom

Few slices of your favorite fish cake

2.25 cups of water

2 teaspoons of hondashi

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of sake

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of soy sauce

Salt + pepper

Scallion

Matcha French Toast, Hong Kong Style

After reading this WSJ article on why fruits and vegetables in Chinatown are so cheap, I decided to head over to Chinatown to buy some fruits. I was going to just buy one pound of rainier cherries but the lady said I should buy two and she showed me how much one pound was. Good thing I listened to her cause these cherries were crazy delicious and sweet. I probably ate a whole pound that night while Netflix binging.

So the idea for a matcha French toast came to me when I was attending Valentina's food styling and photo workshop few weeks ago. She made a matcha crepe cake during the workshop and that got me thinking because I have a tiny bit of matcha powder left and I should really use it up. Of course being the lazy me, I was not going to make a crepe cake. Instead I decided to make French toast, Hong Kong style.

I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you......the way I tried to incorporate the matcha powder into the eggs totally failed. Haha

I guess in my head, I imagined to somehow smoothly mix the matcha into the scrambled eggs, turning them into green scrambled eggs. But all I did was tiny clumps of matcha powder in scrambled eggs. Maybe I could've blended it with the hand blender.....hm......next time.

Anyways, Hong Kong style French toast is quite easy to make. All you need is bread, oil or butter, and eggs. It's typically slices of bread soaked with the scrambled eggs and fried in butter or oil. Served with a slab of butter.

Things you'll need:

• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon matcha powder
• 3 slices of bread
• Creme fraiche (or whipped cream if you like)
• Rainier cherry and strawberry compote (or jam or just fresh fruits)
• Butter or oil
• Extra matcha powder for dusting afterwards

Rainier cherry and strawberry compote

• 1 cup of rainier cherries (or regular cherries)
• 1 cup of strawberries
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• Sugar (about 1/4 cup to start)

To make the compote, remove the pits from the cherries and cut all the strawberries in half.

Add the fruits into a pot with lemon zest, lemon juice, and add about 1/4 cup of sugar to start.

Let the fruits slowly cook over low flames. Stir to mix and keep an eye on it. I nearly burnt the whole thing.

Cook the compote till the fruits are soft and has thicken. Taste to see if it needs more sugar.

Let compote cool in the fridge. Good to make the night before.

Matcha French Toasts

Combine matcha powder and eggs together. Try and get the matcha incorporated into the eggs as good as possible.

Get a pan hot on medium flames. Add enough oil or melt enough butter to cover the bottom of the pan.

Dip a slice of bread into the eggs, coat both sides and fry it in the pan until golden on both sides. Repeat for the other two slices of bread.

Place a slice of French toast on a plate, add a layer of creme fraiche, and a layer of compote.

Repeat last step.

To finish, dust some matcha powder on top and add fresh strawberries.

Curry Braised Pork Spare Ribs With Coconut Saffron Rice

So I'm a terrible person. I didn't really take down notes. I did mental notes instead. This is by no means an exact recipe but really how you feel that day and how spicy or curry flavor you want. And also you really should just use 1 onion instead of 2. I had binged on Youtube recipes on French onion soup and had this crazy idea of caramelizing a bunch of onions for this recipe. You certainly don't have to. And of course if you can't wait for 3hrs, go ahead and use ground pork or chicken or fish balls.

Of course the beauty of this dish is to let every cook....slow......and low. Really draw out the flavors of the ingredients.

As for the rice, it just so happened I had a pinch of saffron left. A gift from a friend. It's optional and you can totally experiment with other spices like cardamon or cumin.

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INGREDIENTS

Curry Pork Ribs

• Pork ribs
• Couple potatoes
• 2 medium size onions
• 1 stalk of lemongrass
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon grated garlic
• Coconut milk
• 2 tablespoon curry powder
• Salt + pepper
• Scallions

Coconut Saffron Rice

• Rice
• Coconut milk
• Pinch of saffron
• Pinch of salt

Get a real big pot or Dutch oven hot on a stove. Season the ribs with salt + pepper. Add enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot and brown all the ribs. Do in batches if needed. Remove the ribs and let them hang out a bit.

Add more oil if the pot is dry. Toss in the lemongrass and grated ginger and garlic. Stir. Add in the onion slices. Stir to mix everything together. Lower the heat to medium and slowly cook the onions till they start to caramelize, about 15-20mins. Sprinkle in the curry power and stir well.

Add the ribs. Add a whole can of coconut milk and than pour enough liquid (water or stock) to barely cover the ribs. Turn the heat up to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Once it start to boil, lower the heat to low, cover, and let it braise for couple hours.

Give it a good stir every 30mins.

2 hours later.....give it a taste. More coconut milk? Too much coconut milk? More curry powder? This is a good time to tweak it to your liking.

Add in the diced potatoes and cook till the ribs and potatoes are tender.

* I really wanted a thick curry, so I turned up the heat, after putting in the potatoes, and let the mixture cook without the lid.

To make the rice, cook the rice according to the directions on the package/box. And since it was my first time making coconut rice, I did half coconut milk and half water. Add saffron and a pinch of salt. Stir the uncooked rice. Cook the rice.

To serve, scoop the rice onto a plate, add couple ribs, add sauce, and sprinkle some scallions.