Hello world! It’s been a year and half since my last post but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. In fact, it feels like just yesterday when I was slinging garlic noodles while simultaneously fulfilling a homework assignment for my younger daughter. So yeah, as I’ve said numerous times in these intermittent posts, time is flying by. I’m reminded of that every day when I look at my kids and how fast they’re growing. Don’t believe me? Well, just peruse the catalogue of old posts and vids where I shamelessly injected my kids into the vids (hoping to score more views – didn’t work) and you’ll see them go from being babies and toddlers (chile verde, greenbeans, granola) to young and still adorable -measured completely objectively- kids (fried chicken, chow mein, yogurt, sorbet) to bigger but still objectively cute kids (leftovers, broth, smoothies). As you know doubt noticed, having watched all those vids, from the earlier ones to the later ones, there is noticeable growth and development. I don’t have to point the camera down as much or use step stools. The kids speak more coherently from video to video (shout out, school!). Which brings us to the this current post. Kaya, the older child is now in the eight grade and is now taller than my wife, Shefali (aka the boss) – though not by much and also Shef’s not exactly tall, so it’s a low bar (literally). But Kaya’s on camera persona has also developed and her off the cuff remarks give my witticisms a run for their money! And that is a very high bar because I am witty as fuck! Soon the student will become the master! Mona, the younger one, has also come into her own, but you’ll also see a through line in her personality (spunky and irreverent) that’s obvious whether it’s munching on green beans as a baby or slurping up garlic noodles as an eigh-year-old. Or maybe it’s just me as her sentimental father that sees this. But I also have to give credit to Mona (whose persistence can tread the line to downright annoying – which it often does) for being the driving force behind making this vid. We had some time before the kids started school a few weeks ago and she insisted that we do another cooking video. So, being an amazing father (true fact) I relented. We consulted an old “to do videos” list in our kitchen and settled on peanut noodles.

It’s fairly straight forward dish where you can do a lot of the prep beforehand and at meal time, it’s just about assembly. So it’s a great option when you have company and you don’t want to be working your ass off in the kitchen while everyone else is enjoying the fruits of your labor. Also, it’s fantastic for hot days because you can eat everything at room temperature. Those two factors are basically how I came up with this recipe. It was inspired primarily by Vietnamese bun (room temp rice noodle bowls with vegetables, protein and a sauce) and Indonesian gado gado or pecel (room temp cold salads with cooked vegetables, a starch -potatoes in gado gado, rice in pecel – and some sort of protein) drizzled with a sweet and savory peanut sauce. So that’s what these peanut noodles are: a delicious rice noodle salad with prepared vegetables, protein (in this case chicken) all tied together with a homemade peanut sauce. See the ingredients list below.

Ingredients for the salad part:
rice noodles
carrots
cucumbers
cilantro
chicken

Ingredients for the peanut sauce:
peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
hot water
soy sauce
vinegar
sugar (or honey)

My personal philosophy is to treat a recipe more as a guide more than as doctrine. That’s why for this recipe there are no quantities. You’ll figure it out as you cook and things will change based on the number of people you’re cooking for. Also you should feel free to add any other vegetables you think will work. Likewise for the peanut sauce, you can add other ingredients as well (fish sauce, chile oil/crisp, sriracha). Now for more guidance check vid below for how we do it (or at least how we did it on the day of filming):

Yeah, long time, blah blah…. Speaking of a long time ago, one of the first posts I made for this blog was for Chinese New Year 2008. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see a video of me steaming a whole fish. Featured in that video commenting on how delicious the fish is because it was made by her uncle (who was and is still a damn good cook – not to mention so much better looking 16 years ago) is my niece who was 7 years old at the time. Her name is Maia and she’s now a full on singer songwriter who goes by the name mxmtoon who’s been on multiple tours and performed for tens of thousands and has millions of followers on her various social media channels. So could it be that her appearance in my vid, her first foray into internet video content as it were, served as the inspiration for her to pursue her creative and artistic ambitions? In my mind, the answer is unequivocally yes. But don’t take my word for it. You can listen to a whole radio story that I produced about her rapid rise wherein she admits that indeed, if not for me, she would be nowhere. Okay that is completely not true but the point is, if there’s a grain of truth that watching her uncle make that fish video was in anyway inspirational, then my own kids, similarly inspired, might as well be accepting their future grammys, emmys and oscars (maybe they’ll be EGOTS) because they’ve been participating in my damn videos since they were both in diapers.

