Ube Milkshake Recipe This recipe is really easy: 4 ingredients and 5 minutes max (an actual 5 minutes, not a trick you into making this only to realize 1 hour in that you’re only 30% done with the recipe kind of 5 minutes). The assembly, aka dumping coconut milk, ube ice cream and crushed ice […]
Loquat Lemonade
Loquat Drink Recipe This loquat lemonade is perfect if you have too many loquats, and you’re tired of eating them plain. Before we get into the recipe, what if you’ve never heard of a loquat? What Is a Loquat? A loquat is a small oblong fruit native to China, usually with yellow-orange skin and fruit. […]
Spam Musubi
Spam Musubi Recipe Before we dive into the recipe, what is Spam musubi? It’s a pressed sushi made with Spam, where crispy, pan-fried Spam is covered in teriyaki sauce and sandwiched by fresh rice and roasted seaweed to hold everything in place. It’s a mix of Japanese (the rice and seaweed) and Hawaiian/American cuisine (the […]
Grapefruit Green Tea Recipe
How to Make Grapefruit Juice You can’t have grapefruit green tea without the (surprise!) grapefruit. If you’re making a glass for yourself as a quick afternoon break, I’d recommend squeezing by hand. If you’re prepping a big batch for you and all your friends and family (hi, can we be friends?), then an electric juicer […]
Chinese Rice Cakes – Chao Nian Gao
Chinese Rice Cake Recipe These stirfried Chinese rice cakes, or what I call chao nian gao, are cozy and comforting. The rice cakes are dense and chewy, the cabbage a little crunchy, the mushrooms meaty and the fish cakes bouncy. This dish is typically made with beef or pork, but fish cakes make assembly easier […]
Mango Pomelo Sago Recipe
This mango pomelo sago is a fairly easy Chinese dessert to make, unlike some of the astounding pandemic bakes I’ve been seeing (Kinako chiffon roll cakes filled with red bean, whipped cream and mochi??? Strawberry genmaicha cream puffs?? Feed me please). You boil some chewy, bouncy sago and stir them into a mango coconut smoothie, […]
Honey Toast Recipe
What is honey toast? I first had honey toast (also know as brick toast, given the shape, or Shibuya toast, since it originated from Shibuya, Japan) at Shokudo in Hawaii. I wasn’t convinced at first- the name is unassuming, and I could squirt honey out of a plastic bear on a piece of toast at […]
Milk Tea Ice Cream with Brown Sugar Boba
milk tea ice cream recipe i love making tea flavored desserts (ahem, this green tea pie even though pies take forever) and eating tea flavored ice cream (hello, earl grey from tin pot and jasmine from polly ann), so it was only a matter of time before i made milk tea ice cream at home. […]
Gochujang Sauce (and a Tofu Rice Bowl)
how to make gochujang sauce most of the work that goes into making this gochujang sauce is already done by the time you buy some gochujang, or fermented korean red chili paste. which i realize is more stressful/hard/annoying/etc than it used to be; but it does keep for a long time in the fridge (shout […]
Earl Grey Ice Cream with Grand Marnier
earl grey ice cream recipe i’m in love with anything tea-flavored, so an ice cream flavored with earl grey tea? yes, PLEASE. this version has a touch of orange-y grand marnier, which 1) tastes good and 2) helps keep the ice cream nice and smooooooth. it’s the perfect scoopable texture straight from the freezer, without […]
Matcha Espresso Drink Recipe
what is a matcha espresso? this matcha espresso drink is like a matcha coffee latte, if that helps. it’s espresso layered with milk and matcha, in a riff on coffee milk tea or yuenyueng. matcha coffee recipe it’s been a pretty warm spring in northern california, so this version is iced. it’s a chilled shot […]
Coffee Milk Tea – Yuenyeung
coffee milk tea recipe (yuenyeung) what is coffee milk tea? it’s a mix of, you guessed it, coffee and milk tea. it originated in hong kong, so i sometimes refer to the drink by its cantonese name, yuenyeung. how to make coffee milk tea my previous problem with homemade milk tea was the watery blandness; […]
Taro Cake – Wu Tao Gou
chinese taro cake recipe – how to make wu tao gou taro cake, or wu tao gou, is a savory steamed cake filled with starchy taro, salty lap cheong (chinese sausage) and chew dung gu (shiitake mushrooms). it’s really soft when it comes out of the steamer, so cutting it into slices and pan-frying it […]
Ginger Rose Ice Cream
in the middle of all this uncertainty, ice cream is a necessity. our grocery lists are long enough without ice cream (and somehow i feel like we need more items now than before?? my parents go to the grocery store every other day, i swear -_-), and this ginger rose ice cream is the sort […]
Vanilla Matcha Latte with Brown Sugar
vanilla matcha latte mood: a vanilla bean ice cream and slightly bitter matcha latte hybrid. this pandemic has me in limbo, in terms of time and mindset. a week and a half ago, i was going about my work and my life, and days seem to have melded and slowed down to the point where […]
Salted Fish Fried Rice (Haam Yu Chow Faan)
haam yu chow faan, or salted fish fried rice, is a cantonese-style fried rice made with haam yu, or preserved fish. it’s actually crispy, and it’s the kind of fried rice that is so flavorful on its own that you don’t need to eat it with anything else. i was supposed to to be basking […]
Strawberry Sandwich Cookies
it’s that time of the year when i make pink cookies. last year i did raspberry strawberry cookies, this year strawberry sandwich cookies. it’s hard for me to comprehend how i, as 1 person, can make meaningful impact on the communities and initiatives i care about. this is especially true in the current political climate, […]
3 Days in Boston (Boston Winter 2020)
what do you do when you find bogo flights to the east coast in the dead of winter, you like oysters, and you’ve been meaning to visit your boston-based friend? you book a trip for 3 days in boston!! it’s apparently nicknamed “the walkable city”, and we managed to do a good amount of walking, […]
Hong Dou Tang – Sweet Red Bean Soup
tong yuen, or chewy sweet mochi balls, are typically eaten during the lunar new year. these unfilled ones are served with hong dou tang, or sweet red bean soup. it’s the perfect hot, cozy dessert for the winter! mulan was my favorite as a child. that was the only movie i’d watch, disney or otherwise, […]
Long Weekend in LA
whenever i want a quick getaway, a long weekend in la is my go to. los angeles is easy for me to get to (cheap, 1 hour flights? yes please) and it’s a nice balance of nostalgia and newness (i had a number of fantastic day trips to la in college, and yet there’s still […]