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By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
There are many different Thanksgiving traditions that Asian and Asian American families partake in, but one of the most important, if not the most important, is the Thanksgiving meal itself.
While traditional dishes incorporate turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and pumpkin pie, some folks decided to infuse their dishes with some Asian flavors this year to add culture and flair to their meals.
Main dishes with some kick and spice
Kimberly Chan’s husband, Ani Vijay, likes to try a different turkey recipe each year.
Vijay’s turkey endeavors were inspired from the first time he experienced American Thanksgiving after arriving in the United States from India, Chan said.
“He’s been mastering deep frying and infrared frying turkeys annually in the last decade, changing up marinades and spice rubs each year. His mom is a skillful home cook so he’s learned to seek out good flavors since he was young. This year, we’re hosting a party for 20 so he’ll be managing three heritage turkeys (one in the infrared fryer, two in the smoker),” Chan said.
She added that their turkeys are always juicy (because of frying) and flavorful.
Sarah Chan and her family always marinate their turkey with soy and oyster sauce. They lather first and then baste with butter mixed with the soy and oyster sauce.
Diane Saw was inspired by her mother who had a knack for serving dishes that would make one salivate.
“There were many signature dishes, crowd pleasers that had our extended family or friends begging for leftovers. One of those dishes was her chicken curry served with potatoes. It is a Malaysian style curry that is rich in spices and a little more savory than your traditional Thai curries. This year, I recreated that dish with a twist, calling it curry chicken pot pie. The buttery puff pastry was the perfect upgrade,” Saw shared.
Mina Huynh and her family usually have Thanksgiving dinner at her cousin’s house and they do most of the cooking. However, she and her husband usually make one dish that’s different from typical Thanksgiving dishes. Last year, they made a goat curry dish and before that, it was intestines stuffed with different meats. This year, they’re sticking to the poultry theme and planning to make a crowd pleaser: free range chicken curry with taro made with coconut water and coconut cream.
Adding sides with Asian flavors
Emily Jen and her husband love eating and cooking. For them, sticky rice stuffing is the perfect addition to a Thanksgiving feast, savory and reminiscent of home.
“I didn’t grow up eating a typical Thanksgiving meal. My mom made us crabs and sticky rice for Thanksgiving because she didn’t know how to make turkey and stuffing. So having something from our culture to bring to the Thanksgiving tradition adds the feelings of warmth and gratitude that is inherent to the holiday. Also, my son has so many allergies and it’s easier to steer clear of his allergens with sticky rice,” Jen said.
Award-winning food journalist, Hsiao-Ching Chou, is about to launch her newest cookbook, “Feasts of Good Fortune,” with her daughter, Mei-lee Riddle, who co-wrote the book.
In her cookbook, they feature their unique Asian take on two vegetable dishes often seen at the traditional dinner table: Brussels sprouts and kale.
They created a recipe for wok-charred Brussels sprouts, with smoked soy sauce, and stir-fried kale, with dried cranberries.
The mother-daughter duo shared that they wanted to include kale in their cookbook because it’s so popular.
“Around Thanksgiving, people start thinking about different ways to use cranberries. Both come together for this stir-fry, which is savory and sweet and looks festive. We prefer Tuscan kale, which is also known as dinosaur kale,” they stated in the book.
“I typically use Taiwanese soy sauces for my cooking. But I really enjoy the smokiness of the Haku smoked shoyu, which is brewed in Japan and smoked with a Japanese white oak. It’s a light smoke and adds dimension to the Brussels sprouts. As with any soy sauce, you can use the smoked soy sauce to season any number of dishes. It tastes great with sushi rolls,” Chou said.
For Thanksgiving, I’ll likely make the Brussels sprouts, because they’ll be in season and I love proving to people who don’t like Brussels sprouts that they can taste delicious. Around this time of year, Brussels sprouts show up at farmers markets on branches—which means they’re super fresh. We want to take advantage of that seasonality,” Chou added.
Saving the best and sweetest for last
Olivia Foster, who is Taiwanese American, has two extra helpers this year to help with their Thanksgiving meal. She experimented with a new recipe this year and had some help from her 4-year-old son.
“Growing up, my family celebrated Thanksgiving with traditional Thanksgiving dishes and Asian sides for desserts. Tang yuan with black sesame filling was a staple, and these black sesame chocolate rolls combine my favorite flavors with my son’s love for cinnamon rolls,” Foster said.
Samantha Thompson, originally from Hong Kong, loves cooking traditional Asian dishes, but decided to try something new and creative this holiday season. She looked up sweet potato casserole recipes and thought of the different ways she could incorporate Asian flavors.
She decided on ube, sweet potato, and taro balls, and wanted to add texture so she added mochi. Topping is usually pecan so she subbed with macadamia nuts and chestnut for an Asian touch.
Fadzrul Jamaluddin is making a Malaysian custard dessert called seri muka, which is typically made with pandan, but he was inspired by Thanksgiving to use pumpkin instead. The dessert has glutinous rice at the bottom and pumpkin custard on top.
Kristen Morita is a fourth generation Chinese-Japanese American. She was born in California, but she was part of a large Japanese American community, many of whom first immigrated to Hawaii where her Japanese great-great-grandmother was born.
Okinawan sweet potato haupia pie is a well known and beloved Asian-Hawaiian fusion dish known as “local food” in Hawaii and many of her family friends have their own recipes for this dish as well.
Okinawan sweet potato is a sweet potato from the morning glory family with light brown skin and bright purple flesh. When cooked, the flesh becomes a striking dark violet. As the name implies, this sweet potato is commonly grown in Okinawa, Japan.
Haupia is a traditional Hawaiian dessert made from coconut milk.
Morita also has another Asian fusion recipe for yuzu meringue pie. Yuzu is a very tart citrus fruit native to East Asia. It’s predominantly grown in Japan and China, but is popular among many Asian countries. It is round and about the size of a small orange, typically yellow in color. Yuzu is notorious for having many seeds, which makes it difficult to get much juice out of the fresh fruit. Fresh yuzu is also somewhat difficult to find in the United States, so her recipes mostly require bottled yuzu juice.
Nina can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.