The point of all this meandering (as if there needs to be a point) is that my kids love these videos – watching them and being in them. They have been the ones to spur me on to make the last few food vids (well them and their mom who’s like “you’ve got to make videos while they’re still cute!”). And while I should have been doing more (frankly, I got a little jaded on the process – due to the fact that barely anybody watches these vids) I’m so glad to have done the ones we have because I realize, it’s not about the number of views (although more would be nice). It’s the fact that these videos are little time capsules of me and the kids during these last few years and the delicious foods and recipes that are their legacy. In fact I’ve come to realize that this whole blog, if anything, is just a personal journal of my life as seen through food stories that just happens to exist on the internet for the world (an spam bots) to see. Looking at the various posts and pages is a reminder of who I was and where I was at different points in life and it’s great to have those touchstones. Of course I’m appreciating this now as I thought this whole blog had crashed a few days ago and I was trying to be all zen about the possibility that these years of posts were gone forever. Fortunately, it was just down for an hour AND I backed everything up. Phew! OK, so what was this post about again? Jesus, give me younger get to the point Clarence to meandering middle-aged Clarence any day. Let’s keep this moving!

Ok, task master! Alright, so, last week, Mona comes to me with this third grade homework assignment. It’s called a DYOH (Do Your Own Homework) project and she says, “Baba, I want to make a cooking video.” So I’m like, “Ok, go ahead.” She’s like, “No, I want you to help me make a cooking video.” I’m like, “Wait, who’s homework is this anyway?! Isn’t it enough that I contributed to giving you life?!” Listen, I’m trying my damndest to be a hard-ass old school Asian dad who teaches his kids the true meaning of self reliance by yelling at them to just do everything themselves (this works about half the time). But really, I’m kind of a softy and upon looking down at the sweet beseeching face of my second born, of course I relented and said, “OK, what should we make?” We settled on garlic noodles because they are a true Bay Area original, they’re easy to make, are damn delicious and we had all the ingredients. They are:

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb Noodles (any fresh noodles from an Asian Market or dried spaghetti)
4-6 tbsp butter
5-7 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
2-3 tbsp oyyster sauce
2-3 tbsp fish sauce
1-2 tbsp Maggie sauce
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

And this is how we do it:

Hello people! Yup, it’s been a while. Anything happened since my last post? Oh boy. Needless to say, things have shifted a bit in the outside world as well as on the family front with the Ting fam. More on this later perhaps in a future post – maybe three years from now, given my current track record with this blog. But the main thing is holy shit! The kids are growing so fast! My wife constantly reminds me to do more of these videos while the kids are still (kind of) cute and I’m always like ” yeah, yeah, yeah…” But then Mona my now 7-year old(!) was like, “Baba, can we make a food video?” And I was like ” yeah, yeah yeah…” But here’s the thing: Mona is very persistent and her constant asks and reminders turned my “yeah, yeah, yeah” into an “Ok, fine! What should we make?” We went through the list of things I like to cook and what the family likes to eat. A lot of the dishes we’ve already done for this blog (please peruse after consuming this post) and other dishes seemed needlessly complicated in terms of actually cooking and actually filming. You see, I’m going to break some news here. If it wasn’t absolutely obvious, I’m kind of – no totally – lazy and I just didn’t feel like making a huge effort (God, as I write this I’m realizing what a terrible parent I’ve become or have always been), so I decided to go with what was easiest. The “dish” we settled on was… you guessed it (because you’re a genius and or read the above title of the blog post): a smoothie!

For this one, I went with what we had in the freezer/ fridge, so I didn’t have to go grocery shopping. In this case it was:

Ingredients List

Almond Milk Beverage
Strawberries
Bananas
Mangos
Honey
Peanut Butter

Often, to make the smoothie “healthier” I’ll add kale but we didn’t have any.  So here’s how we do it.  Although honestly, if you need instructions on how to make a smoothie, well then you might need more help than I can offer you here.  Really this video is for savoring that magical dynamic between two charismatic kids and their tired and jaded father.  But don’t thank me, thank Mona.  Please enjoy.

