How To Make Perfect Jammy Eggs

I am pretty sure the term “jammy eggs” is a term that only exists on Instagram. It is used to describe when the yolk of a boiled egg still has a ways to go before becoming the dry, chalky grossness called for in old-school deviled egg recipes, but it holds together much better than a completely runny or raw yolk. There’s a supple, gooey, almost gelatinous look and consistency to the yolks in this in-between zone, and that’s why they end up getting called jammy eggs.

But there is more to the perfect jammy egg (I’ve also seen them sometimes referred to as soft-boiled egg) than getting the texture of the yolk just right. There’s also the look of the egg as a whole when you cut into it. Even if your timing is perfect for cooking the egg to get that jammy yolk consistency, there are still things that can prevent your egg from being picture-perfect, such as a yolk that is completely off to one side, a big air bubble causing the shape to look completely wonky, or a bunch of the egg white getting stuck to the shell when you try to peel it.

I’ve made a lot of eggs for the ‘gram over the past few years. A lot of this is largely thanks to my ongoing partnership with Pete & Gerry’s who have been a wonderful supporter and sponsor of my work. (This blog post is NOT sponsored but I can honestly say their eggs are delicious and gorgeous, and that very lovely people work at the company.) But making eggs for sponsored work or a client shoot means even more pressure to get them to look perfect, which can be stressful for shooting a food preparation where so much can go wrong. So after cooking probably several dozen eggs in this style, I can share all that I have learned to set all the rest of you up for success in your future egg-making ventures too!

Phase 1: Choosing What Eggs to Use for the Best Looking Jammy Eggs

• Use good-quality eggs that are fresh from the grocery store. (I have not used eggs directly from the body of a chicken before so can’t attest to the nuances of eggs that fresh.) There is info online about how the shells will be harder to peel off when the eggs are fresher, but I’ll address how to overcome this in Phase 3.

  • What happens if you skip this tip: You want fresher eggs because the air bubble inside of them will be smaller, resulting in a nicer boiled egg shape. Over time, due to moisture loss within the egg, the air bubble at the wider end of the egg gets bigger. Using an old egg will result in the boiled egg having a big crater in the bottom, because the big air bubble prevents the egg white from fully taking on the shape of the egg shell.

Phase 2: Boiling the eggs

• Step 1: Use a safety pin to poke a hole in the wider end of each egg. This allows airflow in and out of the egg and can also help mitigate the impact of the air bubble inside the egg on the shape of the final result. Keep the eggs out on the counter to bring them closer to room temp after this step.

  • What happens if you skip this tip: Pressure can build up as the contents of the egg get heated in the boiling water. This could cause the egg to crack and some of the white to leak out, ruining your perfect boiled egg shape.

• Step 2: Bring a pot of water to boil on high heat. Make sure there’s enough depth to fully submerge the eggs. While you’re waiting, you could also get an ice bath ready for the end.

• Step 3: Gently lower the eggs into the boiling water. Set your timer according to the guide below:

  • 6.5 minutes: Fully set whites and runny yolks. Perfect for ramen.

  • 7 minutes: Jammy yolk consistency on the outer parts of the yolk, liquid gold right in the middle

  • 7.5 minutes: Perfect jammy yolk consistency throughout

  • 8 minutes: Jammy yolks that aren’t going anywhere. Perfect for tamago sandos like the one shown above.

• Step 4: Keep the eggs moving! Use a slotted spoon to continuously spin the eggs around their own axes as well as occasionally lift them out of the water and immediately lower them back in. Do this for the entire cook time. The centrifugal motion will keep the yolk positioned nicely as the egg white cooks, and lifting the egg in and out might help with reducing the impact of that pesky air bubble (if the eggs are relatively fresh).

  • What happens if you skip this tip: The yolk will settle in the egg before the egg white has had a chance to cook/solidify. When you cut it open, you will find that the yolk is in a weird spot and you have an ugly cross-section.

  • Credit to Eat With Your Eyes Closed for teaching me about egg yolk centrifuge.

• Step 5: When the timer is up immediately transfer the eggs into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Move them around for a bit to really allow the heat to disperse and get the eggs to cool down.

Phase 3: Cooling and Peeling the Eggs

You could cook the eggs perfectly and still end up with ugly eggs if you don’t get this post-production phase right. If you followed Phase 1 correctly and used store-fresh eggs, they can be notoriously hard to peel, resulting in frustration and little bits of egg white (and all your hopes and dreams of a perfect-looking egg) being lost. Patience and cooling time are the keys to doing this phase right.

• After your eggs are cool to the touch from resting in the ice bath, gently knock them against each other or a countertop to make little hairline fractures in the shells. I like to grasp the egg and encircle it with my palm when I do this, to help support the egg structure.

• Especially concentrate on creating fracture lines at the wider bottom of the shell. Due to that air bubble, it will be easiest to start on this end anyway when you peel.

• Place the unpeeled eggs in a bowl of cold water and put them in the fridge. Let them continue to chill for as long as you can, up to overnight! The cold temperature will cause things to shrink inside the shell and water will seep in between the cooked egg and the shell, creating separation.

• When it is time to peel, start from that wider end and go gently and slowly, continuing to fracture the shell into little pieces as you go, rather than trying to peel off a big chunk at once.

  • What happens if you skip these tips: The egg white may stick to the shell!

