Galen Cooks Food the Wong Way

This blog will be a record of my cooking. This is not a record of my recipe, but I will point you to where I got the recipe or inspiration from.

As said my intro, I like cooking a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food. I source a lot of the ingredient from Sawtelle and learn from the cooking master Masa’s Youtube channel. You will be seeing a lot of Masa’s influence from my dishes. His style is truly great, striking a perfect balance between tastiness, time efficiency and cost. I would highly recommend him! Most of his video is subbed in English also.

Yakisoba (Stir-fried Noodle)

The classic japanese stir-fried noodle gives me all the necessary nutrients. The sesame seaweed topping brings out even more flavor. Highly recommend, the seaweed flakes just makes everything 10 times better. I learned it Masa’s Yakisoba video. I don’t have tonkatsu sauce so I added more sugar, soysauce and some vinegar to emulate the sweet and sour taste of the tonkatsu sauce.

From Masa’s 日式Yaki-Soba炒麵做法/ yaki soba《MASAの料理ABC》

Yaki-udon (Stir-fried Udon)

A variation of Yakisoba but I replaced the “soba” noodle with Udon. Soba (そば) actually means noodle made from buckwheat. However, the “soba” in Yakisoba refers to Chinese oil noodle (油面).

Wafū Pork Spaghetti with Cream-Miso Sauce

“Wafū” means “Japanese style”. The pasta is made with Japanese flavor using miso as the main ingredient in the sauce. I also added mirin and soy sauce as seasoning. The original recipe from Masa also put sesame, but I didn’t have it so it is just miso and cream. I added cabbage to give it extra crispy texture.

From Masa’s 白肉胡麻味噌義大利麵/Pork Shaybu Spagetti with Miso Tahini Sauce |MASAの料理ABC

Miso Stir-fried Chicken Udon with Mushroom and Celtuce

Celtuce (萵筍), also known as asparagus lettuce or chinese lettuce, has a crispy and refreshing texture. It is very light dish despite the miso sauce.

Vegetable Stir Fry

It is an everything-in-one-pot type of dish. The inspiration comes from a dish named “Buddha’s Delight”. In my version, I put pan-seared tofu, iceberg lectuce, black mushrooms, vegetarian chicken (made from soy bean), and glass noodle. The glass noddle absorbs all the flavor and tastes amazing.

Fun fact: there is a specific type of vegetarianism called [Buddhist

vegetarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism), which excludes pungent plants such as garlic, shallots, coriander. If Buddha’s delight is made with garlic, it makes it surprisingly “not buddhist”.

Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich

The hardest part about making Teriyaki chicken is that since the chicken is marinated with Teriyaki sauce, they get burnt really quickly if the heat is too high. At the same time you need to make sure that the slow heat cook the chicken all the way through so it is not raw.

I actually prefer using whole wheat bread compared to white bread. Teriyaki sauce is already sweat in flavor. Whole wheat bread balances the sweetness out. With white bread it gets too heavy for my taste.

From Masa’s 雞腿南蠻漬風三明治做法/ chicken teriyaki sandwich《MASAの料理ABC》

Chicken Teriyaki Donburi

Donburi translates to bowl, meaning a dish with a bowl of rice. Under the chicken is a fried egg and rice. The content in the cup is actually Miso soup. Putting Miso soup in a cup make it easier to drink (or I just happened to run out of bowls).

Sukiyaki Udon

Sukiyaki is like hot pot, where the ingredient simmered in a pot with a soup based in soy sauce and mirin, which is sweet in flavor. I overloaded it with fish cakes and imitate crab meat (the orange sticks) and pan seared tofu. It can also simply be made much simpler with just some meat and veggie as well.

From Masa’s 壽喜燒烏龍麵做法/ sukiyaki udon《MASAの料理ABC》

Sukiyaki Chicken Udon with Choy Sum Fried Rice

A variation of sukiyaki udon with Chicken as the protein. Apart from Udon as the source of starch, I also added a small bowl of choy sum (菜心) fried rice. Choy sum works unexpectedly well in fried rice. In Japanese ramen shops, you can often order a bowl of rice to go with your ramen as well. Added my own Chinese twist with the fried rice which makes it a fulfilling meal.

Garlic Choy Sum Fried Rice

Apart from just choy sum, adding some fried garlic to add some crispy texture to the fried rice. Yum Yum. The idea of adding fried garlic to fried rice also came from Masa!

Inspiration taken from Masa’s: 和風牛肉大蒜炒飯/ garlic stir fried rice《MASAの料理ABC》

Spinach Chicken Pasta with Cream Sauce

Pardon the chopsticks, I am more comfortable with them. I personally prefer creamy sauce compared to tomato based ones. The sauce cooked with fried onion for a touch of natural sweetness.

Sauerkraut Shredded Pork Noodle

This is a common dish found in Chinese noodle shops, known as 酸菜肉絲面 in Chinese. Sauerkraut (酸菜), type of pickled vegetable, stir fried with pork to make a great topping for noddle. The sourness makes the dish very appetizing.

Oyakodon

Oyakodon (親子丼) literally means “bowl of parent and child”, since it is made from egg and chicken. The sauce usually requires dashi, a stock based in kombu (kelp) and bonito shaves. Since I didn’t had a stock prepared up ahead, I added the dried kaisou (海藻) salad pack to compensate for the missing umami, which is available at Japanese supermarkets:

From Masa’s 香煎滑嫩親子丼做法/ oyako don《MASAの料理ABC》

Gyudon

Gyudon, the beef rice bowl that I would usually get from Yoshinoya. But man, the Yoshinoya in the US just can’t get it right. I also boiled some baby chinese cabbage in the Gyudon sauce. Napa cabbage would also work as well!

From Masa’s 簡單吉☆家風牛丼/ gyu don《MASAの料理ABC》

Gyoza with Ramen

I was feeling lazy that day therefore I brought some of the ramen pack from the Japanese supermarket. Added a fried egg and some fried Indian lettuce 油麥菜 (no idea what’s the relation with India.)

On the gyoza (dumplings), there is a layer of crust. It is a crust formed from starch water evaporated in the heat. For more details on how that is made, see Masa’s video!

From Masa’s 酥脆羽根日式餃子/Hane tsuki Gyoza|MASAの料理ABC

Deep Fried Scallop With Spinach Mushroom Udon

This one is probably one of the more expensive dishes that I make. I never realized that scallops are so expensive. The idea came from the fried scallop sold at the canteen from my high school in Hong Kong. The one from canteen is imitated scallop so I want to try the real deal. Didn’t disappoint at all.

The Udon is made with olive oil, garlic, spinach and mushroom. Simple and delightful and won’t fight with the flavor of the scallop.

Chicken Curry

Simple japanese chicken curry. Not much to explain. The best comfort food.

Chicken Curry Udon

You cooked a pot of curry yesterday for dinner and what would you do with the leftover? Easy, make a quick and easy chicken curry udon for lunch!

Chicken and Scallion Stew

A perfect stew to go with rice. A bit spicy and very filling. This time the recipe is not from Masa (finally). Quick and easy to make as well! Highly recommend.

From Rosalina’s 這是一道你無法抵擋的下飯菜～蔥燒雞燴飯！好吃到飯鍋見底啦～chicken and Scallion stew [Eng Sub]

That’s it! Thanks for reading and I apologize if that make you hungry. Go treat yourself with some food. To whoever says college students eat badly, I like my college food.