Cooking

Last year I made a post that listed everything I had made in 2024 and ranked them so to continue that tradition, I am doing it again this year.

This year I am changing up how dishes are ranked slightly. Dishes are still ranked on flavor but their ranking might be adjusted based on how healthy something is. This doesn't usually play a factor unless it is an extreme.

Also note that this is purely based on how I cooked each dish. It does not fully represent the recipe or the dish since I might have screwed something up.

Ordering within each rank is arbitrary.

Here is the list:

S - Extremely good; I could eat these all week

• Pho
• Cumin lamb
• Nasi goreng (indonesian version)
• Green beans (with garlic)
• Chicken shawarma
• Taiwanese pork belly with a “Mei cai” twist

A - Very good; Would make again

• Baked salmon with herbs and spices (this one gets an A instead of a B just because it’s healthy and extremely easy)
• Chicken fajitas
• Pad thai
• Garlic eggplant
• Butter chicken (I ended up making several versions of this in 2025, this is just ranking the best version I made)
• Japanese curry
• Teriyaki chicken
• Hot and sour soup (with a mushroom + chicken stock base)
• Braised beef noodle soup
• Nasi goreng kampung (malaysian version)
• Lemongrass pork vermicelli bowl
• Lemongrass chicken vermicelli bowl
• Fuqi feipian (aka thinly sliced beef organ meat with a spicy "dressing") (good but too much effort, I will look for a lower effort version of this recipe if I make this again)
• Kimchi fried rice (various, eg. with spam, chicken breast, broccoli, frozen veggies, etc).
• Kimchi (napa)
• Kimchi (radish)
• Beef broccoli
• Tonkotsu ramen (a huge amount of work)
• Simple broccoli + garlic
• Gobi manchurian cauliflower (it tasted good but it was also a lot of effort)

B - Decent; Would make again

• Kimchi stew (This was an S in 2024 but I think I either got tired of eating it or made it with too much meat)
• Beef tacos
• Mapo tofu
• Spaghetti + meatballs
• Fish sauce chicken wings
• Gong bao ji ding (I like to make this “dry” by limiting the amount of sauces and by cooking on high to dry up the juices)
• Banh mi
• Pork vindaloo (traditional style which is with pork and NO potatoes)
• Regular burgers
• Hot pot
• Oven roasted turkey breast + stuffing
• “Greek style” salad (the usual greek salad ingredients + lettuce + sundried tomato dressing)
• Smash burgers (smash burgers really highlight the beef so it wont taste nearly as good with crappy quality beef and unfortunately I made this with crappy quality beef)
• Simple bok choi + garlic
• “NYT broccoli salad”
• Chinese beef stew
• Pork bone soup

C - Ok; Would probably not make again (at least not for myself)

• biang biang noodles (I used store bought noodles, in order for this to be worth it I think the noodles need to be hand made)
• Chinese style dry pot
• Sundried tomato chicken with orzo (the chicken was horrendous, but the orzo was good)
• Southern style mac & cheese (this is a B taste wise but it's just too unhealthy, I feel like I can't eat too much of this especially now that I know how it's made)
• Chinese cauliflower (the veggie is fine, I think my recipe sucked)
• Greek salad

D - No.

• Pork liver (the organ flavor was way too strong) (should probably try this with chicken liver instead if I decide to run this back)

Overall I think I repeated too many dishes in 2025. For instance I probably made pho for at least 4 different weeks in the year. For 2026 I will be making more of an effort not to repeat any dishes.

As for the best newest dish I learned it has got to go to nasi goreng. Not only is nasi goreng delicious but it's also so versatile, having many many different variations and versions. I will definitely be adding this dish to my rotation.

One other call out I want to make is I got addicted to Greek frappes near the end of the year although I'm not sure if I should list it here.