Phase 4: Enjoying the Eggs!

Now you are ready to take photos of your eggs if you so choose, but more importantly, you are ready to eat them! Below is some inspiration for how to incorporate jammy eggs into your meals. I hope you found this blog post helpful, and I wish you eggcellent jammy eggs in your future!

Recipe: Mini Frittata Muffins with Lap Cheong and Scallions

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I used to make these mini frittata muffins as a go-to recipe for parties and potlucks when I was in college and into my early twenties. It is a super easy recipe with the help of instant buttermilk pancake mix, and you can add whatever fillings you would normally enjoy inside a quiche or frittata. Over a decade later, and with much more appreciation for the flavors associated with my Chinese heritage, I decided to revisit the old tried and true recipe and incorporate lap cheong (Chinese sweet sausage) and scallions. (I’m actually pretty obsessed with the combo of lap cheong, scallions, and cheese these days. You can find my recipe for stuffed cheesy bread with these ingredients here.) The end result is the flavors you’d expect in a Chinese-American fusion breakfast, in a nicely portable format.

Back when I was making this recipe all the time, I called them “quiche muffins” because I didn’t really understand the nuances of all the different baked egg dishes out there but in reality the texture is much more like a frittata—a frittata that is slightly leaning in the direction of a biscuit, in a muffin wrapper.

About substitutions: Feel free to swap things out according to your tastes or put your own cultural spin on it. Approach the ingredients as you would if you were making a quiche or omelette; if it makes sense to pre-cook the ingredient for one of these preparations, you should do the same here. Any grated semi-soft cheese would work, as well as crumbled chèvre or feta (though you may want to reduce the amount if using a soft cheese due to the added moisture).

Now, about the edible flowers. This recipe is great for the completely unnecessary but very Instagram worthy edible flower treatment because the batter is quite wet. Anything where the delicate flowers petals and herbs are in contact with moisture in the oven is going to help keep their color and shape better (compared to, say, a shortbread cookie). Here, I used calendulas, wood sorrel, violas, wild fennel, lemon balm, and oregano—a combination of foraged and home grown. As these were baking, I also watched over them like a wistful (but much less anxious) Great British Bake-Off contestant. Because the calendula flowers have layered petals, I would gently press down the top layers as they curled up in the oven to stay in contact with the batter, and that’s how I was able to help maintain their shape despite the heat. Here is what these cuties looked like before baking:

This recipe was adapted from Allrecipes.

How to Make Mini Frittata Muffins with Lap Cheong and Scallions

(Makes 6 muffins)

Ingredients

3 eggs
2/3 cup American style dry buttermilk pancake mix
~2 cups grated cheddar
2 lap cheong sausages
2 scallions, chopped
nonstick spray or 6 muffin liners

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line or grease muffin tins.

Peel off and discard the outer casing of the lap cheong and cut into 1/8”–1/4” pieces. In a small skillet, fry the lap cheong on medium heat until cooked through. Drain on a paper towel and allow to cool slightly.

Beat eggs thoroughly in a mixing bowl. Stir in pancake mix. Then fold in cooked lap cheong, scallions, and cheese.

Divide the batter among the muffin tins, filling them only two-thirds of the way. If desired, decorate with herbs and edible flowers.

Bake for 12–15 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow them to cool and set slightly before removing and enjoying.

These photos were shot in partnership with Pete and Gerry’s. To find their free range organic eggs near you, click here.

Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo Ramen

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I grew up hardly knowing my own grandparents across the ocean, and it was just me, my parents, and my sister here in the States. But my parents' host mom—the woman who opened her home to them when they first arrived as immigrants—was from the Philippines and she continued to be a mother figure to my parents and a grandmother figure to me well after my parents got settled. I call her Lola, the Filipino term for a grandma. So even though I am not Filipino, I grew up eating lots of chicken adobo during visits to my Lola’s house.

I remember my Lola's version of chicken adobo being more tangy/vinegary and more brothy than other versions I've had at restaurants as an adult. There was something about that soy and vinegar sauce that was always so appetizing; the kind of thing that you have to reawaken your tastebuds when you don’t think you feel like eating. I felt I could drink it by the bowlful! Which is why I developed this fusion recipe where the chicken adobo braising liquid becomes the base for a noodle soup.

The key steps to making this recipe are:

• Browning the chicken. This renders out the excess fat from the chicken skin, giving you a glorious schmaltz that will be used later.

• Braising the chicken in a slow cooker. I opted to go the slow cooker route to keep the recipe low maintenance. The browned chicken thighs are given a chance to soak up the flavors from a braising liquid made up of soy sauce, vinegar, lots and lots of garlic, and black peppercorns.

• Making the broth. Blending together the strained braising liquid and all that soft garlic creates an emulsified broth that is rich and almost creamy. It has a much more concentrated flavor than a traditional soup ramen.

• Frying the garlic chips. That saved chicken fat goes into making the most delicious garnish of fried garlic chips, which in turn infuses the chicken fat with some of that garlic flavor.

• Frying the egg. Inspired by Filipino silog, I decided this ramen needs to get topped with a beautiful fried egg.

• Boiling the noodles and assembling the bowl. I chose to keep the thigh whole but you can also shred it up before serving if you don’t want the recipients to have to maneuver with the bone.

