If you just came home from a long, stressful day at work and you’re starving, and all you want is to sit on the couch and eat something incredibly delicious and comforting and watch bad TV, this is the dish for you. And if, on top of all that, you have kids to feed? This is STILL the dish for you. The sauce is layered with rich, roasty nuttiness from toasted sesame oil, sweet, umami-rich miso, and lots of allium goodness from scallions and garlic, all made silky and spoonable with butter and Parmesan.
My daughter Becky’s review: “Amazing. Buh-ro. No words except for amazing and bro. I didn’t know something this amazing could actually exist.”
Kimchi is deeply ingrained in Korean cooking and usually appears in a few different guises. I love the deep red colour that this pancake takes on from the kimchi and its liquid.
The combination of textures from the crispy outside and soft, gooey inside adds dimension and interest to any meal. You can make a few smaller, individual pancakes or two or three larger ones as you wish, depending on how much batter you add to the pan at a time.
This is one of my all-time favorite savory breakfast items. I created this recipe for a client’s child—a picky eater who wouldn’t touch any vegetables. I took some popular kid foods—potatoes, eggs, cheese, and milk—mixed them with some colorful veggies, then baked the mixture on a sheet pan. Cut into palm-sized rectangles, the resulting savory “pancakes” were a hit. They taste as good as they look and are filled with gut-friendly nutrients, including fiber and prebiotics. I like to use a box grater, but if you prefer a food processor or mandoline, that’s fine. Make sure not to overblend with the food processor.
This recipe is inspired by fond memories of shrimp toast, a treat from childhood lunches at my uncle’s Sydney restaurant, Lee’s Fortuna Court. This beloved Cantonese snack features small triangles of bread, which are smeared with a paste made from minced shrimp, then dipped in sesame seeds and deep-fried. This mushroom version satiates my hunger, thanks to the rich, bold mushroom pâté, which I use as the paste for the bread. This “fried bread” is pure comfort food. If you’re short on time, use store-bought mushroom pâté.
The flavors of brown butter are incredible, adding a rich, nutty flavor to the simplest of dishes. To round out the richness of the brown butter sauce, the dish is paired with crispy panko breadcrumbs with notes of sesame and lime juice to add a beautiful brightness. This recipe combines bold flavors and simple techniques to create the perfect weeknight dinner to add to your repertoire.
Smashed cucumbers, or pai huang gua, is a Sichuan dish that is typically served with rich, spicy food. We started with English cucumbers, which are nearly seedless and have thin, crisp skins. Placing them in a zipper-lock bag and smashing them into large, irregular pieces sped up a salting step that helped expel excess water. The craggy pieces also did a better job of holding on to the dressing. Using black vinegar, an aged rice-based vinegar, added a mellow complexity to the soy and sesame dressing.
Tofu is a brilliant blank canvas for adding flavour to, and the firm variety holds really well when fried. Here I’ve coated it in fiery wasabi paste and sesame seeds before cooking it until crunchy, yet still soft in the middle. This delicate Japanese-inspired salad is simply delicious and works brilliantly with tofu.
Many people have little affection for cooked vegetables, possibly because they are often overcooked. This causes them to lose their inherent crisp texture and natural color and allows vitamins, minerals, and good taste substances to seep out into the cooking water. It is little wonder that many children are unenthusiastic about eating vegetables that have been prepared in such a way as to eliminate their interesting qualities. Some of the crisp texture of vegetables can be preserved by grilling or roasting them. As vegetables have a low protein content, no Maillard reactions take place, but the surfaces do caramelize.
Za’atar is an aromatic eastern Mediterranean spice blend that is used as both a seasoning and a condiment.
I love snacking on packaged Middle Eastern sesame bars, which are very hard and crunchy. These florentines are much chewier, but their sesame flavor reminds me of those.