It’s the first day of the Year of the Wooden Snake. If I were my younger self, I’d have started writing and marketing recipes, cooking tips and personal essays about the Lunar New Year at least a month ago. But I’d like to think that I have become better than my younger self. I’ve come to understand that to continue to enjoy food blogging, I have to stop paying attention to trends and just cook and write what pleases me, and what I think my family will enjoy eating.
That means looking back and looking ahead at the same time. I’m compiling old recipes that have become family favorites, and taking them for a new spin. To make it more understandable, here’s an example.
There is a recipe in the blog called Thai fried egg salad (yum khai dao). We love that that dish and we especially love the sweet-salty-tangy-spicy dressing / sauce which, when combined with fresh herbs, transforms into something quite magnificent. I figured that since we love the dressing / sauce so much, why can’t I use it with something other than fried eggs? And so, I did.
Instead of fried eggs, I combined poached chicken, fresh shiitake and slices of ripe mango with the dressing / sauce. The result was so good that it inspired me to create more dishes using a similar approach.
A second example. Kimchi fried rice is, more often than not, served with fried egg either on top or on the side. But what if the eggs were incorporated into the fried rice pretty much like Chinese-style fried rice? And what if meat was added into the mix?
The meaty kimchi fried rice was so delicious that my husband and daughter were left wanting more. Too bad that the amount of day-old rice I had to work with was just enough for a midday snack. Next time, I promised them. Next time, we’ll have more than enough.
A third example. Soy sesame scallion noodles which my daughter, Alex, cooked. It’s sweet and salty and rich because of the inclusion of oyster sauce. And I thought: what if I added a tangy element to the flavor combination? Like lime or calamansi juice… Or, perhaps, kimchi juice which isn’t just tangy but umami-tangy because it has undergone fermentation.
And what if I topped the noodles with browned ground pork?
It was after cooking these three dishes that I decided there will be a Version 2 of my recipes. Not all of them, for sure, but for many of them. And Umami Notes subscribers will be the first to know.