• Finally, that schmaltzy goodness from before gets drizzled over the whole bowl as a finishing touch at the end.

Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Recipe: Eggs in Easy Red Pepper Sauce with Chili Butter

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I love myself some shakshuka but there is just one problem: every time I think about making it, I am hit with anxiety over how the eggs will turn out. Either I make the wells in the sauce too small and the egg whites end up running away all over the surface of the dish or the yolk ends up breaking or getting overcooked. I have tried maybe over a dozen times and getting those perfect sunny-side-up eggs poached in the shakshuka tomato sauce has felt completely impossible (I am now convinced that all those photos online of perfect shakshuka were photoshopped).

So, I started brainstorming ideas for shakshuka-adjacent recipes that are just as big on flavor and runny egg deliciousness without the anxiety. I feel confident in my ability to make regular poached eggs, so this recipe involves making the sauce and eggs separately and then plating them together at the end to form a low-stress dish that you won’t be able to resist scooping into with a nice crusty piece of toast.

For the sauce, I thought I’d go for something as easy as possible, which is one of those sauces where you literally just throw everything in a blender and blitz it together. Since it is not tomato season at the moment and I have been feeling rather uninspired by the winter produce that is in season, it was a good time for me to play around with just using up pantry items. Whether you are still burnt out from cooking up a storm during the holidays or you are just feeling lazy about venturing out to the grocery store in the cold, this is the recipe for you. The sauce is inspired by romesco sauce, a Catalonian roasted tomato and pepper sauce, but it utilizes jarred bell peppers and tomato paste instead. To make up for the sort of one-note flavors of the jarred ingredients, seasoning is everything in a blender sauce like this! I reached for my go-to all purpose seasoning blend—Spice Tribe’s Haitian-inspired Mama Manje—and it instantly transformed the sauce from tasting rather flat and bland to having incredible depth of flavor. I’ve found in general that this seasoning blend is capable of rescuing anything from blandness with its unique combination of green bell pepper, onion, thyme, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, habanero, and star anise.

And then to add a little something extra to the dish, it all gets finished off with my favorite recipe for chili butter. The dish has plenty of flavor already with the romesco-like sauce and the perfectly poached eggs nestled into it, and a sprinkle of fresh herbs and cheese, but a finishing touch of melted butter infused with Spice Tribe Maras chile flakes takes the whole thing from a casual breakfast affair to an indulgent brunch for kicking off a gorgeous lazy Sunday. There is just something about the flavor that blooms out of bubbling together some salted butter and those chile flakes that is so good with those luscious runny egg yolks. It’s the kind of melted chili butter you’d typically find on top of Turkish eggs or çılbır and I started making it when I developed this recipe for Spice Tribe but I find myself finishing off many dishes this way.

This dish is simple to make but it certainly won’t taste like it! It’s also pretty flexible as long as you capture the basic ideas. Here are the different components that make up the dish:

• The sauce: Kind of inspired by Spanish romesco sauce but way way easier because you just throw jarred bell peppers, almonds, tomato paste, good quality spices, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar into a blender and blend until smooth. You can use whatever almonds you have on hand as long as they are unsalted, and you might even be able to get away with salted almonds and just not add more salt. Don’t skimp on the Spice Tribe Mama Manje blend though, or you’ll end up with something that tastes rather flat and boring.

• Eggs: The soft poached eggs with runny yolks that ooze into the yummy sauce are what make the dish, in my opinion. But if you don’t feel confident in your ability to poach eggs, fried eggs would also work great for this dish. Soft-boiled eggs, boiled for 6–7 minutes, would also be amazing. It’s meant to be low-stress so do what is easiest for you.

• Fresh herbs and cheese on top: A little bit of freshness from some green herbs and some extra creamy umami from cheese are not critical, but they do much to enhance the dish in terms of taste, texture, and visual impressiveness. You can definitely use whatever herbs and crumbly cheeses you have on hand.

• Melted chili butter drizzle: The finishing touch, this is what takes the dish to another level of brunch luxury, to see the spicy butter flow and pool in all the swirls of the sauce. And this extra little step is super easy too—just melt some butter, add the Spice Tribe Maras chile flakes, and allow the flavor the bubble and bloom for a bit before spooning it over your masterpiece.

How to Make Eggs in Easy Red Pepper Sauce with Chili Butter

Ingredients For the Red Pepper Sauce

12 ounces jarred roasted red bell peppers, drained
1/3 cup unsalted roasted almonds, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons Spice Tribe Pimentón de la Vera
1/2 teaspoon Spice Tribe Mama Manje Haitian Blend
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or to taste)

Ingredients For the Chili butter

1/4 cup salted butter
2 teaspoons Spice Tribe Maras Chile Flakes

Ingredients to Assemble the Dish

4 eggs, poached
1/4 cup queso fresco or feta, crumbled
Fresh herbs, such as parsley or dill, for garnish
Black pepper, to taste
Toasts, for serving

Procedure

Combine all sauce ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a small pot and simmer on low until heated through and slightly thickened, about 5–10 minutes.

In a separate small saucepan, melt butter on low. Just as butter starts to bubble, add the Spice Tribe Maras chile flakes. Stir gently and continuously until foamy and fragrant. Remove from heat.

