Roy Choi's tips for healthy and flavorful meals

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0:33Roy Choi has a way of talking about flavor. Ask him about an ingredient and he spits poetry. Take fresh garlic. When you slice it thin and slowly saute it in some olive oil, the flavors melt together in this awe-inspiring way. It becomes almost like a space black hole in a good way. Or when I say, what if you only have minced garlic in a jar? And he says, well, it's kind of like when you're getting dressed. If you got something like kind of whack on, like not really great, But you could layer it, you know, you could like put a cardigan and then a sweater over the top and a scarf and then a big puffer on top of that and then put a beanie on and then you might look OK.

1:13And then it's kind of like that with minced garlic. Roy is the chef and co-owner of Kogi Barbecue and Tacos Por Vida in Los Angeles. He's also the co-host of the Netflix cooking series The Chef Show with Jon Favreau. And we've established that he is in love with flavor. So I trust him when he says that food that's good for you does not have to be bland or hard to swallow. That is a guiding principle of his new cookbook, The Choi of Cooking, which he co-wrote with Tin Nguyen and Natasha Phan. Roy says for a long time, he wasn't eating foods that nourished his body. I have been filling my body with preservatives and fast food and processed food my whole life.

1:55And it's weird because I'm a chef, so I know how it is to eat well. And I prep food that is filled with nutrients and good for people, but we're sometimes abusive to ourselves. And so I had to confront it and figure out how can I make the food more delicious, but better for me. On this episode of Life Kit, I talk to Roy about how to make healthy meals that are also delicious. We'll unpack the fundamentals of flavor and talk about how to combine ingredients and experiment with them. That's after the break.

2:32Roy, sometimes the mistake I make, like right now, I have a fridge that's packed full of veggies, but I don't have a plan for them, right? I don't have the flavor component ready. Well, I have a hack for exactly that dilemma. And it's hard to open the refrigerator and not just be able to open a package. But we have to change our habits, just like in anything. So the main habit you have to change is you have to devote a certain part of your week to prep. There is no food, healthy food without prep. There is no restaurant without prep, you know. So if you spend two hours at the top of your week to prep all those vegetables and fruits and whatever and put them in Tupperwares or however you pack them and then keep them in your refrigerator, then those become really easily accessible, just like bags of candy.

3:25So then all your pineapples cut, all your watermelons cut, all your strawberries are cut, your carrots, your celery, your onions, your fennel. And then it becomes easy to just throw those things together. And then the other part of that is making pastes and sauces. If you can devote either that same day or another part of your day and just make like three or four really pungent pastes or like vinaigrettes or three or four liquid sauces and then keep those in there. And then that way you could just take your cut vegetables as easy as throwing them on a sheet pan, put them in the oven, douse them in that paste or that sauce.

4:01And then it's very easy. But nothing happens unless you prep. Yeah, I like that idea. So you talk in the book about aromatics. What are those and what are some of your favorites to work with? Onions, garlic, ginger, green onions. They're vegetables that are aromatic, that exude flavor and scent and release their smell and their juices and flavor when you cook them. And the three most popular in the aromatic, the three tenors, I guess, are ginger garlic scallion. And one of my teachers used to call it GGS. So he would always say, make sure you get your GGS. It's kind of like the Holy Trinity in New Orleans or mirepoix in French cooking.

4:50In Asian and Chinese cooking, it's ginger garlic scallion. Any wok dish that you eat, that's going to start with ginger garlic scallion. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. that creates the fragrant aroma and flavor. It permeates the oil. It seasons the pan. So anything you throw into that becomes like fragrant and filled with flavor and it goes to the next level. Garlic is a very common one. When it comes to garlic, you suggest that people can peel garlic cloves ahead of time and keep them in the fridge ready to go for your recipes. Now, do you lose flavor if you do that? Peeling garlic can last you a few days, as long as you don't mince it that day.

5:32So you can have the cloves in an airtight container and then take the cloves out and then mince them or slice them right before you cook. And even if you do lose a little, I would rather you do that and lose a little freshness or flavor or whatever than not do it at all. You know, because if that garlic sits in your refrigerator unpeeled, you ain't ever getting to that, you know, and if your palate gets to the point where you can notice the difference, then you've actually moved the needle on your whole existence. So now I can distinguish when garlic was peeled on Monday versus today. You also talk about herbs, cilantro, Thai basil, flat leaf parsley, just for some examples.

6:16What's the rule of thumb for when to use dried versus fresh herbs? Dried herbs are great for salt blends and seasonings. I would use them in liquid brines, vinaigrettes, dry rubs. And then what's a great thing is if you are going to use dried herbs, if you can use fresh herbs on top of that, more the better. So this is not a case of like less is more. This is a case of more is more. And there are very fine dried herbs too, like saffron and peppercorn, fennel. I like dill seeds. Dill seeds are great. Dried oregano is fantastic, especially if you get really good dried oregano. And sometimes when the dried oregano is still on the branch and then you shake that off onto your thing.

