Kimchi + Pork Belly Mini and Hand Pies

Happy Monday, lovely friends! Since the start of wedding season I’ve been feeling a bit bedraggled.  I often feel like I’m chasing the minute hand on a big clock, furiously trying to get ahead of it even while the hour hand inescapably moves on its path. Where did the hours go? How is it already almost July? July is an important month for me – it’s always been the mark of mid-summer, the month of July 4^th celebrations, my birthday, and anticipation of humidity in Boston. But it’s in JULY. A month far in the future, to be anticipated. Now it’s right around the corner. June is crazy. It’s officially the crazy but beautiful month. Morning dashes to the shower, dragging Annie to the park telling her to hurry up and do her business while pretending she’d understand and comply, converting to Bostonian traffic-isms and finally letting out my road rage. But it’s also the ultimate wedding month. We have weddings every single weekend plus engagement/rehearsal dinner sessions. No matter how busy we get and how little sleep we manage to steal, it’s worth it. We’re photographing love. Sorry for the sap, but we just had an amazing awesome love-filled wedding. Having done so many weddings, I think I’m pretty seasoned and won’t tear up during ceremonies anymore. But this. This one was so beautiful, so touching, and so darn magical that I couldn’t help but being to tear up. I love these guys so much. I can’t wait to blog about it on my photography page. And this little tidbit about their reception really hit home for me: As part of their centerpieces they had pots of herbs: cilantro, mint, basil. They provided little scissors next to these pots. Guests could use said scissors and snip some herbs and distribute it in their drinks or food!!! Isn’t that just so cute and amazing? I love it. Now I want to have a dinner party with basil as the interactive centerpiece.

This little outburst brings me to this post: kimchi pork belly pies. I actually made these several weeks ago but just didn’t have time to edit all the photos and put it together in a post. With everything going on I’ve had difficulty finding time to really blog. I have so many ideas floating in my head, but each idea takes hours to execute. Food blogger friends – am I right?? There’s recipe development, then testing, which arguably is the most important and time consuming part, then photography, editing, and writing. Then all the social media stuff that makes my head hurt sometimes. However, it’s FUN!!!!! I love fiddling around in the kitchen with a challenge – to make something new and weird and hopefully awesome. Of course, new being the relative term – hand pies exist but I wanted to do a riff of it, in my own way. Then photographing it and styling – you know how much I love doing that! I had leftover kimchi and bossam from last time, so stuffing them in pies was the natural next step.

上海鲜肉粽子 Zong Zi – Shanghai Style

上海鲜肉粽子 (Shang Hai Xian Rou Zong Zi) translates to Shanghai pork zong zi. What is this strange pyramid shaped thing? It’s a gift. It’s breakfast. It’s comfort food to be devoured in celebration for 端午节 (Duan Wu Jie), or Dragonboat Festival. This year, it falls on June 20th, this upcoming Saturday. Visit any Chinese supermarket and you’ll find vacuum packed zongzi. Or, you can make it simply at home.I call Zongzi a gift because it’s always been one to me. I used to think it was the coolest food in the world – that you are presented with a neat fragrant package, smoke still curling up from the zongzi, completely with two bows to untie. Despite scalding fingers, I’d always quickly undo the bows with one quick tug and then gently unfold the sticky rice from the bamboo leaves. When you unfold it, it literally tumbles out onto your plate. My mom always sent me with a bag of these to give to cousins, my best friend’s family, my boyfriend (now husband)’s family – anyone who would care for some zongzi. Very quickly, they became famous. They were my mom’s thing. Actually, along with the shaomai she would always freeze and send along with me to college, these zongzi also made their way from California to St Louis, and I had such pleasure not only eating them, a mouthful of comfort and memories away from home, but also introducing this uncommon treat to my friends. If you’re in the Boston area, let me know and I’ll send you away with a bag of these as well :). 

Taro Milk Tea Rolls (tangzhong method) + video!

In New Zealand, we drove, a lot. On our first day, we drove to Mt Cook and marveled at the bushy terrain and zipped by packs of sheep (herds?), daydreaming about our upcoming adventures. We talked about what types of food we’d eat, if we were fit enough to make some of the hikes, if kiwis were as nice as we’ve heard they were. We also talked about our dreams – the future kids, the future house (and kitchen), our business, traipsing the world, living in the cottage by the sea- all the rosy things you talk about during your honeymoon. Of course, I inevitably had to talk about food, and I was hit with this longing to do videos. Stop motion videos, to be exact. They’re nothing new (heard of Coraline?) but for me, it was the perfect little marriage of photography and video. A stepping stone to when I attempt an actual video. As I was on the way to Mt Cook, I couldn’t exactly get to work until I returned to my computer. I think this happens to me a lot. Inspiration would hit me out of nowhere when I least expect it. I’m almost always focusing on something entirely unrelated or just not available to start on a new project. Sometimes I wonder if my subconscious is telling me to slow down, put on the brakes, and just take it in and think. Absorb. Process it before executing.When I was studying architecture, I always kept a sketchbook with me. And a pen. I developed the habit of sketching constantly. I didn’t sketch buildings or landscapes but ideas, fleeting moments that must be immortalized on paper. All too often an idea would pop up and fly away, unable to be recalled the next day. A little concept sketch or even some words can (and should) be the seedling of something bigger.