Spoon sauce into serving bowl(s). Nestle poached eggs into the sauce and top with cheese, herbs, and pepper as desired. Briefly warm up spicy butter again if needed, then pour over the plated ingredients. Serve with toasts on the side.

Thank you so much to Spice Tribe for sponsoring this recipe! Check them out on Instagram here or visit their website to purchase high quality spices and unique small-batch spice blends.

Loaded Sweet Potato Breakfast “Toasts”

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For this recipe, I’ve swapped out my usual beloved toasted bread for autumnal slabs of roasted sweet potato and topped them with twists on all the goodies from a big savory breakfast.

• roasted sweet potato slices: These serve as the main carb here, and the vehicle for transporting all the other delicious toppings to your main face hole. Sweet potatoes have that subtle natural sweetness that is in all good fall recipes. Roasting them turns them into soft comfort food, yet they stay sturdy enough to act as “toasts”.

• crispy prosciutto: Crisping up the prosciutto on the same sheet pan while you’re roasting the sweet potatoes turns them into these super savory chips that are like a dainty version of bacon.

• cheddarized scrambled eggs: This is what I call my favorite way to make scrambled eggs. They’re based off Gordon Ramsey’s low and slow method but at the very end before the eggs are fully cooked, some sharp cheddar gets folded in so there’s also gooey, melty cheesiness in the mix.

• crème fraîche: Inspired by the sour cream that tops a perfect loaded baked potato, I finished these off with a dollop of crème fraîche to pull everything together before sprinkling on a little bit of fresh thyme and microgreens for freshness, and some smoky paprika.

Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Jammy Eggs in Sambal

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This recipe was inspired by Malaysian sambal telur (eggs in chili sauce) which I associate with nasi lemak, the national dish of my parents’ home country. However, I altered the idea in a couple key ways:

• tomatoes in the sambal: I don’t think of tomatoes as being common in Malaysian cooking and when I think of Malaysian sambal, it does not using contain tomatoes. However, I find spicy tomato sauces to be so addicting, and I wanted the sauce for this dish to be something that heat lovers would want to keep coming back to, scooping up over and over with their roti or naan. So my version is a tomato-y sambal. If you leave a lot of the chili seeds in, it will definitely pack a punch, but the acid from the tomatoes makes it even more pleasing.

• jammy eggs: With typical sambal telur you tumis or fry/sauté hard boiled eggs, so not only are the yolks fully cooked but the outside of the whites have a unique, firm brown skin from the frying. I prefer soft and gentle eggs that have a luxurious mouthfeel so I opted to nestle jammy 6.5-minute eggs into my tomato sambal for this dish.

Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Green Tomato and Chili Cheese Toast

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Green tomatoes are not easy to come by in my part of the country but I think they have such a great tart flavor. When I saw one in the pile of mixed tomatoes at the store, I snatched it up, but then it sat in my fridge for a while. It didn’t seem worth heating up a bunch of oil to make just one fried green tomato. I googled what else to do with a green tomato and saw lots of examples which pair pimento cheese with them. Apparently this combination is a common thing where fried green tomatoes are popular—I had no idea, but I can see why! They are delicious together!

What made things even more perfect is that I happened to have a cornmeal-crusted jalapeño and garlic loaf from my favorite local-ish bakery, Wild Flour Bread on hand. It was the perfect bread for this toast combo, but a nice slice of crusty sourdough or rye would taste amazing too.

I topped off the otherwise Southern-inspired combo with a chili oil fried egg because I couldn’t resist bringing some extra spice to the toast. You can learn how I made this fried egg in more detail here.

How to Make Green Tomato & Chili Cheese Toast

Ingredients

1 slice of bread, toasted
1/2 green tomato, thinly sliced
~1/4 cup pimento cheese
1 chili oil fried egg
red pepper flakes, to taste
dill, for garnish

Procedure

Generously spread pimento cheese over the toast (I used the one from Trader Joe’s). Top with a few thin slices of green tomato, and then with the fried egg. Sprinkle red pepper flakes over everything and garnish with fresh dill and/or dill flowers.

For more toast inspiration, check out all the posts with the “toast post” tag here.

Mala Glass Noodle Salad with Steak, Smashed Cucumbers, and Egg Ribbons

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Chinese salads are not big bowls loaded with leafy greens like what you think of with Western salads. They are more often cold appetizers featuring just one marinated crunchy veggie. (Btw, “Chinese chicken salad” is not really a Chinese salad, it’s Chinese-American!) Smashed cucumber salad may be the most iconic example of these crunchy veggie cold dishes that we have instead of salads. It can sometimes be found with mala chili oil and other times without, but either way, it is incredibly refreshing for summer. I wanted to take this classic salad and turn it into a full meal that would be perfect for a hot summer evening (even though it is cold and gloomy in SF), and this is what I came up with!

This salad has:

• smashed cucumbers, marinated in the classic rice vinegar based dressing with lots of zingy garlic

• glass noodles for a satisfyingly bouncy texture

• egg ribbons for airiness and savoriness

• Chinese five spice-rubbed steak

• cilantro and radish microgreens for freshness and herbaceousness

• toasted sesame seeds for the finishing touch

• mala chili oil for that numbing spicy heat that I am obsessed with!

