Semiserious Chefs

“I can’t stop thinking about the flavor of that achiote sauce you made! If I bring some pork chops over, do you think we could do something ‘achiote’ with them?” …1 hour and 20 pork chops later… It’s interesting how many ways there are to go about an achiote meat dish. I have both the […]

I love the summers in Alaska. I really do. I don’t know anyone in their right mind who could say otherwise. The thing is, I’ve gone through my share of winters here in Anchorage. Granted they’re not terrible winters like those you get farther north, but they last long enough that I’m just getting downright […]

*Warning! This recipe is spicy. Not the spiciest I’ve made by any means, but it’s got a bit of heat going on. Really, it just has a nice flavor to it without relying on outrageous levels of heat to make the dish. As the name implies, it contains 6 different chili pepper powders, but they […]

Having worked on 6 furikake recipes before this one, I am surely getting the hang of flavors and styles by now. As great as it is to replicate existing ideas, it’s also nice to come up with something your own, as it pertains to your personal preferences and region. That being said, there isn’t much […]

Perhaps a little monotone in color, don’t let the appearance of this pork chop fool you. It’s rich and delicious! One of the things I like best about pork chops, besides being the right price for my budget, is the versatility of marinade and topping choices. Pork blends well with a multitude of flavors, from […]

There are several names and styles for this kind of furikake. First, shiso, perilla, and beefsteak plant are all the same thing. It is a member of the mint family, with green to dark purple tooth-edged leaves. It has a very strong mint-basil flavor, with definite pepperiness and a bitter undertone. It can also be […]

This did not start as a vegan recipe. Well it wasn’t intended to be a vegan recipe. … at least at the start. I was simply trying to make a fried cake of some sort using shredded taro, and I happened to have carrots and some unfortunately frozen radishes on hand. I don’t know if […]

Most everyone has heard of taro chips. Even if you’ve never cooked with taro and just know them from those bags of multi colored chips, the idea is pretty basic; super thin slices of taro root deep fried, just like a potato chip. Since this idea is nothing new, I wanted to come up with […]

‘Ground Provisions’ was a rather obscure sounding dish when I first came across it. Interestingly it’s a pretty straight forward idea. They are simply ground-based vegetables, AKA roots, tubers, corms, and rhizomes, that are providing the carbohydrates for the meal. These are most often potatoes, sweet potatoes, African/Asian yams, taro, cassava, squash, or plantains, even […]

Taro is a starch used by nations all around the world, and in a lot of different ways. Having started with a Trinidad inspired dish involving coconut, it was only fitting to head to Asia, strongly believed to be the traditional home of the taro root, and create an entirely different dish that also uses […]