I feel like I’ve been talking about this post for a long time, giving little peeks of taro here and here, but it’s taken me awhile to process these, because I have my first little film up!!! I’m super excited to share it with you.

Spicy Lobster + Clam Boil

What a happy weekend. I saw the classic colors of America hanging off windows, billowing in the wind, painted onto teenage girl’s shorts, and popping up from windowsill planters. Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone! I hope you had a lovely time. All over social media I happily devoured (visually) celebrations over barbecue, fresh blooms signifying spring, trips to the beach, freshly caught salmon, making cheese, moments with family and friends, pie, and so many other precious visual stories that I just wanted to tuck away into a virtual scrapbook, for my inspiration continually and always will come from you.

韭菜盒子 Jiu Cai He Zi (Chive Boxes)

韭菜盒子 (jiu cai he zi), or chive boxes, are another childhood snack, of which I seem to have a lot of. What can I say? My mom spoiled me with Chinese food. There are so many variations of chive boxes. I’ve seen them as big as a dinner plate or as small as these guys here. Like I said in my dumplings post, one thing I love about Chinese cuisine is the numerous variations and regional styles. Every family has their own way of making dumplings, and I’ve found that the same could be said for these chive boxes. My friend’s mom makes the skin with boiling water and ends up with a lovely translucent, soft skin. Another family I know makes them larger, without any leaveners so that the skin is more crispy and thin. My mom actually uses self rising flour to create impossibly fluffy clouds of skin with a crispy exterior, and that is what I grew up on. For this recipe, I altered it by using chemical leaveners. I didn’t have self-rising flour on hand, nor do I use it much, so why buy a bag of self-rising flour when I could just substitute it with all-purpose and baking powder?

You can order these at a lot of Chinese restaurants. I actually ordered one at Gourmet Dumpling House in Boston Chinatown, but I was surprised. I see yet another variation: it was huge! Like 3 of mine laid side by side. It was stuffed with the same stuff, plus dried shrimp, but the skin was about 1 mm thick. It was crispy and flaky. It was good, but overall, I think I prefer mine: fat, soft, pillowy yet crispy.

Rhubarb Rose Mint Jam + Event Recap

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ― this quote by Thornton Wilder perfectly sums up how I felt about this weekend. Meg of Bread + Barrow and I co-hosted our first little event / workshop at Olives & Grace in the South End, which is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Boston. I hesitate to call it a workshop because it was really a gathering to talk about edible flowers and how to use them in food photography and styling. I knew from our very first in-person chat that we were of the same mold and therefore would work in perfect harmony. We sat in a coffee shop, talking about wild idealistic dreams of leading foraging adventures in Cape Cod, teaching photography by the shores of Big Sur, or even just hosting a beautiful gathering at her house in the fields. I am a dreamer, an in dreaming I can find what’s important to me or makes me happy, and translate that into a real-life action plan. 

What a great group of people. We couldn’t have asked for a better group. My favorite part of this event was just meeting people in the area. They weren’t all food bloggers either – we had beauty bloggers, other photographers, and just anyone who wanted to learn more about how to use flowers in food. We kept it casual, fun, and a way to throw our arms up into the sky and fully embrace spring, which has finally hit Boston. And, since it was such a lovely day screaming of bright sunlight and summer, we shot outside!!! You’ll notice that the light is very different from what I normally shoot with, and it was SUCH a blast. And a big thanks to Chloe of Scoopsies for providing three mouthwatering flavors of ice cream: white chocolate lavender, strawberry hibiscus, and cardamom rose.

We had so much fun and such overwhelming positive responses and requests, that -YES – Meg and I are going to be hosting another event in a month! I’ll provide full details in the next post 🙂

Anyway, read on for more photos, the recipe for a rhubarb rose mint jam. The beautiful scones are up on Meg’s blog!

Rose Hokkaido Cupcakes with Pistachio-Infused Cream + potluck + event!

Hi everyone, I’m back in the States!! We arrived, exhausted from four plane rides, in Boston yesterday late afternoon (that’s what you get for traveling with miles, I suppose!). New Zealand was an incredible experience. Alex and I did a self-drive adventure, embarked on many trails and hikes, gingerly participated in adventures such as floating down a river in a pitch-black cave, illuminated only by the glow of 2 million glowworms suspended on the ceiling, and combatting sea-sickness to go 20km out into open sea to swim with 500 dusky dolphins. 500!! Before and during the trip, we heard this question constantly: why New Zealand for your honeymoon? The short and quick answer is just because. We’re young, we crave adventure, we’re photographers, we want to go somewhere new and different. The long answer, well, you can go do your own research on the amazing experiences New Zealand can offer.

