That One Dish Spotlight, No. 9: Dale Talde
& his fun twist on an classic, icy Filipino treat
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The that one dish. spotlight is a column that connects us with amazing AAPI writers, artists, chefs, creators, and entrepreneurs who talk about the “one dish” that best captures their experiences living at the intersection of multiple cultures. Everyone’s got “that one dish” that provokes a certain emotion, becomes a staple they lean on in the ups and downs of life, or immediately transports them to a formative time, Anton Ego-style. Our personal experiences continue to show how food and the five senses involved with both making and enjoying it evoke vivid memories that serve as meaningful links to the past. You can check out TOD’s archive of past interviews here.
Hellooooo friends! For this week’s dispatch, I’m chatting with Dale Talde—the chef and owner of New York City’s Goosefeather, host of Tastemade’s “All Up In My Grill,” and three-time contestant and judge on Bravo’s “Top Chef.” As the son of Filipino immigrants growing up in Chicago, Dale was immersed in his family’s cultural heritage—while also living life as a typical American kid. His passion for cooking bloomed at a young age as he learned to cook traditional Filipino dishes alongside his mother in the kitchen; as much as Dale enjoyed sinigang and adobo, he held an equal amount of fascination for Americana food (think burgers, chicken nuggets, and Hot Pockets). It’s that dual culinary identity that’s continued to inform his creative ventures over the years—from his eponymous restaurant, TALDE, which first opened in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood in 2012 and served bonafide Asian-American fare, to his debut cookbook, “Asian-American: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from the Philippines to Brooklyn,” that reimagined iconic Asian dishes and imbued them with Americana elements.
Dale and I got to talk about what it was like growing up in Chicago, how creating his Tastemade series differs from filming competitive cooking series like Iron Chef and Chopped, and about his fun, personal twist on a classic Filipino dessert (and yup, you guessed it, there’s a recipe). Do check out season 4 of “All Up In My Grill,” which premiered on July 3 and is available on Tastemade’s streaming channel and Tastemade+, for all of his summer grilling tips, tricks, and recipes. Without further ado, here’s me and Dale:
As a Filipino-American growing up in Chicago, can you tell me what eating and cooking was like growing up for you? What kind of things do you remember eating?
My mom was a really good cook; she cooked almost exclusively Filipino food. Chicken adobo, pork adobo, sinigang (which is like a sour tamarind soup) that my mom would make with shrimp, pork, or fish, pancit, dinuguan. All the classics. The majority of the food cooked at home was Filipino food, but very Americana when I left the house. We lived right outside the Chicago city limits, so there was a lot of fast food. School lunches were square pizzas and tater tots. A lot of how I saw food was influenced by being out in Niles, Illinois, which is literally the next town over from Chicago, and craving what I couldn’t have because my mom would never give us money to eat because she said there was food at home all the time!
What’s the best thing to eat in Chicago and the best thing to eat in New York City?
The best food in Chicago is Mexican food. There’s lots of great Mexican restaurants. Anytime you head toward Little Village, you get a lot of those places that are literally making tortillas and have a little cafeteria. Chicago has such an amazing culinary scene that has everything from casual dining—tavern-style pizzas, tacos, hot dogs, burgers, that kind of stuff—to the most avant-garde, next level, pushing-the-boundaries kind of cuisine, and then everything in the middle. It’s hard to say what’s the best. And New York? It’s mecca, right? Chicago’s an amazing place to eat, but New York just has it all.
You’ve been on “Top Chef,” “Iron Chef America,” and “Chopped”—any fun secrets you can tell us about what it’s like to be on a cooking competition show? Any misconceptions or fun tidbits? And how does an environment like that compare to when you’re filming in your backyard for “All Up In My Grill?”
The food you see on cooking competitions is very different from, like, real food. The people who actively compete on all these shows, you gotta think of them like athletes. They’re athletes-slash-artists-slash-tradesmen all doing their thing. And generally, the person who wins is the person who messes up least—not the person who made the absolute best dish. It’s the person who’s great on their feet, can make food quickly, and can problem-solve the best. It’s a totally different skill set [from filming out in my backyard]. Being able to talk, convey emotion, teach someone how to cook something, and keep that viewer interested in what you're doing is a completely different skill set than cooking a dish with five different ingredients in 30 minutes. There are people who are so fucking good at being on TV and cooking, like Jamie Oliver. One of the top three to ever do it, in my opinion. You turn on his shows, and you just watch it because you're curious what he's going to do next. And the way he talks about food, it’s so passionate. He wraps the story around what he's making so convincingly that you're believing it.
What’s one dish that captures who you are as a Filipino-American—something that best encompasses your life, your experiences, your existence? Without even thinking about what’s authentic, what dish is the most you?
