A Cultural Return to Asian Food With Easy Recipes
Story by Tiffany Ha // she/her // @tiffanyxha
Graphic by Karis Tsao // she/her // @_katsao_
Easy Asian recipes that brought me back home
In my Vietnamese household where words of affection and open admiration were scarce, food was our love language. Growing up in a predominantly white environment, the only Asian food I got was my mother’s intricate homemade dishes. Now I cannot imagine the times when I dreaded eating yet another pot of Thịt Kho Tàu, when today those dishes are my only semblance of home.
After moving to Austin for college, I was often stuck eating American food and found myself missing the cultural dishes I once thought I was bored of. When cooking for myself, I was very intimidated approaching these cultural dishes that I knew took my mother hours to make, so I was stuck making a lot of pasta. Overtime, I found and developed some easy recipes that remind me enough of home while fitting a busy college schedule.
Disclaimer: I am not claiming authenticity to any of these recipes, they only remind me of home.
Caramelized Pork Belly
So the Thịt Kho Tàu I previously mentioned? This is a much easier recipe that still incorporates the sweet and savory flavors while being a little bit stickier and taking less time. My mother would make a giant pot of this pork belly dish for the week and we would eat it for almost every meal. This version reduces the time by not caramelizing the sugar separately.
Ingredients
1 lb pork belly
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp sugar
optional: eggs
Directions
Dice your pork belly into 1 inch cubes.
Mix the fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar in a bowl.
Brown pork belly meat for 2 minutes.
Leave the pot covered and cook for 10 minutes on medium heat.
Add your sauce mixture to the pork belly, stir well to combine, and cook for another minute or until the color is uniform.
Optional: Add however many boiled eggs you want to the pot before stirring in your sauce mixture.
Serve with white rice, pour your sauce over, and enjoy!
Kimchi Fried Rice
Coming home to the smell of my Korean roommate cooking her delicious kimchi fried rice is almost reminiscent of my mom welcoming me home with her fried rice. My roommate’s version is a delightful blend of sweet and spicy. Luckily, she was generous enough to share her recipe with me. Fried rice is one of those meals where the proportions are completely up to you, so there are no measurements listed. Eyeball, taste, and experiment!
Ingredients
day old white rice
spam
eggs
kimchi
gochujang
gochugaru
garlic
sesame seeds
mirin (can be substituted with sugar)
sesame oil
vegetable oil or butter
salt
pepper
optional: seaweed seasoning
Directions
In a large deep pan or wok on medium heat, cook your sliced pieces of spam and caramelize your kimchi in oil or butter with your minced garlic.
Push the spam and kimchi to the side and scramble your eggs, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in your white rice and incorporate the other ingredients.
Add gochujang and gochugaru (for spice), mirin (for sweetness), and sesame oil (for umami) to taste and stir well. Add salt and pepper as needed.
Sprinkle in sesame seeds.
Serve with seaweed seasoning and a fried egg on top and enjoy!
Honey Soy Glazed Salmon
I make this meal every week. Multiple times a week. Probably the easiest meal on here, this honey soy glazed concoction is my go-to salmon recipe. Sometimes I eat it with just roasted broccoli, and other times I will eat it with rice, avocado, seaweed, and kewpie mayonnaise to resemble some sort of sushi-esque flavor profile. The salmon rice bowl that tiktoker @emilymariko popularized has been a staple in many Asian American households, and this is my take on it!
Ingredients
1 salmon filet
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame seeds
salt
pepper
olive oil
Directions
Descale the salmon filet.
Oil salmon on all sides.
Lightly salt and pepper salmon. (Soy sauce is already salty, so you don’t need a lot of salt.)
Brush soy sauce on all sides of the salmon.
Place the salmon (skin side down) on top of tin foil in an airfryer at 380° for 7 minutes. (You can also convert these times and temperatures to bake in a conventional oven.)
Brush honey and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Put back in airfryer for 2 more minutes. (Cooking times may vary depending on salmon filet size and thickness).
Serve and enjoy!