In celebration of our mothers we asked staff and colleagues what was their favorite dish prepared by their moms. Here are some appetizing responses:
“It’s a simple dish, but my mom always made me omelettes growing up. She would mix the eggs in a bowl with soy sauce, fish sauce, and green onions, and then cook the mixture until it became browned and crispy on the edges. We would eat the omelette with white rice and a basic Vietnamese soup for a family meal. My mom still makes this for me as an adult!”
— Vivian Nguyen
“My favorite dish my mom would make is the traditional Taiwanese-style dried radish omelette! It goes perfectly with congee and other meat and vegetable dishes too. Whenever I have this, it really brings me back to my childhood.”
— Nina Huang
“Go by feel” is my mom’s secret recipe. My mom could cook ten courses of a Chinese banquet for our extended family at ease. Her garlic pan-fried prawn, abalone, clay pot rice, and onion pork chop are all my favorites. If you have to ask for a recipe with exact measurement of each ingredient, I can tell you upfront, my mom’s cooking is not your style. While I was growing up, I gradually understood my mom’s cooking theory, which I concluded is very universal and there is no secret at all. It only requires you to be very focused when you cook, plus add a little bit of your common sense. Creative and tasty dishes will then happen naturally. Your feel and your common sense will lead you to make good judgments when it comes to cooking.”
— Rebecca Ip
“Thin rice noodles—similar to vermicelli—or a Chinese-style angel hair pasta. It would be the noodles with sliced pork, sliced so thin nothing else has compared, and with a whole egg on top. This dish was absolutely necessary for birthdays.”
— Rosita Chan
“Whenever I smell basil, I think of my mother and her Italian pesto sauce. Every summer, I helped her pluck the fresh green leaves from the garden. We washed them with a hose, then placed them on newspaper to dry in the sun. That night, while hot water boiled for the spaghetti, she made the pesto. The whole house filled with the smell of the crushed basil leaves blended with garlic, olive oil, sea salt, pine nuts, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I added my mother’s pesto recipe to my arsenal. A few years later, in Japan, I had my eye on my future husband. I invited him and some friends to my house for a dinner party. I blended hope and passion into the crushed basil leaves and garlic. He had seconds, and thirds. When he finished off the pot, I knew he was hooked. I credit my mother’s pesto for my marriage. Now that I am a mother, my sons help me plant and pick the basil leaves to make pesto. I hope it brings them as much luck and love as my mother’s recipe brought to me.”
— Laura Ohata
“One of my favorite dishes my mom makes for me is orange chicken. It is so good that I stopped eating at Panda Express. It’s crispy on the outside and flavorful on the inside. I love it so much that I have to have it once a week. When I do, I instagramed it and send to friends. That’s how it got famous. Recently, I hosted a few of my good friends over to watch the Pacquiao fight. They requested to have my mom’s orange chicken and served over white jasmine rice. My mom made appetizers, too. But they didn’t want any— just so they could eat a lot of orange chicken. By the end of the night, she packed each of them a to-go box.”
— Alex Wilson
“My all-time favorite meal that my mom made is Vietnamese seafood gumbo served with rice. The soup base is a combination of chicken broth and fermented fish, and other fresh seafood ingredients, such as shrimp, catfish steak, and squid. Besides all the seafood, she had pork belly slices and eggplants, too. The broth and the smell is the key to this soup. My mom made this soup without any stinky smell of the fermented fish. What’s left was just the lemongrass aroma. I prefer this soup served with rice rather than noodles, topped with variety of Asian herbs. Nobody can top this dish but my mom.”
— Han Bui
“My favorite dish my mom makes for me is Chicken Chawal. It’s a basic chicken curry, which is cooked to perfection. It starts with a base of fennel seeds, finely chopped onions, ginger, and garlic sauteed in Ghee (Indian clarified butter). Masalas are added to the mix, followed by diced fresh tomatoes. Once this mixture reaches the desired consistency, the chicken is dropped in along with water and slowly cooked on medium flame, so that the chicken can absorb all the masalas and the water turns into the delicious gravy. It is garnished with “Tadka,” a sauteed mix of garlic, fennel, salt and other ingredients, and of course, served with rice. We sometimes have plain yogurt or Achaar (Indian Pickles) along with it. There are so many memories associated for me with this dish, that I don’t think anything will ever de-throne it as my favorite!”
— Gurvinder Pal Singh
“My mom makes this amazingly garlicky cheese spread –shredded cheese, minced garlic, and mayo. It’s really simple, but I love spreading it on a piece of bread as a snack. I want some now!”
— Daria Kroupoderova
“Pancit. It was a family favorite.”
— Jason Cruz
“My mom, Assunta Ng, likes to cook simple and healthy dishes for the whole family. The secret to her portabella stir fry with minced pork is to add a little bit of sweet wine at the end and stir well. Delicious! Thanks Mom!”
— John Liu