Dinner – Nghia's Culinary Arts

Dairy-Free Pickle Eggnog

Happy Holidays! As a lactose-intolerant person, I rarely get to drink eggnog. This one is for all my fellow lactose-intolerant homies. I loosely based this on a recipe by Alton Brown.

Here’s what you’ll need:

4 Egg Yolks
4 Egg Whites
1/3 Cup of Sugar
2 and 1/2 Cups of Oat Milk or Milk Substitute
1 Cup of Silken Tofu
1/2 Cup of Sweet Pickles
1/2 Cup of Pickle Juice
1 Teaspoon of Nutmeg
1 Tablespoon of Vanilla Extract

In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat eggs and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.

Beaten Egg Yolks and Sugar — Beat Egg Yolks

Chop pickles into small pieces and add to food processor. Add pickle juice, silken tofu and 1/2 cup of oat milk to the food processor. Puree the mixture until there are no visible pickle chunks.

Combine and stir the pickle tofu mixture, 2 cups of oat milk, vanilla extract, nutmeg and beaten egg mixture.

Beat egg whites while gradually adding in 1 tablespoon of sugar. Continue beating until it forms stiff peaks. Whisk in the egg whites into the other mixture.

Chill the eggnog in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.

Serve with a selection of pickles.

The original eggnog recipe called for 1 cup of heavy cream. Silken tofu combined with milk works as a heavy cream substitute.

Sadly, you could not taste the pickles in the eggnog. It just tastes like regular eggnog. I have to rate this at 8/10 as it tastes perfectly normal and delicious. You definitely want to drink it all as soon as possible. The eggnog had separated the next day and was nowhere near as good!

One possible improvement is to remove the pickles. Their flavors did not come through in the eggnog and can likely be omitted from the recipe. I’m curious about adding cayenne pepper to the mixture and would like to try it next time.

I’ve only recently discovered the joys of pickles, so I want to incorporate them somehow in a recipe. At the same time, Christmas was coming up, so I wanted to do something Christmas themed. It made sense to do both at the same.

Instant Mashed Popotoes Under Rice

Working with instant foods makes me feel like I’m a college student again.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For Mashed Popotoes:

1 Cup of Frozen Peas
1 Cup of Frozen Corn
2 Packages of Instant Noodles (This recipe used Indomie Mi Goreng)
1 Packet of Instant Loaded Mashed Potatoes

For Grilled Eggplant:

1 Eggplant
2 Tablespoon of Soy Sauce
3 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
1 Teaspoon of Garlic Salt

Miscellaneous:

Bacon
Pre-made Gravy (I had leftovers)
Cooked White Rice
Bread Crumbs
Furikake

In a large pot, add the frozen peas and corn into 4 cups of water. Heat to a boil.

While waiting for the water to boil, skin and slice eggplant.

Skin Eggplant

Slice into thick pieces

Mix together soy sauce, olive oil and garlic salt in a small bowl. Dip and marinate the slices of eggplant in the mixture.

Soy Sauce Mix

Dip Eggplant in Mix

Fry bacon and eggplant in an air fryer for 12 minutes at 320 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once the water is boiling, add instant noodles and seasoning packets.

Instant Noodles

Soft Noods

Allow the instant noodles to soften. Add instant mashed potatoes and mix thoroughly. Continue to mix until the instant noodles and mashed potatoes thicken.

Instant Mashed Potatoes

Instant Mashed Popotoes

Mixture

Spread the mixture on a plate and create an indentation. Add rice into a bowl and put onto the indentation. Plate eggplant and bacon.

Plating

More Plating

Cover rice in gravy and garnish with furikake.

Bonus Recipe

If you have some of the mixture left, refrigerate it. Shape into a flat oval shape. Cover in breadcrumbs.

Bread Popotoes

Cover in oil and fry in air fryer at 320 degrees for 25 minutes.

I’m not sure why I made this. I bought a bunch of random instant stuff and had the bright idea to combine them. Adding rice and gravy on top of everything also was somewhat of a mistake. I ended up really tired and full after eating this.

Overall, I would rate it at 8/10. I gave myself too much and it just had far too many carbs. But it did not taste bad. I think the best part of the dish was the air fried eggplant. The slightly charred soy sauce flavor was great. I ended making it separately and just eating it with rice the next day.

French Toast Omelette

I threw up on my first try. This version should be okay though. Haha.

Here’s what you’ll need:

4 Eggs
1/4 Teaspoon of Cumin
1/4 Teaspoon of Turmeric
1/4 Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
2 Tablespoon of Lemon Pepper
Garlic Salt to taste
Slice of Bread of Choice (Images use a Blueberry Streusel Bread)

In a large bowl, mix eggs, cumin, turmeric and cayenne pepper together.

Once the mixture is homogeneous, dip and soak bread in the mixture.

The Streusel bread makes it sweet and savory!

In a lightly oiled pan, pan fry the French toast.

As the French toast fries, add the remaining seasonings and mix again.

Once the French toast is golden brown on both sides, plate and cool. Pour a ladle of the egg mixture in a Japanese tamagoyaki pan. As the first layer of the egg omelette solidifies, add the French toast.

Roll the omelette and add more egg mixture. Refer to this video if you are not familiar with using a tamagoyaki pan. Continue rolling the omelette until the egg mixture is used up.

Roll until there is nothing left to roll

Allow the omelette to sit the pan for a few minutes on low heat. Brown the omelette each side.

Serve!

I cut it in half to make it easier to eat

I was asked by a friend to make a savory French Toast recipe. However I didn’t want to just remove the sugar and add various seasonings.

I decided to tackle the request in a more abstract way. French Toast is usually some combination of eggs, bread and sugar. Since I used Streusel bread, all I needed to do was find a way to combine eggs and bread that was still French Toast but not.

Since the goal was to make a savory dish, I wanted to also be able to eat it with rice. So I settled with an omelette as I could throw it on top of a bowl of white rice.

I think the recipe sits at a weird 5/10 for me. I don’t know if people put cumin or turmeric in their omelettes, but it was definitely overpowering for me. The saving grace was the sweetness of the Streusel bread. The sweetness really helped tone down the intense flavors coming from the omelette.

If you’re wondering why I threw up the first time, it is because I had initially added 1/4 cup of butter to the pan for the French Toast. This made the sugar on the Streusel bread burn. In my laziness, I used this burnt French Toast in my first omelette and couldn’t keep it down later that night.