Easy Date Night Dish

By David Hu

I have a standing date night with my wife every Tuesday. Sometimes we’ll eat out, sometimes we’ll catch a movie and sometimes we’ll cook at home. When it’s my turn, I always like to make something special – but because date night is mid-week, whatever I cook can’t take too long.

One of my favorite ingredients is mussels; they’re elegant, require very little prep and the best way to eat them is steamed, which doesn’t take a lot of effort. My favorite mussel dish is Moules Marinière. It’s a classic dish with only five ingredients so prep and cook won’t take more than 30 minutes.

Click to read more ...

Impress with Panko

By David Hu

Panko, Japanese breadcrumbs, is a hot ingredient these days, having moved out of Japanese kitchens and into the mainstream, appearing on fine dining menus across the country – and now even at Wendy’s! The difference between panko and western breadcrumbs is that panko has ragged, craggy surfaces, making for a crispier and lighter coating.

A classic Japanese dish that is synonymous with panko is tonkatsu – thin slices of pork that is coated in panko and fried until golden. While I often order tonkatsu when I eat out, it is extremely easy to make at home. It only requires five ingredients plus bottled dipping sauce, and shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes from start to finish.

Tonkatsu is usually served on a bed of shredded cabbage with a dip of tonkatsu sauce, available in most Asian markets or in the International products aisle of your supermarket. If you can’t find it, you can make a sauce with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce as a substitute.

Click to read more ...

How to Roast a Chicken

By David Hu

In the time that it takes you to watch this video, you could have prepped a chicken and popped it into the oven, where it would roast unattended until dinner. Sure it’s easy to buy a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, but there’s nothing like the flavor of a plump, juicy, homemade roast bird.  Bonus: your whole house will smell so inviting, making everyone ravenous.

Be sure to crank up your oven before you start, since it will take 10 or 15 minutes to get the heat up to 400 degrees.  The length of time required to roast your chicken depends on the size of the bird. Allow 15 to 18 minutes per pound.  Altogether, you’ll need about 1 to 1 ½ hours of total roasting time.

Click to read more ...

Thai in 20 Minutes

By David Hu

Like most people, I love Thai food. And I’m lucky enough to have a girlfriend from Thailand to show me how to cook it myself.

Kra Prao, a stir-fried mixture of ground meat, chiles and fresh basil leaves, is my favorite. I learned to make it from Lynn’s mom, who will be checking out this video from Thailand to see if I’ve cooked in correctly, so the pressure is on!

Click to read more ...

Step Aside, Sister! An Easy Dessert Makes me the Hero

By Amy Jacbos

Growing up as one of three daughters of a home economics teacher, dinners were always organized and planned. Dessert was my elder sister’s specialty, mine the main course and the youngest, well, she made the Chex Mix.

I don’t do dessert. I’ll think nothing of burning through the daylight hours planning something for dinner but curse dessert if takes more than 15 minutes. So when a recipe this simple comes along with ingredients that don’t require leavening agents or a mixer, I see it as my opportunity to be the dessert hero, the superwoman of sweetness that has eluded me growing up.

Click to read more ...