Hi all, I can’t believe it’s been over six months since my last post. Actually I can because that’s been my normal blog schedule more often then not, because you know, life). What I have a harder time believing is that here we are in December (the tail end of 2020) and we’re still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you’re remotely aware of current events, you’ll have some idea of why we’re still in this position, so I’m not going to get into it here and talk about how there’s been a total lack of national leadership in dealing with this pandemic, etc. What I will get into is how much I appreciate what I consider another one of the basics that any home cook should have in his/her/their repertoire: broth.

Why broth? Well, by making your own broth you can save money (always a positive in my book) AND thumb your nose at dumb ass foodie trends and bullshit marketing. I hope you weren’t reading that last sentence aloud at work, on zoom or with your kids present. I guess you can say I have some strong feelings when it comes to the way certain things in the food world become fads and crass commercialism kicks in. Case in point: “bone broth”. People have been making broth for as long as food scraps and bones have existed but it’s only been in the last few years with cross-fit and the keto diet gaining traction that you have the rise of bespoke, hipster, artisanal bone broth which will often run you anywhere from $5-$8 for a 16 oz. container. Listen, I get it. If you don’t have the time nor the bones to actually make it yourself, then by all means, go ahead and buy it. But, if you cook at home, eat meat and have time, then there’s really no excuse. You should make your own broth – not “bone broth” just broth. It’s so easy. All you need are bones that you will have saved from your meat, an oven and time to roast those bones, water and a pot and stove to boil those bones. That’s it. You can also add vegetables if you want. I usually, don’t because I use my broth as a base for other soups or I add it to sauces or gravies. Alright, here’s how I do it.

Fresh homemade yogurt

I’ll keep this short and sweet. We’ve been in lock down (shelter in place/ social distance mode) for at least a month and a half.  So, I thought I would make videos of really simple things that I never really thought warranted videos.  But given a lot of time to reflect – like, a lot of time during this pandemic – I realized that sometimes it’s the simple things that we take for granted.  Case in point: yogurt.  It’s probably the easiest thing to make provided you have milk, a yogurt starter (any plain yogurt should work provided it has live yogurt cultures), a way to keep it warm (110°F) and time (a few hours).  People have been making yogurt for millenia, so it’s literally not rocket science, because rockets did not exist 5000 years ago.  Unless aliens were actually the ones who… oh never mind.  Check out the video for how I do it. As yogurt making is so simple and easy, it’s inherently calming, because you’re doing nothing but waiting.  And so, inspired by my niece and her first foray into ASMR, I decided to try my hand at making a calm and soothing video. Let’s just say, at least the yogurt turned out.  I’ll let you be the judge. Please watch with volume up or headphones for the full calming effect.

Let me just put this out there: I love leftovers like a fat kid loves cake!  Shout out to 50 Cent.  Now what I don’t love are global pandemics like COVID-19. However, as we are all trying our best to shelter in place in order to flatten the curve (it’s real, let’s all do our part), like others I find myself cooking a whole lot more out of necessity and also to keep sane. That means a whole lot more leftovers, which because I Iove them – as I mentioned at the top – is “a good thing”. Oh my God, I just quoted Martha Stewart! Fuck you, Coronavirus!

But sometimes, instead of the actual meal – like actual, say, lasagna leftovers – I’m left with just the extra flat sheets of egg pasta (homemade because the grocery stores were completely out of all pastas! #panicbuying #humblebrag) I used for the lasagna. What do I do then? Well, coincidentally, that theoretical was based on true life events.   And I’ll tell you what I did.  I cut that pasta up into noodles and found other ingredients in my fridge that went well with egg noodles:  sausage, zucchini, garlic, lemon, capers. And then I threw it all together and made another delicious meal! Because that’s what I do: I make leftovers more delicious.

Fortunately for you, I also I made video with my 4 year-old iphoneSE (with a dirty front lens I can’t clean – thank you Apple!) and my 4 year-old daughter (with a mostly clean front face)  because I’m kind of going crazy and just wanted to make something without thinking about it too much.  So, give a watch and hopefully it inspires you to do something creative and delicious with your leftovers.

Don’t embarrass me kids.

Did somebody just fart?