I have my version of halo-halo that’s me in a nutshell. Halo-halo is a mixed, shaved-ice dessert. A lot of Asian countries have this type of dessert, where it’s milk and sugar and water, or just shaved ice with flavorings and toppings and stuff. It’s very interesting and texturally fun. When I was growing up, we used Rice Krispies as one of our toppings—and I’m, like, “Man, it’s like a whack-ass topping.” They have no flavor, and after two seconds it’s 100% soaked through with whatever. I was thinking, if we’re going to go down the cereal route, why don’t we put in my favorite cereal—Cap'n Crunch? It stays crunchier. It has an interesting texture. There's way more flavor. That's the dish that I can say is 100% me.
How do you make it?
I still have things in there that are very Filipino—nata de coco, which are these jelly coconut candies, and macapuno, which are these young coconut strings. But then I do things like braise dried mango with coconut milk and add chili. I also make a lemongrass syrup that has some [sweetened condensed milk] in it. So yeah, top it with Cap’n Crunch and any kind of seasonal fruit. That’s my version.
Are there any specific memories or feelings attached to it?
I have a very specific one. My aunt, who’s in the industry as well, had block parties when she was in Chicago. She’d wheel out an ice machine and make shaved ice. She would have this bar of toppings and you could make it your own. Her shaved ice didn’t come from the kind of machine where you had to manually do it; you just hit a button and it’d spit out this beautifully-shaved ice and I was, like, “Holy shit, this is next level.” You know, when you make halo-halo it’s a pain in the ass to sit there having to shave the ice and making sure it stays cold when you eventually add all the ingredients. There’s a real science to halo-halo or shaved ice because there’s no refreezing it. If you try to refreeze it, it turns into a block. The ice needs to be fine enough where it just incorporates very nicely into all these other ingredients and makes it flush.
Translating to “mix-mix” in Tagalog, this classic Filipino dessert comprises refreshingly cold layers of finely shaved ice and sweetened condensed milk with a variety of ingredients (think macapuno, sweetened beans, colored jellies, fresh fruit, ice cream—the world’s your oyster) that create these contrasting textures and tastes. Everybody’s got their own version of halo-halo, but this is Dale’s. His recipe begins with a syrup made from coconut water and infused with lemongrass and chili, and is topped with large tapioca pearls, coconut jelly, young coconut, and fresh fruit. The star of the show here, however, is the Cap’n Crunch, a sugar-packed breakfast cereal beloved by kids across America. Though Rice Krispies are typically many Filipinos’ go-to topping to add an element of crunch to their halo-halo, Dale was disappointed at how quickly the puffed rice became soaked through with liquid—not to mention how little it contributed, in terms of taste, to the dessert as a whole. Cap’n Crunch not only adds a more satisfying crunch, but lends a distinct element of sweetness.
You can find many of these components at your local Asian grocery store; the pantry aisles should boast plenty of canned fruits, legumes, and other goodies that would work beautifully in this summertime treat.
Recipe courtesy of Dale Talde
Serves 4 generously
For the mango
1 (14 ounce) can well-shaken coconut milk
1 cup unsweetened dried mango, sliced
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
For the milky lemongrass tea
2 cups coconut water (i.e. Vita Coco or Zico brand)
2 large lemongrass stalks, lightly smashed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 fresh kaffir lime leaves
½ fresh red Thai chili, halved lengthwise with seeds
¼ cup sweetened condensed milk
For the halo halo
8 cups shaved ice (ideally from an ice shaver)
1 cup cooked large pearl tapioca
1 cup macapuno strings (aka coconut sport)
1 cup drained nata de coco (aka coconut gel)
1 cup mixed fresh fruit (i.e. bananas, mango, pineapple, blueberries, lychee), sliced/cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup Cap'n Crunch (or your favorite sugary cereal!)
For the mango:
Combine coconut milk, mango, and salt in a small saucepan along with ¼ cup water and bring to a simmer over high heat.
Reduce the heat and gently simmer until the mango is rehydrated but not falling apart, about 20 minutes.
Let cool, cover, and keep in the fridge until it's well chilled, but no more than 2 hours.
For the milky lemongrass tea:
Combine the coconut water, lemongrass, lime leaves, and chile in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.
Turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let the mixture steep for about 20 minutes.
Strain, pressing then discarding the solids.
Stir in the condensed milk until smooth.
Cover and keep it in the fridge until it's well chilled, but no more than 2 hours.
For the halo halo:
Right before you're ready to eat, layer the ice, the mango mixture, and the solid ingredients in four tall, wide glasses or bowls. Pour the lemongrass tea over each bowl.