Food & Nutrition

When I wrote a Taiwanese cookbook in 2015, I introduced many to the joys of dried baby shrimp, fermented black soybeans, and black vinegar. But I intentionally left out one ingredient from recipes due to its relative inaccessibility in the United States. It was rock sugar, a common sweetening agent in Taiwanese and Chinese kitchens, often melted into teas, tossed into braises, and injecting a touch of sweetness to stir-fries. Instead, I suggested that you could just as well sub in brown or white sugar, in recipes like red-braised pig’s knuckle or three cup chicken. I now regret it. Sugar, as we all know it in its many forms, is universally bad for you: it rots your teeth, gives you diabetes, takes you up and then crashes you down. And the histor...

There’s a simple pleasure in roasted eggplant—knowing that, with a bit of patience, you’ll be rewarded with a silky interior encased by charred (and super flavorful) skin. One of my favorite dishes—that I have yet to replicate at home but often dream about—comes straight out of a Chinese street food setup. It typically involves grilling a Chinese eggplant, whole, until it is deeply browned all over and squishy to the touch, then splitting it down the middle and heavily brushing soy sauce and a mountain of minced garlic, chiles, and scallions all over. That umami-laden, allium-packed sauce seeps into every layer of fleshy eggplant, which easily splits from its scorched skin when a chopstick is dragged through. To achieve that level of melting ten...

Gina DePalma—the legendary James Beard Award–winning chef and celebrated author—wrote one of the most authoritative recipe collections ever dedicated to Italian pastry, a richly researched cookbook that remains, mysteriously, unpublished. To this day, the book’s curious disappearance is one of the great tragedies in the publishing world. Her lost work, entitled “My Sweet Italy,” would’ve further blazed the trail she’d forged with her highly acclaimed Dolce Italiano, published in 2007. After a long battle with ovarian cancer, DePalma died in 2015 at age 49. She left her legacy in this paean to Italian desserts, a treasure trove of regional recipes and travel essays. The unpublished manuscript is a cherished artifact of a storied career that influen...

Enjoy this rewarding restaurant-quality meal with pan-seared shrimp smothered in a creamy garlic white wine sauce with fresh spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. Taking cues from the decadent Tuscan chicken pasta, today we’ll be making some creamy garlic Tuscan shrimp. This was so delicious, it took a lot of self-control not to scarf it all down and to leave it for dinner instead. The sauce is just perfect and so very addicting and you can use it for chicken and salmon too. It’s hearty, rewarding and perfect for a quick comfort meal or a romantic date night. Serve over a bed of your favorite pasta or with rice or mashed potatoes. There are also many ways to customize this or add more flavor like red pepper flakes for some spice or lemon juice for zest. And if you’re not a fan of sh...

The French can make just about anything look effortlessly cool—both on the streets and in the kitchen. Time and time again, they’ve beguiled us with terrines of pig heads and duck livers; they’ve suspended butter and flour into the ethereal clouds we know and love as croissants; and, in the case of leeks vinaigrette, they’ve sold us on the louche idea of a salad that’s basically just cooked onions. Classically, a leeks vinaigrette recipe reads more like a marinated vegetable side than a salad. Leeks are cooked whole, simmered for about 15 minutes until they’re exceptionally tender, and left to marinate in an assertively mustardy vinaigrette. The dish is served at room temperature, garnished with chopped hard-boiled egg and, in some circles, toas...

Enjoy your favorite hibachi at home. Pair this hibachi chicken with some hibachi rice, noodles and veggies and the addictive yum-yum sauce. Over the years, I’ve gradually added each delicious component that makes a hibachi dinner to the blog, so you can cook your favorite parts at home. There’s the hibachi fried rice paired with the buttery hibachi noodles and a side of hibachi vegetables to balance off the meal with your choice of protein. Today, for the protein, we’ll be making some hibachi chicken. These bite-sized chicken pieces are seared quickly over high heat to make some buttery, tender and juicy chicken with a delicious charred flavor. Dip it in the creamy yum-yum sauce to complete the experience. Five minutes of stir-frying is all it takes, so let’s get started. ...

Grate Some Cukes, Make Some Slaw Ever feel burnt out on slaw? Do you get to the point where you can’t bring yourself to eat another dreary forkful of raw cabbage? Blame might be placed on that pale, drab-looking coleslaw, which is chronically underseasoned because someone forgot the lemon juice and the salt. Or it might be placed on the fact that, at some point, as a society, we decided that a bag of prechopped cabbage and carrots mixed with mayonnaise was a sufficient side dish for everything from a grilled hot dog to a diner tuna melt. Help is here. I bring good news and a new way to slaw. It comes in the form of a fresh-tasting cucumber salad that I dress with a punchy, garlicky vinaigrette...

These 10-minute air fryer zucchini fritters are a healthier version of the favorite fried snack and pair well with sour cream or a healthy yogurt dip. With the end of summer in sight, I thought I’d sneak in a quick and easy zucchini recipe. So today we’ll be making some air fryer zucchini fritters. I was initially a tiny bit skeptical about how a batter-based food would do in the air fryer but the results were great and they browned up just nicely. These fritters have some feta/goat/Parmesan cheese, a couple of seasonings and fresh chives to brighten up the flavor. The air fryer is proving again and again to be a good kitchen investment for those healthier and quicker meals. I’ve had great success so far with air fryer honey garlic salmon and air fryer honey mustard salmon and ...

I remember peeking at my dad over my McDonald’s cheeseburger, as he unwrapped the pale blue wax paper hugging a Filet-O-Fish. He had been eating these sandwiches since he immigrated from the Philippines in the 1970s because it was, in his words, “cheap seafood fare”—a rare counterpoint to the usual beef and chicken of America’s fast-food landscape. He found the other franchises to be inconsistent with their breaded and fried offerings, and the Filet was undoubtedly a classic. These days, the sandwich is still on the menu, and it comes in a sturdy cardboard box that lends itself better to stacking in a paper bag. And it’s spurred a whole new generation of fried fish sandwiches, from Popeyes to LA’s Little Fish. Perhaps it’s a stray side effect of...

Fatty. Punchy. Easy to access. Simple to pronounce. Salsa macha was fated to make a splash in the United States. Here, we like our Mexican food brash and unsubtle. Cheese blankets everything in Tex-Mex cuisine, while cheese, in general, is used judiciously in Mexico. Guacamole is shoveled into American maws by the fistful in the States; in Mexico, guacamole is a quiet garnish, or it’s thinned with tomatillos to make a sauce. Salsa macha, a slick mixture of oil, dried chiles, and seeds or nuts, sidled up next to a combo platter and an order of chips and guac during the last few years and screamed, “Hey, I’m the new life of the party, pals!” In a high-octane instant, salsa macha was welcomed into the Mexican American fold, and these days, it can...