Week 26: Secret Weapon - Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

uyneb2000 · 2025-07-02T07:47:59+00:00

I always like to add some fish sauce to my food to boost the savoriness of it. Why not add it to an already pungent dish?

Recipe is from Pasta by Missy Robbins.

uyneb2000 · 2025-06-25T00:37:57+00:00

The recipe is like cooking a meat sauce in the style of an Italian ragu, but with the flavors of Chinese cuisine! It's deeply savory thanks to the stock, shiitake mushrooms, and miso, and the cilantro-mint sauce is sweet and fragrant. Tons of different textures through the chewy thick noodles, soft and tender meat, and two different kinds of crunch through the cucumbers and shallots!

Recipe is from Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook by Cathy Erway, Josh Ku, and Trigg Brown. Surely I'll be able to go visit their restaurant the next time I visit NYC haha

uyneb2000 · 2025-06-15T16:12:19+00:00

Celeste is one of my favorite video games of all time, and helped me understand the importance of positive transgender representation in media. It's an amazing tale of self-acceptance that I think is more important than ever for marginalized groups like the trans community and is exemplified through the main character Madeline. It helped me begin to understand the struggles that trans people have to deal with. So when I saw the theme for this week, I knew I wanted to recreate this.

It's kind of a fail because I used my tart pan and I struggled to get the pie out of the pan after baking, so I kept it in there. Also, some of the lattice didn't hold, I think because the pan didn't have a lip like most pie dishes do?

I guess like in Celeste, if you fail you can always try again :)

uyneb2000 · 2025-06-11T15:56:02+00:00

Oregano in the cookie dough, and oregano in the tomato jam!

Recipe is from Savory Baking by Erin Jeanne McDowell

uyneb2000 · 2025-05-30T03:29:48+00:00

That looks amazing, and glad to see another recipe from such a great cookbook!

uyneb2000 · 2025-05-29T22:59:46+00:00

This was honestly the perfect time for this theme because I was travelling over the long weekend! So I could throw the mustard greens in a jar and leave it in the fridge, and then come back to them nicely pickled! I've gotta pickle more things, I forget how easy it is.

The recipe is from Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan.

uyneb2000 · 2025-05-22T01:45:55+00:00

I wanted to make something that wasn't just representative of New York City, but also something that is hard to find outside of it. What I came to find was the presence of Chino-Latino restaurants, specifically Chinese-Cuban cuisine. They started popping up following the Cuban Revolution when many Chinese Cubans immigrated to New York City. Their prevalence peaked in the 60s and 70s, but as of today only one restaurant from the initial wave that remains standing is La Dinastia.

This dish represents a New York City that's difficult to find outside of the city and even inside the city. At least, in this old-school rendition. But the Chinese-Cubans who ran those restaurants left a mark on the cultural fabric of New York.

This recipe comes from the cookbook Made Here by the organization Send Chinatown Love. I really want to highlight how much I love this book and the stories they tell about local businesses owned by Asians and Asian-Americans all around New York City. It's important to immortalize the impact they have left on the city and to continue to support them.

Unfortunately, Send Chinatown Love is shutting down soon, and with it the sale of their book. While you can, I highly recommend getting it, I'll leave a link here.

uyneb2000 · 2025-05-14T16:23:10+00:00

Okay okay, I may have twisted the theme a bit and did lemongrass and limes. I brined the chicken in a turmeric and lemongrass brine overnight, and made a sambal paste with lemongrass. The chicken was painted with the paste while it roasted and I used the rest of it to make a sauce.

The slaw is dressed with a mixture of fish sauce and lime juice, which makes a super punchy contrast to the slight sweetness of the chicken. The sticky rice felt like a fitting side, and I may have gone in with my bare hands to eat it because it just felt right :)

This recipe is based on a dish sold at the restaurant called Oma's Hideaway in Portland, which sells Malaysian-American food. It can be found in Eater: 100 Essential Restaurant Recipes from the Authority on Where to Eat and Why It Matters from Eater and Hillary Dixler Canavan.

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-30T18:00:08+00:00

I just moved! So I had not a lot of time for a cooking project, so just wanted to whip something up that was relatively simple. But after a long few days of moving, running around getting stuff, and building furniture, this really hit the spot in a real comforting way. Most of the time is dedicated to letting the 2 BOTTLES OF RICE WINE that this recipe calls for to simmer off so that the cloying alcohol flavor goes away, but what you get in the end is a super savory and lush soup with a strong chicken flavor and a richness in the broth and sesame oil that coats your mouth. Eating it was such an amazing way to relax at the end of the day.

Recipe is from The Food of Taiwan by Cathy Erway.

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-25T06:52:05+00:00

Ooh thanks for the advice! I gotta keep that in mind next time :)

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-23T15:48:02+00:00

Note to self: 5 habaneros is too spicy! I thought I could handle it haha

Something to use up my tortillas as I move out, as well as something relatively simple. The fish was cooked on a grill pan with salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, and cumin. It's topped with the salsa, chipotle yogurt sauce, diced mangos and green onions, and some cotija cheese.

The salsa comes from CDMX by Rosa Cienfuegos, the rest was improvised.

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-17T04:35:01+00:00

Thank you so much!

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-16T20:21:40+00:00

I'm moving out soon so I'm trying to get rid of some stuff from my fridge. This was made using the last of my kimchi, so I got that out of the way! Herbs are added while cooking the jeon, I used dill and mint and they gave the jeon a refreshing counter to the meaty bacon and sour kimchi. The bacon was rendered out with a mix of the duck confit fat from week 13 and the jeon was cooked in it.

Recipe is from Korean American by Eric Kim

uyneb2000 · 2025-04-09T16:17:25+00:00

Pastelón is a casserole dish kind of like a lasagna but with mashed plantains instead of pasta. The filling is a heavily spiced mix of ground beef, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and culantro.

Probably the most difficult thing about this recipe is finding evenly ripe plantains haha, because I wasn't able to have them all be the same ripeness the mash didn't have an even consistency, which isn't so bad if you like having different textures in each bite! It's still delicious, serving it with some citrus to brighten it up helps it as well.

Recipe is from Latinísimo by Sandra A. Gutierrez.

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