I probably make these scrambled eggs at least once a month. Easy, healthy, and delicious, they make a perfect breakfast (who am I kidding, I make this for dinner all the time too). You can serve this atop rice, but I prefer these soft and warm eggs by themselves.
Make sure to get Asian garlic chives for these, as the flavor and texture are completely different than your standard grocery store chives.
Ingredients:
1 small bunch garlic chives (about 1/2 pound), cleaned and chopped into 1-inch lengths
4 eggs
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon instant dashi granules (optional)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, soy sauce, salt, and dashi together until blended.
2. Heat the oil in a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, then add the garlic chives, sauteing for a couple of minutes until they’re bright green and wilted.
3. Pour the eggs into the pan and turn down the heat to low. Let the eggs cook, undisturbed, until you see the bottom of the eggs turn opaque.
4. Give the eggs a gentle stir, scraping the cooked egg up from the edges off the bottom of the pan, and allowing the raw egg at the top to run underneath. Let this cook until the bottom layer turns opaque and stir again.
5. Repeat step 4 until the eggs have reached your desired doneness (I like for much of the eggs to remain soft and opaque). Remember that the eggs will continue to cook a little after you turn off the heat. Serve warm.
Growing up, one of my favorite after-school snacks was halvah rolled up with lavash flatbread: simple, sweet, and satisfying. Called halvardeh in Persian, Middle Eastern halvah is ubiquitous these days in well-stocked American grocery stores. But when I was a kid, halvah was precious: we’d make semi-monthly drives from Santa Rosa to San Jose to stock up on Iranian favorites, including halvah, sour cherry jam, lavashak (sour fruit roll ups), and spices and herbs for days.
This halvah-stuffed challah is a grown-up version of my childhood snack and make no mistake about it: this is a weekend project. Adapted from a Food and Wine recipe, this takes the better part of an afternoon to make, and the results are well worth it. This recipe makes two loaves so make like me and freeze one for eating later, when the craving strikes.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
5 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 cup tahini
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey
Salt
1 1/2 cups chopped halvah
Sesame seeds and more sugar, for sprinkling
1. Make the dough: In a small bowl, whisk the water with the yeast and 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Let stand for 10 minutes, until foamy.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk 4 of the eggs with the oil and 1 teaspoon of the vanilla. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flour, pinch of salt, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cardamom and the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar. Mix to blend. Add the egg and yeast mixtures and knead until the dough comes together, scraping down the side and bottom of the bowl, about 3 minutes. Scrape the dough out onto a work surface and knead until smooth and slightly sticky, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the dough to an oiled large bowl and cover with wax paper and a towel on top.
3. Make the filling and topping: In a medium bowl, stir the tahini with 1/3 cup of the honey, the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and 2 tablespoons of water until smooth. In a small bowl, beat the remaining egg with the remaining 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 tablespoon of water.
What surprised me most about Turkish cuisine when I visited Istanbul several years ago was how spicy it could be. I thought the food would be more like its Iranian counterpart: herbaceous and drizzled with saffron and turmeric at every turn. And while Turkish cuisine incorporates similar flavors, it’s also laden with peppers, both mild and hot. I loved it. Redolent with fresh vegetables, flatbreads, yogurt, lamb, and ingredients similar to the Iranian palate I’d grown up with, Turkish food was at the same time familiar but not.
One of my favorite dishes were these poached eggs. No one does breakfast like the Turks. The silky sauce is garlicy, yogurty, and has just enough heat so that you can’t stop sopping it up with bread, yolks and all. You can serve this with any flatbread, but I prefer this with some good-quality slices of toasted sourdough. Iranian barbari is delicious too.
6. Divide the warm creamy yogurt mixture between 2 
shallow bowls. Top each with 
a poached egg, and pour the peppery butter around and slightly over the yogurt. Serve with bread.
It’s apple season in California and one can only eat (or juice) so many apples plain. What to do? Make dessert out of them, obvs. Here we have peanut butter, puff pastry, and of course, apples. How can you go wrong?
The whole thing comes together in just a few minutes, making this recipe easy enough even for a baking novice like me. It’s all the glory of the west coast’s seasonal produce wrapped up in a buttery, flaky, sweet-and-salty crust. (Sorry, juicer.)
1 sheet frozen puff pasty, thawed
Flour, for dusting
6 to 8 tablespoons peanut butter
1 pound apples (about 2 large), peeled, cored, sliced into ½-inch wedges (use any kind but a tart variety, like Granny Smith)
1/4 cup chopped salted, roasted peanuts
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
Sugar, for sprinkling
1 egg
1. Preheat oven to 425F. Roll out puff pastry on a floured surface into a long rectangle. Cut in half crosswise (halves should be almost square). Transfer to a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet; prick puff pastry with a fork in several places. Using a small spatula, spread 3 to 4 tablespoons peanut butter in the center of each half to make a 5-inch round. Pile up apples in the center of each puff pastry and top with peanuts. Dot fruit with butter and sprinkle with sugar.
2. Beat egg and 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl, then brush pastry with egg wash and fold up edges around apples, leaving the center open. Press along the folded edges to lightly seal. Brush outside of pastry with egg wash and sprinkle with more sugar. Let chill in freezer 10 minutes.
3. Bake tarts until pastry is golden, 15–20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° and continue to bake until pastry is golden brown and apples are softened, 20–25 minutes.
Welcome to your new favorite banana bread recipe. Contrary to what you might be thinking, no, you can’t taste the miso in the final product here. Instead, it’s like someone took banana bread and amped up the taste, resulting in this deeply flavorful, showstopping treat. I’ve adapted this recipe from the original in Food & Wine, and my version is on regular rotation this days in casa yogurtsoda.
Ingredients:
5 overripe bananas
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup white miso
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Butter and flour a 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch metal loaf pan. In a bowl, using 
a fork, mash 4 of the bananas until chunky. In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. Using a mixer fitted with the paddle, mix the butter, sugar and miso at medium speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. At low speed, slowly add the buttermilk, then beat in 
the eggs 1 at a time until incorporated. Beat in the mashed bananas; the batter will look curdled. Add the dry ingredients and mix until blended. Scrape into the prepared pan.
3. Slice the remaining banana lengthwise and arrange the halves on top of the batter side by side, cut side up. Bake for 
1 hour and 20 minutes. Let the bread cool for 30 minutes before turning out to cool completely.