7:03Oh, so good. Okay, let's talk about cooking oils. Which oils do you recommend the average person have in their kitchen? Olive oil. Something that you could literally drink. You should be able to take shots. Glug, glug, glug. Glug, glug, glug. And then you should have a cooking olive oil or a grapeseed oil. And then I think you should have another type of fragrant oil, like a sesame oil, to allow you to bring in a different flavor profile to your cooking and your food. Do you drizzle sesame oil or do you use it for sautéing or for frying? All of the above, for sure. It's great in marinades and vinaigrettes.

7:48It's great for making kimchi paste and sauces. It's great to drizzle into a soup, like at the end. It's great for instant sauces of just sesame oil, soy sauce, touch of vinegar. And you mix that and then use that as a drizzle or a dipping for anything, for wontons, even bread or vegetables. I got one for you. I made platanos in toasted sesame oil. I'm picking up what you're putting down. And I see the flavor combination there. And yeah, I applaud you. Maybe a little sesame seeds on top at the end. Oh, that would be great. Or you could even like squish them into the plantain before you fry them while it's a little bit soft.

8:37And like, so it's like studded with sesame seeds, almost like a dim sum donut. And then you fry them and then smash them. That would be good too. you've got like a yes and personality which i like you're like yes and i'm gonna amp it up yeah that's me i think um oh uh just another layer to this so i made french toast the other day and then i made platanos in sesame oil and then i had a maple syrup with it wow okay extra texture Texture, texture, flavor. Salty, sweet. That's the hidden combination that we all crave. You could open a restaurant with that item. Interesting. Speaking of salty, I'm guessing most people have salts and maybe black pepper in their kitchens.

9:28Do you have any tips, though, on what kinds to use and when? I think that you should probably kick the iodized salt as far as you can away from you. Yeet that into outer space. Into outer space. And then I think you should replace that with kosher salt. Kosher salt has a little less saline in each granule. It allows you to use more of it without it being as salty. And so by having kosher salt, it forgives you for making some mistakes. And so I would have kosher salt and then I would have a finishing salt, like a fleur de sel or like a flaky sea salt. it will just be the final touch. It sticks the landing on everything.

10:15Okay. What about black pepper? Black pepper, my suggestion is use whole pepper, corn, and grind it each time you use it. You could either grind it in a pepper mill or get like a coffee grinder and then put it in there and then grind as much as you're going to use. And then you can use that over. Most restaurants only use it for the day. Like we grind it right before service. And that's why the food is so fragrant in restaurants. But it's okay to use it for like two, three days. I want to walk through a list of other flavor-packed ingredients that you have in the book. And this is kind of just like free association.

10:53Say whatever comes to mind as quick advice about these things. Cheese. Cheese, very important to respect the temperature of the cheese because cheese is very important to eat when it's not cold. Fascinating. Okay, MSG. It's like a hidden umami special little friend that you have. It's like a Serrano de Bergiac in your ear that allows you to speak poetry and fall in love and be romantic even though you're beast. It's there for you if you put it at the end of a sauce, if you mix it into a vinaigrette, if you put it into your stir fry or your fried rice, if you mix it into anything that you're cooking, it's going to bring that hidden thing where other people say, hmm, what is that?

11:54I can't put my finger on that. Anytime someone says they can't put their finger on something, it's usually msg what about soy sauce soy sauce you know when they say top five rappers dead or alive i mean soy sauce has to be top five right of ingredients in the world you got to have it just a bowl of rice and a little drizzle of soy sauce that's a meal right there just like spreading peanut butter on a piece of sliced bread is a meal it's the same thing you know What about hot sauce? I'm a hot sauce fiend. I try not to eat anything without hot sauce. I'll eat sweets with hot sauce. So you would put it on my platanos con french toast?

12:36Oh, absolutely. I put hot sauce on ice cream, believe it or not. Vanilla ice cream. Yeah. If you put chili crisp or chili crunch on ice cream, or even if you make a gochujang caramel, It provides the same kind of flavor combination that like tahin or like spicy Mexican candies have. It provides that same type of contrast. This is going to be my last one, actually, from this list. Gochujang. For a Korean kid in America, it is incredible that I've lived long enough to see gochujang being used in everyday vocabulary. Like it is our secret living ferment of life. It's almost as like if you can imagine we have all spawned from the bacteria and the fermentation of gochujang itself.

13:37That is the Korean people. and we would be nothing without it. And then you stick your fingers in that thing like night cream, you know, and you just use it like for anything and everything. It's so good. It's like it can be used just as like a little dollop on your lettuce cup, but it can also be used to make a kimchi paste. It can be used to make a soup. It can be spread all over your steak and you roast or grill your steak with it. and it just transforms anything it touches. Time for a quick break. When we're back, we'll get into some of Roy's recipes.

14:18We're back with More Life Kit and with Chef Roy Choi. Okay, let's talk about a few of the recipes. There's so many good ones in here. I just picked out a few. Tell me about the feel-good sandwich. What's in it? Why does it feel so good? It's a feel-good sandwich because it eats like a feel-not-good sandwich. But when you're done with it, you feel great. Because it eats like a Philly cheesesteak or like an Italian cold-cut hero or a Reuben. Because every layer of the vegetable, as they melt together and cook, it creates that umami as you bite into it. You're getting all the sensations and the dripping and the juices and all that.