Not a boring salad by any means! Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Polenta Bowl with Poached Eggs and Dressed Herbs

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Poached eggs nestled in creamy polenta and a lightly dressed salad of fresh herbs is my springtime version of a comfort bowl. Polenta is like a warm hug for your belly but it still feels a little lighter and brighter than something like jook or mashed potatoes, and I think the color looks so cheerful. The little salad that you see here was mostly foraged from my backyard garden but you can use what you have or what looks the best at your local farmers market.

This recipe has 4 components:

• polenta: Don’t worry about looking for something labeled “potenta” at the store; polenta actually refers to the finished dish made of medium or coarse ground cornmeal. Simmering slowly with regular stirring allows the cornmeal to become tender and break down, leaving you with a light but satisfying base. (Adding crème fraîche enhances the creamy taste and texture, and delays the process of it firming up into cakes.)

• poached eggs: The oozy yolks make little streams and pools in the polenta, and are what make this dish such a joy to eat.

• soft herb salad: This lightly dressed little salad made of soft greens is meant to celebrate the bounty of spring produce. I foraged a medley of parsley, mint, basil, red veined sorrel, red shiso, nasturtium, pea shoots, and chive blossoms from my garden, which I then supplemented with some upland cress. Use what you have! This is also a great way to use up odds and ends of extra herbs that you’ve accumulated in your fridge from other recipes.

• cheese shavings: Pecorino romano shavings are the most flavorsome way to add a finishing touch!

Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Recipe: Meatball Loco Moco

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If it were up to me it would be socially acceptable to put gravy on everything: eggs, tacos, cake…everything and anything! It’s definitely not just for reviving dry turkey meat on Thanksgiving, that is for sure. And maybe one of the best uses of gravy out there is on loco moco.

I made a meatball loco moco recently and instantly regretted not writing down notes as I made it because I knew right away that it would be something that I would want to replicate again, as well as share the recipe with you guys. It just so happened around that time that SunFed Ranch agreed to partner with me, and they liked this recipe idea too! So, this recipe for meatball loco moco was developed in partnership with SunFed Ranch, who pride themselves in raising cattle that are 100% grass fed and treated with the highest level of care and dignity.

Loco moco is a classic Hawaiian plate lunch, meant to be a fast and casual meal that is oh so hearty. It usually consists of steamed rice, a hamburger patty, brown gravy, and a fried egg. However, I thought that shaping the beef into meatballs instead of a patty would help integrate the components of the dish together and be even more fun to eat. So, my version of loco moco has fluffy meatballs, made using 80/20 SunFed Ranch Natural Ground Beef and a mixture of egg, milk, and panko breadcrumbs that helps keep the texture light and airy. I also put my own Southeast Asian spin on the gravy using kecap manis (a caramel-y sweet dark soy sauce from Malaysia and Indonesia) and the results are a glossy, deep brown gravy with lots of umami and just a tiny hint of sweetness.

Here’s what you need to know about the components of this dish:

• Rice: Start cooking your rice before you start the rest of the recipe and keep it on warm in your rice cooker. This dish comes together pretty quickly aside from a little bit of time chilling the meatball mixture to firm it up.

• Meatballs: I like using a very fine grind when I am making meatballs, because I think that lends to a smoother texture and a more spherical shape. That’s why SunFed Ranch Natural Ground Beef works really well for this recipe. I make a mixture of egg, milk, and panko that prevents the texture of the meatballs from getting too dense, and the fine grind of this beef incorporates with that really nicely. Don’t overwork the mixture, and you should end up with nice bouncy, light meatballs.

• Mushrooms: I love using a mixed medley of mushrooms for the gravy. They make the dish look interesting and bring textural complexity. In this case, I used a mix of cremini, shimeji, and tree oyster mushrooms, but I have also made it with chantrelles and shiitakes—all delicious and beautiful! Use what you like, or what looks good in your local markets. Whatever you use, just cut them all down to relatively the same size so that they cook evenly.

• Fried egg: It’s not loco moco without that sunny side up egg! I find that the less time my egg carton has been sitting around in my fridge, the more successful my fried eggs turn out. I usually drain some (but not all) of the loose egg white out before I pour my egg into a pan of oil heated on medium heat and hold the yolk in place in the middle for the first few seconds. Getting the temperature right is key, so I suggest practicing to figure out what’s the best for your stove. If the heat is too low, you won’t get the crispy edges and if the heat is too high, the whites will splatter too crazily and create weird bubbles around the yolk.

• Gravy: The gravy is the most important part of the dish, in my opinion! After the fat renders out of the meatballs, I sauté the mushrooms in that beefy goodness and add beef stock to make the gravy in the same pan. But the thing that makes my version special is kecap manis—a thick, slightly sweet soy sauce that is common in Malaysian and Indonesian cooking. If you see “dark soy sauce” at the supermarket from a Chinese brand, that’s not the same thing. Be sure to look for something that is a product of Southeast Asia; this is the one that I use**.

• Garnishes and enhancements: I love eating rice seasoned with furikake; I think the extra earthy flavor from the nori and the nuttiness from the sesame seeds goes so well with the steamed rice! But the gravy will be plenty flavorful for your rice if you don’t have it and want to skip this ingredient. The chives and cilantro will bring freshness and another layer of flavor too, but they are also not critical to the dish.

I hope this recipe brings your mealtime some chill island vibes and full bellies.

