not one, not two, but three videos
and an updated butter tart recipe for Canada Day 🇨🇦
Hey beloved dispatchers,
It’s Sunday, June 29th, 2025. I’m thrilled to say my once-broken wrist is now totally healed and I’m back to cooking, baking, and making content.
Here’s all the news that’s fit to newsletter.
Three new videos?!
It’s true! Three new videos! Two on No Expert, and one on Epicurious. Here they are, in order of their release!
Gagh with Chef Frank
Chef Frank Proto of Protocooks and Epicurious is back on No Expert, and we’re each making our own version of gagh – that’s serpent worms from Star Trek, if you don’t know. This was a super fun video to make and edit, and (if I may say so) a super fun edition to our little sporadically released nerdy food miniseries that includes our blue bantha milk from Star Wars and recipes inspired by The Lord of the Rings.
4 Levels of Teriyaki on Epicurious
I’m back on episode as a Level 2 Chef making Salmon Teriyaki alongside some absolutely delightful humans: Level 1 Billy, Chef Yuji Haraguchi, and Food Scientist Rosemary Trout! Always a pleasure to see my pals in the plain white void.
Saffron Butter Salmon
Last but certainly not least, this is a sponsored video recipe for MOWI Salmon. This is a super tasty and simple oven-roasted salmon with a saffron marinade and a panko crust. I use a Middle Eastern* technique where you make tea with ground saffron and hot water to get more saffron flavor into more of the dish without spending an arm and a leg on saffron.
*At least, I’m pretty sure it’s Middle Eastern, but open to correction here!
If you don’t mind watching it, you’d be doing me a solid – sponsorships help me make more content!
A butter tart recipe for Canada Day
Butter tarts are one of Canada’s most beloved treats, and as Canada Day approaches, I thought I’d share an updated recipe I’ve been working on. (Stay tuned for pistachio-black lime date squares and coffee-coconut Nanaimo bars, too!)
I wanted to zhuzh up these (already excellent) Canadian classics a little by bringing in flavor profiles from other continents to celebrate something I love both about Canada and my current home in Queens: incredible diversity and all the great things that brings.
The updates require a little more work than the original butter tart, but I think you’ll find that they are totally worth it.
If you want the standard recipe, ask me in the comments and I’ll post it down there!
Brown Butter Miso Caramel Butter Tarts
1. Make pie dough.
312 g (2.5 cups + 1.5 Tbsp) AP flour
2 tsp white sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed (or 1/2 cup each butter and lard)
3/4 cup ice water or a little less (will depend on humidity & your flour)
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
Cut in butter (and lard, if using) until butter is in pea sized pieces and coat with flour. Add just enough ice water to combine.
Wrap and rest in the fridge at least 1 hour and up to 3 days (or freeze).
Much can be said about how to make pie dough, so here’s a short video on technique, in case it helps.
2. Make miso caramel.
Credit where it’s due, I started with this Food52 recipe and, while I’ve tweaked the ingredients to my liking, the technique remains much the same.
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
2/3 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 Tbsp tablespoons red miso
Stir together sugar and water.
Bring to a boil over medium high heat without stirring. Brush sugar crystals down with wet pastry brush, if you’re up for it.
While the sugar and water warm up, break up your miso in a small bowl with a spoon or fork. You may want to add a dash of milk to help loosen it, depending on your miso – mine was quite clumpy when added straight to the caramel without doing this in tests.
When the sugar is golden brown or a little darker, remove the pot from the heat, add coconut milk, and whisk.
If it starts to seize, rewarm the mix over low heat.
Whisk in miso (if your miso is clumpy nonetheless, just keep whisking – it’ll break up eventually, and any small remaining bits won’t hurt the flavor or texture).
Allow to cool and store in fridge until ready to use.
3. Brown 1/2 cup unsalted butter.
Cut 1/2 cup of unsalted butter into pieces and heat in a light-colored pan until foam subsides and the milk solids turn a light golden brown and start to smell like a bakery. Set aside to cool.
4. Form pie shells and chill.
Roll out your pie dough and cut into circles. Line the cups of an ungreased muffin tin.
I use a cup that’s a little wider than my muffin tin cups to cut out circles, then roll them a little thinner once cut out.
5. Preheat oven to 350° F.
6. Make filling.
Whisk together, in order:
1 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup (or sub maple syrup)
1/2 cup brown butter
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp white vinegar (optional)
2 tsp of vanilla extract
2 tsp miso caramel
Ladle 1 tsp or less of miso caramel into the bottoms of tart shells – just enough to coat the bottom.
Then, ladle filling goo over caramel to fill, leaving just a few millimeters of dough unfilled at the top of the tart shell.
7. Bake and enjoy!
Bake at 350° F for 22-23 minutes (or until pastry is cooked and tops have browned to your liking).
Allow to cool at least 10 minutes, then use a butter knife to rotate the finished tarts to break up any stuck sugar and pop them out.
Enjoy warm, cold, or room temperature!
and that’s the latest dispatch from my kitchen
Thanks for being here! Along with these three Canadian treat recipes going up on Yahoo Creators this week, I’ll be dropping another No Expert video next weekend, so stay tuned for that!