Hey DeliciousTings blog fans!  I’m talking to you, Mom, sis,  and that anonymous bot sending me spam comments (nope, I don’t need Jimmy Choo shoes or Cialis – or maybe..?)  Anyway, have I got a treat for you today.  Let’s start off by playing a little game.  Here’s a list of items:  a dining room table, several chairs, 80s style round stools, a tiny step stool with legs that look like crayons, a compact stereo receiver, a child’s scooter, 2 kids bikes, 2 adult mountain bikes, an Italian coffee maker, the seminal 70s era book “Free to Be You and Me”, a ping pong table. What do all of these things have in common? Well, along with a bunch of other items that I can’t recall, these are all things that I’ve found on the street and brought home!  Oh my God, I just realized I’m hoarder.  Oh well. Know thyself, am I right?  But why exactly do these things give me so much unmitigated joy?  1) They’re free.  2) They’re still totally useful and they work!  Anybody who knows me will tell you that yeah, I’m into value (some might even say “cheap” – I say “frugal”) AND I hate wasting things.  If something can still be used, then I’m damn well going to use it and if they’re not quite useful, then I will MacGyver them until they are useful (I mean, within reason).  So yeah, other peoples’ trash can very well be my treasure.  I think I honed my scavenging ways  when I was living in Brooklyn and needed to furnish my apartment – the first time I had my own place. People in Prospect Heights, where I was living at the time, would throw out really good stuff.  Here’s an example. I was walking home at night on a block with a bunch of brownstones and happened upon this beautiful wooden dining room table, legs detached from the table top that somebody had put out. Score!  The only thing was this table was heavy and there was no way I could haul it the three blocks back to my place. So, I hailed a taxi (this was before Uber and Lyft), loaded the table into the trunk and then used the remaining strength I had to haul that table up four flights of stairs to my apartment.

That unadulterated joy of finding cool and useful stuff on the street has stayed with me and now that we live back in the Bay, it’s something I’ve probably passed on to my kids as well. In fact, just the other week, as we were driving back from grocery shopping, Kaya spotted a kid’s mountain bike out on the curb, that somebody was giving away. It was perfectly fine except for a couple of flat tires. We brought it home, pumped up the tires and boom! Kaya’s got a bike with two hand brakes and gears.  After her first sesh with the  bike, I asked her,  “Kaya, what do you think of your new bike?” “I LOVE it!” she gushed. True story.

So where am I going with all of this? What could this possibly have to do with a frozen nondairy dessert that is spelled with silent “t” (thank you, French language)?  Well, one of my most recent street finds – one that gives me almost as much joy as the bike gives Kaya – is a Donvier Ice Cream Maker. Now anyone who grew up in the 80s knows that the Donvier Ice Cream maker was the shit when it came to small batch homemade ice cream.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that. But when you’re a young kid and you see it in a fancy kitchen store and think of all the possibilities of homemade ice cream and spend $30 of your own hard saved up money to buy your dad a father’s day gift in the hopes  that he’ll be into making ice cream every day of the week, then believe me it’s the shit.  We ended up using it maybe three times.  Something about the recipes for ice cream included with the maker seemed a bit too complicated.    Then we put it on a shelf and promptly forgot about it.  According to my dad, he gave it away several years ago during a move. And that was the end of ice cream making in our house and the end of our relationship… Just kidding! I love my dad.  We get along great. But back to the story.  So, imagine my delight, when I spied a genuine Donvier ice cream maker in it’s original box.   Sure the box was a little worse for wear, but the maker itself – the plastic container, the plastic attachments and most importantly the cold storage barrel- were in impeccable condition.  You see where I’m going with this right?  Call me a nostalgic sap, but as I’ve gotten older (it’s fair to say approaching middle age (WTF!), I’ve definitely been reminiscing about my childhood and that’s become even more the case now that I myself have kids.  So here I am, walking along the streets of Oakland when I’m gifted this literal blast from the past.  An ice cream maker that I loved as a kid, that represented something I could share with my own father has now reentered my life so that I can share the experience of making a homemade frozen treat with my kids.  I told you. Sappy.

