Category Archives: Cool Cooking Techniques

Great Finds, Part II: The Dumpling Class

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Pork-Wagyu beef dumplings, cooked and ready to eat, that my friend Charlen and I made in Eddie Lo's class.
Pork-Wagyu beef dumplings, cooked and ready to eat, that my friend Charlen and I made in Eddie Lo’s class.

For a dozen years, Eddie Lo was on the tech fast track in Silicon Valley.

After graduating with a bachelor’s in industrial engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley, followed by a master’s in operations research and information engineering from Cornell University, he worked at such heavy weights as Cisco, YouTube, Google and Coinbase.

Then, he made a major pivot.

He traded project management of cryptocurrency and data for pleating Chinese dumplings instead.

Lo launched “Eating with Edmund,” hands-on dumpling classes at his San Francisco home, four and a half years ago. Since then, he’s taught more than 5,000 people.

His 3-hour classes, limited to a maximum of eight people at a time, consistently sell out, too. They are priced at $129 per person.

Eddie Lo in his home kitchen.
Eddie Lo in his home kitchen.

“Tech was a lot of yelling and a lot of stress,” he says. “It wasn’t my happy place. The happiest I am is when I’m cooking.”

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A Pleasing, Unexpected Tea

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Waste not, want not -- a soothing tea made from the silks from corn on the cob.
Waste not, want not — a soothing tea made from the silks from corn on the cob.

On a trip to Tokyo last year, my husband and I trekked to a charming, out-of-the-way shop specifically for one thing and one thing only.

We ended up, however, equally enamored with something that came with it that was wholly unexpected.

At Shun Raku, opened by two couples, the specialty is Hokkaido soft serve, that impossibly rich, milky, naturally sweet tasting ice cream made from the milk of Japanese Jersey cows. It did not disappoint. When its towering swirls arrived in a cup to our table, so did complimentary glasses of a warm, clear beverage with an attached sticky-note with a hand-drawn smiley face and the words, “hot corn tea.”

It had the delicate, soothing taste of unadulterated sweet summer corn. I’d never had anything like it before. And I was smitten with it from the get-go.

So, when I recently happened upon a recipe for “Corn Silk and Honey Tea,” I just had to try it.

This easy recipe is from the debut cookbook,”Rooted in Fire” (HarperOne), of which I received a review copy.

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Marvelous Microwave Mushrooms

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You won't believe how easy and delicious these microwaved shiitakes are.
You won’t believe how easy and delicious these microwaved shiitakes are.

This is the mushroom hack that you didn’t know you needed.

It’s a quick-as-a-wink recipe that’s perfect when you’re time-pressed.

Or in need an ideal base for a quick vegetarian meal. Or a no-brainer side dish to any Asian-influenced main.

“Steamed Shiitakes with Ginger-Garlic-Scallion Sauce” is fast, delicious, and deceptive. That’s because the “steaming” happens in about 5 minutes in your microwave.

It results in the silkiest, slipperiest, most supple mushrooms that are also plenty saucy.

This genius recipe is from “Hello, Home Cooking” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.

The cookbook is by Ham El-Waylly, a New York City recipe developer and video creator who is chef-partner of the New Orleans-style seafood bar, Strange Delight in Brooklyn.

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Chef Greg Baxtrom’s Heirloom Tomato Schnitzel

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Meet tomato schnitzel -- a fun and delicious treatment to give summer tomatoes.
Meet tomato schnitzel — a fun and delicious treatment to give summer tomatoes.

When it comes to summer tomatoes, I’ve sandwiched them, stuffed them, layered them, grilled them, pureed ’em, salad-ed them, and even devoured them right out of hand plucked from the vines in my own backyard.

But until now, I’d never schnitzel-ed them.

And boy, was I missing out.

Yes, the German method of breading and frying pork, veal or beef until crisp and golden can be applied to thick slices of beefsteak heirloom tomatoes to fun and delicious effect.

“Heirloom Tomato Schnitzel” is a recipe from the new cookbook, “Nothing Matters…but Delicious: A Radically Honest Cookbook” (Ten Speed Press).

It was written by Greg Baxtrom, chef-owner of Five Acres in New York with assist from food and wine writer and editor, Joshua David Stein.

The former chef-owner of the acclaimed Olmstead in Brooklyn, Baxtrom has worked in such standout establishments as Michelin three-starred Per Se in New York City; and Michelin two-starred restaurants, Alinea in Chicago and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York.

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Instant Ramen? Instant Yum!

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Transform your favorite instant ramen into a version of mac and cheese with spinach.
Transform your favorite instant ramen into a version of mac and cheese with spinach.

They say that if you have a pack of ramen, you have a meal.

Well, know what else you have?

A pretty nifty version of mac and cheese in the making, too.

That’s just what “Spinach Ramen Gratin” is like.

It’s from the ingenious cookbook, “Instant Ramen Kitchen” (Chronicle Books, 2025), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by Peter J. Kim, a food entrepreneur who was the founding director of Brooklyn’s now-shuttered Museum of Food and Drink, the former head of creator partnerships at Pinterest, and the former host of Counterjam, Food52’s food and music podcast. He readily admits to eating several bowls of instant ramen each week.

Ramen has a storied history and a fierce following. It was invented in Japan by Momofuku Ando in 1958 in the aftermath of World War II, when he was inspired to create something fast and cheap to nourish his impoverished countrymen.

How beloved is it? As Kim writes in the book, the Fuji Research Institute conducted a poll in 2000 to ask people to name the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century. The winner, of course, was instant ramen.

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