That being said, I’m so excited to have a post ready for you the day I get back~!! Like a good girl, I’d prepared this way before I left so that I wouldn’t be scrambling to take photos and make cupcakes on Sunday night. Like a not-so-prepared blogger, I didn’t have anything written up except the recipe I’d developed. Oops. Because my mind is still fuzzy from travel fatigue and sorting through hundreds of emails + snail mail, I’m going to keep it short. I’d like to talk to you about three things:

1. I’m participating in a virtual edible flower potluck!! See list of links at the end of the post. So delighted to be joining all these talented bloggers. Please go check out their posts – there are some amazing things being done with flowers!
2. My contribution: rose hokkaido cupcakes with pistachio infused whipped cream. Pistachio and rose are a match made of dreams, and I couldn’t resist yet another infusion. I couldn’t really find any previous recipe about infusing whipped cream with pistachio, but I did find quite a few for hazelnuts. I applied the same principle and – it totally worked! I wanted to eat the rest of my pistachio-whipped-cream by the spoonful. I’m never going back to regular whipped cream again! As for the cupcakes, they are a super soft cupcake, made in a similar style to a chiffon cake, that is supposed to collapse. They’re supposed to get wrinkly and then puffed up again later by filling it with a custard or cream. Isn’t that amazing? I found this recipe and this to be very helpful in developing the resulting cupcake recipe. I made a few tweaks and ditched the custard cream completely, instead choosing to fill it with a soft whipped cream infused with pistachio. Yum. See recipe below.
3. I’m hosting an event with Meg of Bread+Barrow!!!!!! and YES it is about edible flowers!! If you’re in the Boston area, I’d love if you would stop by and hang out with us. We’re going to talk about edible flowers, how they can be incorporated as a flavor, decoration, and styling element, and you will have the opportunity to play around with the props and do some photographing yourself. Also, we’re so honored to have Scoopsies ice cream at this event!!! It’s free of charge and you can RSVP here. 

Roasted Balsamic Strawberry Ginger Ice Cream

Hi dear friends, do you ever have a moment – doesn’t have to be related to food – when you have this genius idea, but then realize it’s not quite so genius because even though it’s a great idea, it’s been done before?? Well, that happened to me. Hehe. It’s rather silly, too, because how the heck did I think it hadn’t been done before? Roasting strawberries and putting it in ice cream? Still a genius idea, but definitely not the first time it’s been done. David Lebovitz has a seriously amazing version incorporating MISO. MISO!!!!! And he goes into why roasting strawberries is good for ice cream, so you should go read it.

My version has a slight twist. I made the base ginger ice cream. Given my love for infusing things like for this ice cream, and this panna cotta, I infused the heavy cream and milk mixture with huge chunks of fresh ginger and steeped it for 30 minutes. You should be able to taste the ginger flavor after it is done seeping.

Gruyère Scallion Scones

When these are baking in the oven, the kitchen fills up with this deep fragrant aroma that makes you want to yank open the oven and immediately eat a scone. I had the hardest time with this post, because all I wanted to do was eat them. Of course, though, I needed to photograph these giant scones. You can also find this recipe in this current issue of Edible Boston! For every issue, they have a Reader’s Recipe contest, and I love to submit something. If you can’t tell, I’m in love with my current city of residence. It makes me happy that there is a high quality food magazine in Boston. I moved here from Saint Louis, which has two beautiful food magazines, Feast and Sauce. I was so happy to see Sherrie in Sauce!! When my STL friends visit, I still beg them to bring me copies of the magazines :). There’s something about flipping through a physical magazine, knowing that it’s about food news in your specific city of residence. When Edible Boston issues come out, I always rush to Flour Bakery in the South End to pick up my copy (and devour a lamb-goat-cheese sandwich).

These scones. I started with a basic buttermilk scone recipe, and then it took me several renditions to get the proportions of gruyère, buttermilk, scallions, scallion puree, and flour right. My first one yielded a tough, unpleasant mess, but you know what? It’s a starting point. I incorporated a scallion puree, so that the taste of the scallion permeates in every bite, not just where there are pieces of chopped scallion. I found it gave a much deeper taste.

汤种法 Tangzhong Coconut Milk Hot Cross Buns

As I’m typing this post out, I’m munching on my third hot cross bun. Eek. I just can’t stop eating them. They are so soft, so fragrant, and honestly irresistible. I was all set to eat my greek yogurt with a grapefruit for breakfast, but then I baked these and, well… I stuffed my face, is what.

Hot cross buns. An Easter classic. I did my research when developing this recipe – it’s made in so many different ways. It almost felt like the dumplings of the western world. Different families have different ways of making them. The cross can be a flour/water paste that bakes into the buns and serves only as a way to mark the cross. Or, it can be the icing on top, providing a sweeter note than the other method. Some recipes call for a marmalade glaze, others just the standard egg wash. It’s made using currants or raisins, or other delicious things mixed in. It’s spiced, but could be any number of spices. Now, all you hot cross snobs will probably scoff at my version of these buns: tangzhong coconut milk hot cross buns!!!! It’s dairy-free because I used coconut water, coconut milk, and coconut oil in place of water, whole milk, and butter. It adds a subtle coconut taste, and there is the added benefit of inhaling the fragrant coconut smell as you knead the oil into the dough.

Just warning you: there are so many photos you’ll probably get bored halfway through :). Feel free to scroll all the way down for the recipe!