How to Make Meatball Loco Moco
with Sweet Soy Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients for the meatballs

1 lb SunFed Ranch Natural Ground Beef 80/20
1 egg
4 tsp milk
2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tbsp butter

Ingredients for the Gravy

1/2 lb mixed mushrooms, cut into equal bite-sized pieces
1/4 tsp salt, plus more to taste
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
freshly ground pepper, to taste
4 tsp kecap manis
1 3/4 cup beef stock
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp water

For Serving

3 servings cooked jasmine rice
3 eggs, fried
furikake
3–4 tsp chives, chopped
cilantro leaves, for garnish

Procedure

To begin making the meatballs, beat together the egg and milk, then add the panko breadcrumbs. Let sit while prepping the other ingredients, so the panko absorbs the moisture. In a separate mixing bowl, combine SunFed Ranch Natural Ground Beef, garlic power, soy sauce, and allspice. Mix gently to combine, then add the panko mixture and gently mix to combine again. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes.

Roll the chilled meatball mixture into 1-inch balls. (I get 16–18 meatballs.)

Heat a large skillet on medium heat and melt the butter. Add the meatballs and cook, rolling or rotating them often, until browned all the way around and just cooked through; about 8–10 minutes. Transfer meatballs to another plate.

Discard all but 2 tablespoons of the pan drippings, then add the mushrooms to the same skillet. Sauté the mushrooms until tender, about 2 minutes. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, and a pinch of pepper, and cook until the liquid has evaporated. Add kecap manis and beef stock and simmer on medium-low until the liquid starts to thicken and no longer feels watery, about 5–7 minutes. Stir together cornstarch and water in a small bowl to make a slurry, then stir into the skillet mixture. Return the meatballs to the skillet and mix gently. The gravy should be thick enough to thinly coat the meatballs without sliding off. Once it reaches that stage, remove from heat. Add salt and pepper to taste, if needed.

Plate the rice and top with a generous sprinkle of furikake. Divide the meatballs and gravy over the plates of rice, and top each with a fried egg. Sprinkle chives over each plate and garnish with cilantro.

Thank you so much to SunFed Ranch for sponsoring this recipe! Visit their website to learn more about their 100% grass fed, pasture raised cattle.

Spam & Egg Fried Rice Tofu Pouches

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Aromatic garlic and scallion fried rice, creamy soft scrambled eggs, and savory fried Spam are stuffed inside sweet marinated aburaage pouches for a unique way to eat Spam and egg fried rice.

Spam and egg fried rice is very nostalgic to me; I even have memories of eating it on Thanksgiving. To me, it’s a comfort dish to be shared with family. Spam is one of those foods that seemed completely normal to me in my childhood and it wasn’t until I was older and had more conversations about food with Westerners that I learned that it was looked down upon. But then after that, I found out that many other Asian Americans felt that same nostalgia for it too; able to finally find our pride for those things that we were shamed for as children, I found a community that touted their love for their humble childhood foods and gratitude for what frugal immigrant parents put on the table. They all loved and grew up with Spam and eggs with rice.

So, I developed this recipe to try to change people’s perceptions about Spam and egg fried rice. To try to convince them that Chinese American food is not always the stuff that gets scooped into those 2-item combo takeout boxes. That even luncheon meat from a can is a meaningful ingredient to many. That many of the tropes that make them think of “elevated” food are just about presentation, and that any food can be presented that way and be worth appreciation. It’s Spam and egg fried rice—but made fancy.

This recipe has 4 components:

• marinated aburaage pouches: These are deep fried tofu that have soaked up a sweet marinade. I have been able to find them at Asian supermarkets. This is the one I usually get.

• fried rice: I kept this part really simple, seasoning with just a little soy sauce. white pepper, and salt, and adding just scallions and garlic as aromatics. I did not want to overwhelm the natural flavor of the eggs or have it be too salty when combined with the Spam.

• fried Spam cubes: The flavor bombs of the dish. Lately I have been getting the Lite kind, but use your favorite variety.

• soft scrambled eggs: I like to use the low and slow method, and gently push them into big curds for this recipe. I was genuinely impressed by the rich eggy flavor of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs and definitely recommend their certified humane free range eggs for this recipe. These eggs will require no additional salt because they are naturally flavorsome on their own and have a nice creamy balance to the crisped salty Spam.

Click here to get the recipe on the Pete and Gerry’s site!

Thank you so much to Pete and Gerry’s for sponsoring this recipe!

Recipe: Golden Salted Egg Fried Rice

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I first learned about this technique for making golden fried rice from one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels, Aaron and Claire. Their version of golden rice is simply about coating the rice in raw egg yolk before frying to give it that namesake color. But because I am obsessed with salted egg yolk things, I decided to take that golden rice to the next level with my golden salted egg fried rice!

Unlike the fried rice that you get at Chinese-American takeout places, this fried rice recipe does not include veggies or meat to turn it into a whole meal. Instead, it is meant to be a flavorsome and visually stunning base that is best eaten with anything where you would normally eat plain rice. It is great with char siu as seen below! The eggy taste from both the raw and cured egg yolks is subtle, but combining these ingredients with the rice transforms it into a luxurious-feeling, salted carby base that then helps bring out the flavors of whatever you’re eating it with.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, salted egg yolk is simply an egg yolk that has been cured salt. It is quite a common salty umami flavor in Chinese food, and can be found coating vegetables in a stir fry or inside dim sum items like lo mai gai (sticky rice packets with chicken and Chinese sausage) or as the center of a mooncake. It has become quite a popular flavoring for packaged snacks like potato chips or fish skins. Unlike in European cooking, cheese is really not present at all in Chinese cooking, and I have seen the addition of salted egg yolk being compared to adding parmesan to a dish; though they do not taste the same at all, I get where this analogy is coming from because they both have a deep salty umami and a rich mouth feel.

