Since we’re such foodies, people think Erin and I eat out all the time. But the fact is, we cook a lot at home too. Last night, f’rinstance, I grilled chicken breasts rubbed with homemade spinach pesto, served with Caesar salad with homemade dressing (Erin makes the BEST Caesar dressing) and wild grain rice, drizzled with homemade Argentinian Chimichurri sauce.
OK, so it ain’t Asian. We cook a lot of Asian dishes too, not just Japanese but also Korean and Indian and Chinese. We often start with recipes but hardly ever stay true to those recipes. We tweak and customize everything — mostly, we add a lot more garlic than the recipe requires.
Now we have another source for Asian recipes: Asian Supper.
Here’s what the site says about its origins:
AsianSupper was started by two friends (with loads of support from their families) who felt there was a lack of truly authentic and modern Asian recipes for English speakers, despite the growing popularity of Asian food.
Whenever we looked for Asian recipes, we’d end up being slightly disappointed — either because the recipe we were looking for was hard to find or not available at all, or because the recipe frankly didn’t taste very good (of course, that could entirely have been our fault).
So we set out to create a home for tasty, authentic recipes, whether traditional or modern. After tons of work collecting recipes from our friends and family, we’re proud to launch AsianSupper.
We need your help in finding and sharing even more authentic Asian recipes. So we invite you to share your own recipes, whether it’s Grandma’s secret soup broth or a fresh and updated take on classics. And don’t forget to share your stories about travel, learn more about Asian food customs, and connect with other Asian food lovers!
Theresa Sim, one of the founders, admits the site is heavy on Korean and Thai recipes right now because of their families, but they’re inviting readers to submit recipes from other Asian cultures. The Japanese is a good start with some traditional dishes as well as “Omurice,” which is an omelet stuffed with ketchup-flavored rice and other ingredients (it’s delish, really), which is a much more modern invention.
I look forward to to Asian Supper also featuring Asian American dishes. For instance, there are a lot of Japanese Americans who cook variations of traditional dishes (various twists on Fried rice made with bacon is one example; anything made with Spam is another) that are distinctly second-gen or farther down the genealogical food chain.
Plus, it would be great for people to start submitting Polynesian and Hawai’ian and Filipino dishes. Right now, there’s a Filpino section with only one recipe, for Lumpia, the Filipino eggroll variant. I for one would love to learn how to make a good Pancit.
We’ve tackled chicken and fish Adobo but we’re suckers for anything with noodles!
Hi Gil … thanks a bunch for the mention and feedback. Adding a category for Asian American dishes like spam musubi and such is a great idea. We have been wondering how to categorize dishes like that – simply as “Asian”, “Asian Fusion” (a term I kind of dislike), or another option? Hopefully your readers might have some thoughts. And we will definitely add Hawaiian as a separate cuisine category.
Spam musubi is actually Hawaiian, so it could go in there. As for a general category of “fusion” (I don’t care for the term either) dishes, how about just plain “Asian American?” So it might be Kakimochi chips, which are bite-sized Doritos coated and baked with a soy/sugar/sesame seed mix (everyone who tastes it gets hooked right away), or it might be “Kimchee Quesadillas” (something that’s made by the folks who run the Kogi BBQ trucks in LA) but it’s definitely taking traditional Asian elements but putting it in the context of Asian American generations’ palates.