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Meat sprinkles, technically. See the trick when you overcook some meat is to pretend it was on purpose and go all the way. In all seriousness, it’s lean meat (turkey this time) boiled in soy sauce, ginger, some cooking wine and star anise until cooked through, then cooled and shredded, then toasted in a pan on really low heat until it’s completely dry. Crush in a mortar and mix with chopped nori and toasted sesame, tada, you got a wonderful savory topping to throw on top of your freshly cooked rice.

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Quite an experiment, but I wanted to try this idea of taking celery root and treating it like a spit roast. Marinated the slices with miso, chili, cumin and lemon juice and then slowly roasted the thing on all sides with this hodgepodge contraption made out of a bunch of skewers. The result was, eh, tasty, but also not quite there. I vastly underestimated the cooking time, so my tummy was rumbling and the celery root could have been cooked even further, and I imagine in a much less complicated way because roasting it like this wasn’t as great as I would have hoped. I imagine something like baking it tightly wrapped in foil to cook everything through and then broiling it at the end to get the nice and crispy browning would be better. You live and you learn.

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It’s the end of the year, so let’s play the classics. Added a bit of turmeric, which doesn’t really do much flavor wise, but gives the buns a nice yellow color. Huh, looks like the middle didn’t get quite as much heat, but the buns turned out nice and soft.

Well, leftovers technically. It’s missing the boiled meat and I usually like the broader noodles, but it’s still delicious. I’ll have to do it proper again sometime, I heard Sou Far likes noodles. Remember when I said chicken dumpling soup is hard to beat in terms of being comforting? I take that back, Phở is where it’s at.

Update: Round two, now I’m out of soup

Wow, I’m not even sure what I made here, but it tastes wild. Roasted slices of cauliflower in the cast iron pan with a bit of cumin, basted it with kimchi juices and seasoned with bit of parmesan. Dressed it up with a spicy kimchi mayo and put it between two slices of toast. A combination of multi-layered umami flavors like I’ve never had before.

When stuff’s so good, you have to double it just to make sure. Kinda like a crit.

Another great use for kimchi. Served with a grilled chicken breast and sprinkled some crispy fried chicken skin on top for some extra crunch.

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It’s been a while since I tried this one, but the funky and tangy flavors of kimchi go exceptionally well with buttery, crunchy, cheesy, gooey toast.

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‘Tis the season to bake jolly, tralalalala. A combination of previous experiments, this cookie’s a wild mix of flavors and elements.

Not Speckknödel, but dumplings made by combining some flour, baking powder, melted butter and milk and spooning it directly into the soup to cook. When it comes to comforting and warming food on a cold winter day, this one’s hard to beat.