I’m happy to say, we’ve already used the maker three times and instead of getting bogged down with complicated ice cream recipes, I’ve just decided to wing it, which is kind of how I approach cooking in general (and life, truth be told).  Since it’s still summer, though nearing fall, we’ve been using strawberries because they’re in season and also because we can get really cheap delicious strawberries in the bargain section at Berkeley Bowl (remember, I’m cheap).  These almost work better than the normal strawberries because they are so ripe and full of strawberry flavor.  Who cares if they’re all bruised?  I just cut out the bad parts and since I’m going to mash and freeze them anyway, it doesn’t even matter. So we’ve made strawberry ice cream twice (the second time I pretty much nailed it -it’s all about the half and half)).  The one other time we’ve used the Donvier, we made strawberry, lemon, mint sorbet.  Fortunately for you guys, I captured that occasion on video. This is what I’m talking about: confluence. You see it’s that time of year again where Kaya and I had a week to just kind of hang out before she started school (2nd grade!) and we had the time to make another cooking vid together. For this cooking session, unlike the previous two years where we opted for savory dishes (fried chicken and then chow mein) we decided to make something sweet and frozen (remember the Donvier). To up the sweetness of the video, we added another key ingredient: Mona (aka Second Daughter).  You might remember her first appearance from C and K Make Granola.  She’s the wild-haired 1 1/2 year old asking for crackers. Well she’s almost 4 1/2 now and it’s fair to say, she’s ready for prime time, or a night at the Improv. Don’t believe me? Watch the video.

Okay, but first things first.  Here are the ingredients for our Strawberry Lemon Mint Sorbet

2 lbs strawberries
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 tbsp of fresh mint (or to taste)
3-5 tbsp sugar (or to taste)

And this is how we do it.

What’s up people? Or spam bots? Or whomever/ whatever has had the unique pleasure of perusing/ scanning these words that I’ve just typed. Well, I had the unique pleasure of hanging out with my neighbor, Chi. She happens to be really funny and a really good cook. I met her through this social media app for old people (yeah, I’m trying to lean in to being old) called NextDoor. For the uninitiated (young people with lives), it’s this site that focuses on connecting people based on where they live, specifically their neighborhoods. So, people post news, alerts, items for sale or to give away or queries about house painters or electricians. A couple months back, in an effort to kick up a little more action on this here blog, meet some neighbors and get inspired by new recipes and home cooks, I put up a post asking neighbors if they would be so kind as to let me film them cooking something. The reaction was overwhelming. That is, overwhelmingly “meh”. But fortunately for you, my loyal fans / bots, for me and (I’m sure Chi would agree) for her, Chi was one neighbor who responded. We struck up a conversation et voila: last week I had the opportunity to hang out at her house as she prepared a really simple and delicious dish called mentaiko pasta that she had first tasted when she lived in NYC and ate it at place called Basta Pasta.

Where do I start with this dish? Did I already mention how simple and delicious it is? Oh yeah, that was just the paragraph before. I told you I was getting old. Okay, long story short, this is a Japanese take on pasta that uses seasoned pollock roe (fish eggs) as the basis of the sauce instead of a tomato base. If you like caviar of any sort, if briny, oceany salty flavors are your jam (“jam” not in the fruit preserve sense, but in the “one of my favorite things” sense) then. You. Will. Love. This. I guarantee it. If you don’t like those flavors, well then don’t bother. In the words of Chi “It’s a waste of good roe.” So, more for us. It’s one of those dishes that grows on you not only in the time you’re eating it – each bite is better than the last – but long after you’ve put your fork down and licked the last remnants from your plate. You’ll sit there, perhaps typing up a blog post that three people will read and your mouth will instantly begin to water as you conjure up the flavor. Have I whet your appetite enough? Well, here’s the recipe as written up by Chi.

mentaiko spaghetti

• 2 TBS butter (melted)
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 4 TBS Mentaiko (spicy pollock roe)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Spaghetti noodles
• roasted nori (seawead) – cut into fine slivers

Set spaghetti to boil.
While the spaghetti is cooking, mix melted butter with olive oil, set aside.Scrape pollak roe from the egg sacks, add to oil and butter mix.Add lemon juice to taste and mix thoroughly.Drain pasta, and add mentaiko paste wile warm.Plate sauced noodles, and sprinkle with cut nori. Serve to Clarence.

And here’s where Chi shows you how it’s done.

What’s so funny? Noodles.