15:02But then when you're done, you've eaten like eggplant, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, basil. And so you're feeling great. You know, sometimes I get in my head about vegetable sandwiches because I'm like, am I still going to be hungry after I eat this veggie sandwich? No, because what makes them eat like a meat sandwich or not leave you hungry is that each of those ingredients, they're all treated with their own care. So the portobello mushrooms are marinated and seasoned and roasted. And then the vegetables are marinated, seasoned and grilled. And then the paste is made separately. And the paste itself has maybe six, seven, eight, nine, 12 other ingredients in it.

15:46And then all these things, the crunchy, the roasted, the marinated, the pungent, all these things are coming together. Because feeling full is also psychological and sensory. it's not just gut so yeah if you amp up the flavor and you concentrate that flavor then you don't need as much of the food to make you feel full yeah it's about gathering them all together having a little flavor party yeah okay let's talk about one more recipe i would love to get into sour foods through the lens of this recipe you have called the bomb chowder? Yeah, sour foods are a delicacy and a part of everyday life in places all throughout the world.

16:34It's just something that maybe in America we're still getting used to on an everyday basis. You know, so soups being sour, where I'm leaning towards is that soups being sour is not something that we're necessarily running towards in Western culture. But in Thai culture and in Southeast Asian culture, soups and sauces being sour is like something you wake up from a dream about and you get dressed and that becomes the whole purpose of your day to go find a sour soup. So yeah, this soup is an homage to things like Tom Yum and Bong Ka and stuff like that. So it's like this one is like, OK, what if we made like a chowder but made a sour, a sour chowder?

17:25Shouldn't we call sour chowder? That's a better name. OK, one last thing. You recommend that people keep a handful of spoons visible and within arm's reach while they're cooking. Why is that? You got to taste. You got to have movement. But, you know, you have to provide yourself the ability to be your own Jackson Pollock in a way, you know, like you got to provide that space for yourself in cooking. And sometimes we don't provide ourselves with that space to freestyle and to roam. And so we have like one spoon out or we go to grab the thing that we need that's in the drawer or in the cupboard when we need it.

18:07when you cook you should have all those things kind of out and next to you and within arm's distance have a ton of spoons and spatulas and scissors and knives and have all those things around you so that way when you're cooking you're able to grab things and taste things and it will just allow you to go deeper into cooking because the utensils and the ingredients are right at your fingertips. Roy thank you so much you're the best. Thank you that was really great. Okay, time for a recap. I know this can feel daunting, but set aside an hour or two each week to prep. Wash and cut your fruits and veggies so they're available for snacks and recipes.

18:50And make your sauces, jams, dressings, and marinades. Because you know that when you get home from work and you're starving, that's the last thing you want to do. By the way, I was inspired by this conversation with Roy to make a dressing out of lemon, olive oil, and fennel. I got the fennel as a freebie in a delivery box of veggies, and at first I had no idea what it was. I've used the sauce this week on tacos in place of salsa verde, and I've tossed it with tortellini, sautéed bell pepper, and a spicy plant-based chorizo crumble. It is so bright and so fresh, and I'm so glad I made it ahead of time.

19:27Aromatics are a huge component of flavor. They can be vegetables, herbs, spices, even meats. And they're heated in fat at the beginning of cooking to release their flavors. Now you can make your own combos or go with a classic, like the Spanish and Latin American sofrito, which is often garlic, onions, and pepper, sometimes tomatoes too, or the French mirepoix, which is onions, carrots, and celery. Roy says that as a general rule, dried herbs are best for rubs, roasts, and soups, while vinaigrettes and sauces benefit more from fresh herbs. By the way, he suggests in the book that you add herbs to smoothies.

20:04And I have a smoothie almost every day, and I can attest that herbs heighten the flavor and make the smoothie more interesting. Next time you make one, try adding some fresh ginger or fresh mint or both. Some other elements that can punch up the flavor in your dishes. Salt, not the iodized kind. Go for kosher salt or sea salt. Cheese, just not the kind that comes in a can or in those processed bright orange slices. black pepper, grind it yourself, MSG, soy sauce, hot sauce, and the Korean fermented red chili paste gochujang. I saw a recipe online for gochujang bolognese sauce with pasta. It looked really good.

20:43Lastly, as you're cooking, keep lots of spoons handy, taste as you go, and make adjustments. A lot of us forget to do that. Oh, and of course, have fun out there.

20:58By the way, are you struggling with credit card debt? Why not sign up for our special newsletter series? We'll give you a step-by-step plan so you can crunch the numbers, come up with a payment schedule, and pay off your debt. You can sign up at npr.org slash creditcarddebt. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. It was edited by Claire Marie Schneider and Megan Cain. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Grebe. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tegel and Margaret Serino.

21:34Engineering support comes from Stacey Abbott. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thank you for listening.