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15 dishes from 2021

Happy New Year! 2021 has been an incredibly hectic year for me. A main reason I have not been active here since April. In May, my husband and I left our beloved Hong Kong, our second home that we had lived for over a decade. I’d always moved a lot, and never lived anywhere longer than 4 years until I moved to our 58th floor flat in the west side of Hong Kong Island. Our flat with a stunning view of Hong Kong’s skyline and harbour was my 23rd home, and I had lived there for over 11 and a half years. Leaving Hong Kong was as hard as I expected but leaving my close friends was much harder than I imagined.

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Basil, mint and Pecorino Romano pesto

Growing up in South Korea, basil was not an ingredient that I was ever familiar with. I ate dishes with basil at Italian restaurants, but I had never seen the fresh basil until I went to study in London. First thing about fresh basil that hit me before anything else was its fragrance. The unique and intoxicating aroma of basil blew my mind instantly. Like Marcella Hazan wrote in her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, “The less basil cooks, the better it is, and that its fragrance is never more seductive than when it is raw.” …What a beautiful thing to say. Continue reading Basil, mint and Pecorino Romano pesto

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My version of Sicilian pesto – ‘Pesto alla trapanese’

I love Italian food. Dare I say I love it almost as much as I love Korean food, and definitely eat as often as Korean food. Although I enjoy cooking Italian dishes, I am a little afraid of posting my recipes here. Italians are known to be very specific about their food, and many Italian people I’ve met over the years have proven that. So in order not to disgrace traditional ‘Pesto alla trapanese’ I have read and watched videos of many different types of recipes, from Nigella Lawson’s to a sweet Sicilian nonna’s. And after some researching and experimenting, I have come up with my favorite version, which is vegetarian without anchovy fillets and has no raw garlic. I know what you’re thinking, no garlic in pesto?? Believe me I have tried… Continue reading My version of Sicilian pesto – ‘Pesto alla trapanese’