Hello, All!  Um, Mom, sis, I’m talking to you. Well time certainly does fly when you’re not blogging, eh?  Yes, It’s been  a year since I published my (self-annointed) masterpiece “Cooking With Kaya Ep. 2: Fried Chicken!!!” As you might recall (especially if you’ve just re-read that brilliant entry) Kaya and I made the fried chicken video (which received an unheralded 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – no need to fact check that) the week before she entered kindergarten.  Fast forward one year to the present, or the present of few weeks ago.  Once again, Kaya and I had a week and a half to hang out before she started school – this time 1st grade! And so we conspired to make another postmodern masterpiece/ recipe video for a dish that both have a deep and abiding love for: stir-fried noodles  aka chow mein.

Now I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that noodles in whatever form (soup, pan fried, deep fried, saucy, dry) are soul food for Asians.  Its the perfect peasant food: a starch (it could be rice, wheat, buckwheat, potato, buckwheat, mung bean, semolina, etc.) in long strand form that when cooked correctly is chewy, springy, slurpy and soaks up whatever sauce or flavor surrounds it.  Marco Polo definitely knew what was up when he brought them from China and introduced them to the West.  I don’t even know if that story is really true, but it sounds good and if it is, I’d like to think it’s because Marco knew that a life without noodles was really not worth living. I know that in my own experience, whenever I’ve been traveling or in a place where noodles are not well represented, the first thing I’ll gravitate towards when I’m back on familiar ground is a big bowl of pho, pad thai, chow fun or chow mein.  One of my favorite meals as a kid was my mom’s chow mein. She’d make it with thinner Hong Kong style egg noodles with celery and pork.  Obviously they were delicious out of the wok, but we’d eat them with a dollop of Dijon mustard and a drizzle of black vinegar. I have no idea if this was a Chinese tradition, a Hong Kong mash-up or a family predilection.  All I know is it was delicious.  And so now that I’m a parent – you know circle of life and all that – I feel that is my privilege to introduce to my kids the joy of eating noodles.  That’s how culture is passed on folks.  Trust me. I was an Anthro major so that basically makes me an expert.

The go-to chow mein in our house is a Shanghai style chow mein, made with thick wheat-based noodles. We buy packages of these fresh noodles at our local 99 Ranch.  They should look something like this.

This is a package of fresh Shanghainese noodles that I actually froze so I can use at a later date.

This is the after shot of these noodles. That’s what I’m talking about! I usually eat them with a healthy spoonful of sambal and and a drizzle of black vinegar. It’s heaven in a bowl.

It’s a really simple recipe that that draws on my time working at an Asian Fusion restaurant back in the day when Asian Fusion was THE new thing, at least in the Bay Area. Yes, I’m totally dating myself since that was a long ass time ago and Asian inspired food has long since entered the mainstream. It’s also a recipe derived in part from watching my parents cook and cooking with my sis.  Shout out, Cheryl! Don’t we look hella young in those videos?

Here’s the basic recipe. As usual, because I’m not a baker, amounts are approximates.

Ingredients:
2 lbs Shanghainese noodles (fresh, uncooked)
4-6 carrots
1/2 head of red cabbage
1-2 tbsp of chopped garlic
1-2 tbsp of chopped ginger
salt to taste
white pepper to taste
1/3 cup of mushroom soy
3 tsp of sugar

Now check out this most excellent and entertaining vid to so how we do it:

Did you notice that unlike most of the other posts on this blog, this recipe is vegetarian? In fact, it’s so vegetarian is vegan?!?  Yup, I got you, my non animal product eating brothers and sisters!  But I’ve also got your back if you like to eat the meat.  So as a bonus, because you deserve it, I’m including the following recipe for The World’s Easiest Stir Fried Chicken. I kid you not, this will take you 15 minutes to prepare and it adds a bit of chicken protein to whatever vegetarian or vegan meal you cook up, but especially these noodles.

Case in point:

Chow mein topped with the worlds easiest stir fried chicken.

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into pieces (don’t even think about using breast meat)
1-2 tsp of sesame oil
2 tbsp of fish sauce
1-2 tbsp of soy sauce
1-2 tsp of sugar
1/4 tsp of corn starch

And here’s how I do it:

Ingredients:
1 egg
butter
Tapatío hotsauce