Sticky rice stuffing is a staple for many Chinese American families at Thanksgiving. It is a riff on “naw mai fun” or “lo mai gai,” two very traditional Chinese recipes. My friend Wing gave me his grandmother’s recipe to include in my very first cookbook—The...
Hiroko Shimbo is a well-known authority on Japanese cuisine and a beloved cooking instructor based in New York City. And like many of us, she owes much of her culinary finesse to her mother. Hiroko has long been a proponent of cooking Japanese cuisine with a...
I’ve been meaning to bake a mochi cake (also called butter mochi) for the longest time--maybe 10 years?--ever since I first used mochiko for the mochiko chicken recipe in my first cookbook The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook. A few weeks ago, I finally did. I was inspired by...
When I first came to the U.S. as a college student, one of the foods I missed most from Singapore was bak kwa. It's kind of like jerky, but made with pork and with Chinese flavors. Beef jerky didn’t cut it—not even teriyaki-flavored—and even though salmon...
If you adore fresh ginger as much as I do, then I hope you'll be game to try this sprightly salad. To be honest, it's not for everyone, but it's worth a try. I first learned about this kale and roasted ginger recipe from a lady...
Fried hard-boiled eggs seems a weird concept, don't you think? Even I think so, and I grew up eating a dish made with fried hard-boiled eggs! Called telor belado in Indonesian, hard-boiled eggs are fried in oil until golden-brown and blistered, then doused in a thick...
Two weeks ago, I attended an event to celebrate Singapore’s 47th birthday that fell on August 9th. By some strange turn of events, I was roped in to lead a few songs in the requisite sing-a-long sessions. We sang popular folk songs like "Burung Kakak Tua,"...
