my dorm cooking recs

Back in November, I wrote a Twitter thread on my favorite things to cook as a Chinese American college student who doesn’t really know how to cook all that well but really misses home flavors. That thread got way more likes than I expected (it wasn’t viral or anything, but it definitely received more attention than most of the things I’ve even tweeted about my book).

But I’ve learned a little bit since November! And also, that thread is super-duper buried in my feed now! So as a gift to, like, the two people who will see this, here it is in a blog post, updated with a few more things, and written with proper capitalization for ease of reading.

contents

I’m too lazy to delve into the HTML and make links to different sections, so use control-f or command-f to look for each section, or just scroll down.

• important information

• congee, zhou, juk, rice porridge, whatever you want to call it

• noodle soup

• fried rice

• spam musubi

• tomato eggs

• uh. veggies + protein + rice?

• japanese curry rice

• miso soup

• frozen food… lol

• a note on kimchi, since i brought it up

• the emily mariko salmon bowl

• shanghainese cai fan

important information

Before I begin, I should let you know, many of these things can still be time-consuming to make, even if they are objectively easy. Prepping these on a free day and refrigerating or freezing the leftovers has been really helpful for me. I just bought a set of deli containers that can go in the freezer, and I plan to portion out full meals and freezing them. Just make sure to Google what can and can’t be frozen because it will affect the texture of some things.

Also, I don’t cook that much. So getting ingredients can be hard! I try to stock up early in the semester on stuff that’s either shelf-stable, very long-lasting in the fridge (napa cabbage seems to last forever), or can be frozen, and then I use it up slowly.

I’m also not a great cook. I know the very basics. Sometimes what I make is worse than what I could get in the college dining hall. But food always seems to taste better when I’m the one who made it. Of all the aspects of my culture, food is what I have the most knowledge of, so it is very special to me when I make something myself—even more special when I get to share it with my loved ones. You don’t have to be a good cook to sustain yourself and enjoy what you’re eating. You just need to know a few staple dishes.

congee, zhou, juk, rice porridge, whatever you want to call it

When I just want to dump some stuff in a pot and wait, I like to make a pot of plain white congee and just put a bunch of toppings on it. When it comes to cooking, I hate measuring things (I love measuring things when baking, though), so I just put in what looks like an appropriate amount of rice and water. That being said, here is a recipe you might consider following if you’re unsure of the proper ratio—you can just use plain water if you don’t want to bother with chicken stock and other accoutrements. Sometimes I use uncooked rice, sometimes cooked, though my mom always tells me uncooked rice is better because the congee will be more fragrant.

Here are some toppings I usually put on my congee!

• pork floss

• chili bamboo

• century egg

• ginger

• scallion

• fermented tofu

• furikake

noodle soup

It’s not quite as quick and easy as ramen, but it’ll make you feel a lot better, and it’s pretty quick if you use thin noodles.

I use premade stock (my favorite is Better than Buillon concentrate) to cook some thin noodles like somen or vermicelli, plus a vegetable like bok choy or pea shoots, and a pre-cooked protein like tofu or Spam—you could even use hot dogs. If your (again, very thin) noodles come in bundles or blocks, you don’t even need to boil it; just add hot water like in this video. (Nutrition by Kylie is one of my favorite YouTube/TikTok food accounts!)

I got fancy once and did one inspired by hot pot, throwing some dried shiitake mushrooms and sliced ginger into the chicken stock. From there, I added napa cabbage, small slices of Spam, glass vermicelli noodles, and thinly-sliced pork belly. It was delicious. Highly recommend if you have the time to slice pork belly or the money to get it pre-sliced.

fried rice

This is a great thing to make if you are a college student and want to try to use your dining hall’s ingredients. You can usually find rice, plus a few vegetables that work well (mine will usually have at least a few of these on a good day: green beans, peas, carrots, edamame, corn, bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms). If you’re vegan or vegetarian, buy some seitan or five-spice tofu for your protein; if you’re not, I suggest lap cheong, Spam, or certain kinds of meat that your dining hall might serve that you can then cut up into cubes, like grilled chicken or roasted pork. And some eggs are always good.

Oh, wait, you’re not a college student? Okay. Get a frozen veggie mix from the supermarket and add the protein of your choice. Also cook some rice, and then let it sit—make sure it’s at least a day old.

Once you’ve got your ingredients ready, fry your rice! Basics with Babish has a decent video on it if you don’t care much about authenticity; otherwise, you can always follow a proper recipe, like this one from Made with Lau.

spam musubi

Can you tell yet I’m a fan of Spam? My family didn’t actually eat it much at home, mostly using it for hot pot, but as a college student, I do recommend it because it can be stored at room temperature, is already cooked, and is surprisingly versatile. I started making Spam musubi after seeing a few too many TikToks of people making it. It’s delightful, though very salty—I suggest getting low-sodium Spam if you can find it.

