White and Brown Beech Mushrooms with Dashi pictures (1 of 4)
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In my Asian market, there are always abundant choices when it comes to mushrooms—shiitake, enoki, button, portobello, buna shimeji, drumstick mushrooms, etc. I love mushrooms as they are one of the healthiest foods to eat, plus they are low in calories and are often organically grown.
This week, both white and brown beech mushrooms (buna shimeji mushrooms) are on sale. I got a couple of boxes of them but don’t really have a good recipe to prepare them. I then think of Japanese recipes as mushroom is a mainstay in Japanese cuisine and I had personally savored delicately flavored mushroom dishes during my trips to Tokyo. After flipping through my Japanese cookbook, I decided to cook the mushrooms with some dashi, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and butter…(get beech mushrooms recipe after the jump)
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Mushroom Chicken pictures (1 of 4)
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As much as I love cooking, I don’t—and can’t—cook every day. If you are a home cook, I am sure you understand what I mean. Some days, you wake up, open the refrigerator, look at the ingredients you have, and your mind just goes blank. You either feel like you run out of cooking ideas, don’t know what to cook, don’t feel motivated to cook, or simply don’t want to cook. It happens to me a lot and that’s when I go to the hot food section of Asian grocery stores and buy (”ta pau“/打包) cooked food.
If you live in California, there are plenty of such establishments, where you can get various types of Chinese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Filipino dishes. The offerings depend on the type of Asian grocery store you go to. I love Chinese food so I usually go to Chinese grocery store to get them…(get mushroom chicken recipe after the jump)
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Two years ago, about this time, Jaden was in Los Angeles. It was the second time we met in person, and she had just gotten an offer to write a cookbook from Tuttle Publishing. She was teaching a cooking class in LA and I was there to help (and also to learn from her about [...]
Inspired by my recent trip to Hawaii, I made garlic shrimp today. It’s not quite the shrimp scampi I had, but it’s a close cousin done in Chinese style and without too much grease.
Garlic and shrimp are two of my favorite ingredients and I love pairing them together whenever I feel like having a shrimp [...]
Easy seared scallops recipe with a cream sauce infused with Tahitian vanilla and whiskey. Simple, delicious, and almost restaurant-worthy.
The recipe is adapted from I Heart Vanilla, who kindly posted me the fabulous Tahitian vanilla beans. I never thought that vanilla pairs so well with savory dishes; seared scallops with vanilla, is a perfect marriage of [...]
When I was in Oahu, other than stuffing my face with malassadas (malasadas), sampling local Hawaiian cuisine, and feasting on shrimp, I ate Japanese food almost every day. Oahu is a real gem for Japanese food, thanks to the many Japanese tourists and also locals who are obsessed with Japanese cuisine.
There are countless authentic Japanese [...]
Thai curry is gaining popularity thanks to the many great Thai restaurants in the United States. Making a great bowl of Thai curry to go with soft and fluffy jasmine rice is easier than you think, even though you might not be familiar with Thai ingredients.
I love all sorts of curry but I find Thai [...]
One early morning in January when I was home in Penang, my brother, sister, nephew, our maid and I set off to a clam-digging expedition in a little island off the coast of Penang. In less than two hours, we dug two buckets full of big, fat, and succulent fresh clams, after we got both [...]