The traditional way to make salted eggs is to cure whole duck eggs in their shells in a salt brine for an extended period, but lately I have seen a lot of recipes for separating out regular chicken egg yolks and burying them in a big bowl of salt for a few days. I always just buy the salted yolks ready to go in vacuum sealed packs from the Asian supermarket. If you are able to find those, this recipe will be super easy!

How to Make Golden Salted Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients

1 cup jasmine rice
1 1/8 cup water
3 egg yolks*
1 tbsp shao xing wine
1 tbsp fish sauce or soy sauce
2 tbsp ghee or neutral oil
2 salted egg yolks
salt, to taste

*If the color of your yolks are not very rich or saturated, add 1/2 tsp turmeric to compensate

Procedure

Make the rice the night before. Wash rice a few times, drain thoroughly, then add the water. Cook in a rice cooker, cool, and refrigerate overnight.

The next day: When ready to cook, transfer the cold rice to a large mixing bowl. Add shao xing wine and fish sauce (or soy sauce) and use the added liquids to help break up the rice until no clumps remain. Add the egg yolks and mix until each grain of rice is coated.

in another bowl, crumble the salted egg yolks into fine crumbs.

Heat up a wok on high. Add the ghee (or oil) then add the crumbled salted egg yolks. Stir until the mixture is completely foamy, then add the rice. Stir fry until the rice no longer feels sticky or wet. Add salt to taste.

How to Make Malaysian-Style Half-Boiled Eggs

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Malaysian half-boiled eggs were the most iconic preparation of my childhood. American kids probably grew up more familiar with scrambled or hard boiled eggs, but I didn’t realize that half-boiled eggs were basically unheard of outside of Southeast Asia until much later in life.

What are half-boiled eggs? Poached inside their shells in a hot water bath, half-boiled eggs are like a more humble onsen or sous vide egg. This recipe will produce eggs where there is a thin layer of set whites that you can scoop out of the inside of the shells; some other softer, barely set whites; and an extremely runny yolk.

Pictured above are elements of a typical kopitiam/Malaysian coffeeshop breakfast: A couple of half-boiled eggs scooped into a bowl and topped with soy sauce and white pepper, and some kaya toast for dipping. When I was a kid, my parents and I used regular American sliced bread for dipping.

But now as an adult, I have been trying to spread the glory of Malaysian half-boiled eggs by sharing many ways in which they can be enjoyed. They are great for dipping toast soldiers if you put them on an egg holder and gently saber off the top, or they are lovely with noodles or jook or anywhere where you’d enjoy an onsen egg. They are basically the most forgiving and easiest way to make a nice runny egg!

How to Make Malaysian-Style Half-Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

1–2 eggs

Procedure

Bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil. Gently lower the egg(s) into the pot and shut off the heat. Let the egg(s) cook in the hot water for 8 minutes. Remove from the pot and place in an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Disclaimer: consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions. Eat at your own risk and don’t sue me, bro.

Recipe: Mala Chili Oil Fried Egg

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Lately, I have been really into frying eggs in Sichuan pepper chili oil. Why fry an egg in regular, flavorless oil when you can have a fried egg whose every crag and crispy edge is filled with a hint of something numbing spicy?

The inspiration for this was a video I saw of a hawker stall in Malaysia that serves up eggs fried in sambal. (Sambal is a term used in Southeast Asia to refer to various chili sauces and pastes, typically made with pulverized fresh red chilies of some sort.) I’ve tried making this a couple of times but couldn’t get it to look aesthetic enough. It was also horribly messy (and sometimes slightly painful) because the bits of chili and aromatics in the sambal would splatter everywhere once the oil was hot. But it was from this concept that I thought of the idea of frying my eggs in something other than plain ol’ oil. I realized that if I made an infused oil but strained out all the spices, it would essentially be like using regular oil to fry an egg, with no particles to splatter crazily out of the pan.

My mala chili oil fried egg is shown above with a black garlic and scallion cream cheese and the classic Lao Gan Ma chili crisp**, on an everything bagel.

How to Make a Mala Chili Oil Fried Egg

Ingredients For the chili oil

2 tbsp coarse Chinese or Korean chili flakes
4 tsp pink Sichuan pepper
2 star anise
1/2 cup high smoke point neutral oil

You’ll also Need

1 egg (or more)
coarse kosher salt

Procedure

Add chili flakes to a heat-safe bowl. In a small saucepot, combine oil, Sichuan pepper, and star anise. Heat on medium-low heat until the lighter interior parts of the peppercorn husks begin to turn brown, about 4 minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for the pepper to turn fully dark brown, about 1 more minute. Carefully pour oil through a fine mesh strainer over the chili flakes. Mix together and transfer to a jar when cooled. Allow the chili to infuse with the oil overnight for best results. Then, use this chili oil to fry eggs, or as a base for a dumpling or noodle sauce!