Spam has a good recipe on their website, but it doesn’t have to be this complicated if you don’t want it to be. I just cook the Spam in a pan with a little soy sauce. I don’t have a mold for the rice, either; I just shape it with my hands dipped in water, or with the rice paddle.

tomato eggs

Chinese people love to stir fry eggs with whatever vegetable. I love tomato eggs; when done right, they’re custardy and flavorful and just really comforting. Here’s a good recipe from The Woks of Life; this isn’t exactly the method I do, but it should achieve good results. I like to make sure the eggs are considerably underdone when I take them out so that some of the uncooked egg later mixes with the tomato juices when you add them back in.

Serve with rice or cooked and drained wheat noodles.

uh. veggies + protein + rice?

A continuation of the last thing, kind of. This can be quick and easy, or rather complicated, but a combination of a vegetable, a protein, and a starch is usually nutritious and filling, you know?

Stir frying or blanching leafy greens is fairly straightforward—the way my mom taught me to stir fry, you do it with a bit of oil in a wok on high heat until it wilts, and then season with salt and sugar (and MSG if you have it) to taste, and then cover and put on low heat until fully cooked. If it’s all leaves and no stalk, like pea shoots or spinach, just stir fry on high until it wilts; no need to cover and cook longer.

I’m still learning how to make protein dishes because I dislike handling raw meat, and I lived with a vegan for a year and a half, so there was no real reason for me to be cooking meat until this semester. Sometimes I get pre-marinated bulgogi from H Mart. I tried red braised pork belly recently, but it came out quite tough to chew and very salty.

To be honest, usually, if I’m stir frying a vegetable and serving it with a protein, the protein is whatever leftovers I have from getting takeout.

japanese curry rice

Again, this is just vegetables, protein, and rice, but this time served in a sauce.

Get a packet of curry roux. Follow the instructions on it. The classic vegetables to put in are potatoes, onions, and carrots. If you’re vegetarian, potatoes have an okay enough amount of protein that you won’t have to sub in seitan or anything; if you’re not vegetarian, try doing cubes of chicken or beef. Bam. Quick and easy meal. This, in particular, is good to freeze if you’re doing meal prep, though it may affect the texture a bit.

miso soup

You literally just put your soup ingredients into hot stock (TBH sometimes I just do water) and then add miso paste. I like the classic tofu, wakame, and enoki mushroom combination. Serve with some rice, and maybe fish if you feel like making that.

frozen food… lol

Oh, you think Trader Joe’s has a good frozen food aisle? Try an Asian grocery store near you. I, of course, am Chinese, so I gravitate towards frozen dumplings, wontons, and buns. It’s quick and easy, and when I’m sick of dining hall food but don’t want to really cook, I grab one of these. I also really like the Yoshinoya beef and onion packets, if you can find them anywhere. I just put them on rice and eat some kimchi on the side so I don’t feel bad about not having any vegetables.

a note on kimchi, since i brought it up

My parents are not from the spicy-food area of China, and I grew up in a town where the Asians were predominantly Chinese or Indian, so we didn’t eat much Korean food when I was growing up. But I enjoy it now! I like to have a bit of kimchi in the fridge most of the time. If I want a vegetable but don’t want to cook, I just get some kimchi out. It’s also very versatile for cooking, though I haven’t actually cooked with kimchi yet. One of my friends who also likes to cook made sujebi one time, and now I want to try it myself at some point.

the emily mariko salmon bowl

Lifestyle TikToker Emily Mariko popularized a way to make salmon bowls, and now it’s the only way I can tolerate eating the salmon served by my dining hall. Just look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about. All I do differently is that I don’t reheat my rice with an ice cube, I often don’t put in mayo, and I add furikake seasoning or a little toasted sesame oil if the salmon isn’t too oily. Also, I don’t always have roasted seaweed, so sometimes it’s just the salmon, rice, and kimchi.

shanghainese cai fan

My mom didn’t make this a lot when I was growing up because it’s a very simple one-pot meal, and she can do better than that. But I can’t. So I’ve made this a lot. The Woks of Life has a good recipe. I, however, keep it simple by just chopping up the bok choy and salted pork (or, more often, Chinese sausage) into tiny pieces and then throwing it into a rice cooker along with some rice and water—less water than I’d usually use to make rice, since bok choy has a lot of water already. Then you just wait until it’s cooked through. The bok choy will be kind of yellowish if you do it this way instead of stir frying it separately, but it still tastes fine.