To fry the egg: Skim 1 tablespoon of clear oil from the top of the jar (or pass the contents through a strainer). It is important to only use the oil as any other solids will splatter out of the pan when frying.

Heat the oil in a small nonstick pan, then add the egg (I like to crack the egg into a small bowl first). Spoon some of the hot chili oil over the egg whites to help them cook, and/or cook egg to your preference! Hit it with a little sprinkle of salt (or a drizzle of LGM chili crisp!).

Recipe: Sweet and Savory Marinated Eggs

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I can never resist a perfectly boiled egg with a runny yolk but these are even more addictive that your typical soy sauce marinated eggs. Bibigo USA asked me to test out whether their Original Korean BBQ Sauce for bulgogi would work well as an egg marinade, and as it turns out, the answer is absolutely yes! Their convenient sauce has pear and apple purees in it, giving the sauce a rich sweetness that balances well with the savoriness and, when absorbed by the eggs, is super yummy. This recipe was inspired by Korean marinated eggs—in Korean, they are called mayak eggs, which translates to “drug eggs” because of their addictive quality!

I learned the best technique for making boiled eggs from this blog post by Eat With Your Eyes Closed. As instructed in the post, after slowly lowering the eggs into the pot of boiling water, I meticulously stand over the pot of boiling eggs and keep spinning them around and around with a chopstick for the first two minutes in order to ensure that the egg whites set with the yolk perfectly positioned in the middle. Don’t sleep on this technique!

I think that a 6-minute egg is the most perfect—the whites are set and tender and the yolks are still super runny when you cut into them. But, of course, feel free to cook them to your liking. The marinate will be delicious either way.

How to Make Sweet and Savory Marinated Eggs

Ingredients

4 eggs
3/4 cup Bibigo Original Korean BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp mirin
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 red Fresno chili or 5 Thai chilies, sliced (optional)
Sesame oil, for serving (optional)

Procedure

Stir together Bibigo Original Korean BBQ Sauce, water, scallions, sesame seeds, and sliced chili in a bowl. Set aside.

Bring a small pot of water to a vigorous boil. Meanwhile, use a safety pin or the tip of a very fine knife blade to carefully poke a small hole at the bottom (wider end) of each egg. (This helps air escape and allows the set egg to better conform to the shape of the inside of the shell.)

When the water is boiling vigorously, gently lower eggs and boil for 6 minutes for runny yolks or 10 minutes for cooked yolks.

Immediately transfer eggs into an ice bath. When eggs are completely cold, peel carefully.

Place a zip-top bag inside a bowl. Place eggs into the bag and pour marinate on top. Close bag, making sure to squeeze out as much air as possible. Place bag and bowl in the refrigerator. Eggs will want to float initially, but you want to make sure they are completely covered in the marinade. If you remember, occasionally rotate the bag or gently shift the eggs around to ensure that all surfaces have time to come in contact with the marinade. (Otherwise, you may end up with irregular patches of white if the egg is not fully submerged.) Allow to marinate overnight or for up to 3 days.

To serve, spoon egg and some marinate over rice. Drizzle with a bit of sesame oil.

Thank you so much to Bibigo USA for sponsoring this recipe! For more recipe ideas and to learn more about their products, visit their website!

Recipe: Mashed Potatoes on Toast!

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I make extra mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving on purpose in order to use the leftovers for this toast.

I wish I could take credit for this genius idea but even I would never be so brazen as to put mashed potatoes and toast (the two best food groups of all time) together on my own. No—this is my copycat version of the Mash Up at @sprocoffeelab, a super cute coffee stand in San Francisco run by really nice people.

My version is topped with super-runny, Malaysian-style half-boiled eggs—iconic to my childhood but totally underrated everywhere else. I use these in place of “sous-vide” eggs because they have quite a similar texture and I don’t have a sous-vide device. However, regular poached eggs would also be great here if that’s your preferred method.

How to Make Mashed Potatoes on Toast

Ingredients for the Toast

2 slices of sourdough bread
1/2 cup-ish leftover mashed potatoes (the more garlicky, the better; bonus points if they also contain parm)
2 eggs
olive oil

For Garnishes

Use whatever you want or whatever you have lying around that looks pretty, depending on your priorities. For greens, I used a combination of stuff growing in my backyard and pea shoots that a random neighbor decided to plant in the communal planter in front of my house. An approximation of what is shown in the photo is as follows:

1 tbsp chives, chopped
1/4 cup mix of pea shoots, parsley, sorrel, nasturtium
1 tbsp pomegranate seeds
a few sprinkles of furikake
a few sprinkles of togarashi

Procedure

How to make Malaysian-style half-boiled eggs: Bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil. Gently lower the eggs into the pot and shut off the heat. Let the eggs cook for 8 minutes. Remove from pot and place in an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet on medium heat and toast the sourdough slices to your liking.

Meanwhile, reheat the leftover mashed potatoes.

Carefully crack open the half-boiled eggs and use a small spoon to loosen the egg whites from the shells. Pour each egg into a small bowl.

To assemble, scoop some mashed potatoes in a mound onto each piece of toast, then use your spoon to shape them into a nest that can contain the egg. Gently pour an egg into each nest. Season to your liking with furikake and togarashi seasonings. Top the eggs with chopped chives. Pile the rest of the green garnishes in the middle and finish with pomegranate seeds.