Unpronounceable Thai banana coconut dessert

I'm wondering how many dental cavities/fillings on average people in Thailand get by the time they're 30. Seemingly, desserts are plentiful and sweet as water bomb revenge on an insecure elementary school bully dream bars but much more appetizing-looking.

My brother, subordinatechow, who has been there numerous times, claims they don't have as many cavities as I conjecture.

Until the truth behind Thai dental cavities is revealed, one should enjoy these Thai delights, like this banana coconut milk dessert.

(I can't pronounce it, but i think it's kluay butt cheek (กล้วยบวชชี), but it's possible that my Thai really improved since my first beer today or that I'm really, really wrong.)

[Bananas in warm coconut milk]

Here's how I made mine:

3 ripe bananas, cut into 1-inch (2.5cm) slices (and/or halved lengthwise, and then cut into slices)
1 can coconut milk
1/3 cup (75ml) granulated sugar
3/4 tsp (4ml) salt
vanilla to taste (use no more than 1/2 tsp (2ml)) (if you dislike it, let it go the way of the unicorns)

1. In a saucepan, heat coconut milk with sugar at medium-high to dissolve the sugar.
2. Add salt to coconut milk.
3. Add banana slices to the coconut milk and cook until softened slightly and heated through.
   The important thing here is not to overcook them or you'll get soggy bananas, which is worse than an itch on a body part you can't readily reach.  
4. Remove from heat and add vanilla.
5. Pour into serving bowls and make it fancy with some toasted sesame seeds. Fancy!

On that thought, maybe there's a lot of money to be made as a dentist in Thailand...

greeks do it fest

every year, smack dab in the middle of august, the greeks in the greek-centric neighbourhood of montreal put on a grand little street festival, complete with rides, dancing, hellenic music, and (most importantly) greek food.

there's no shortage of souvlaki, spit-roasted pork, and other dead meats, grilled octopus, greek salad with fantastic feta, and these: loukoumades (greek honey balls).

[i ate 6 of these loukoumades in one sitting. that's $3 worth of deep fried delectableness. i also now have recurring dreams about riding loukoumades balls down a waterfall made of honey and sandbanks made of cinnamon dust, except i can't swim so it's kind of scary.]

[everyone's favourite yiayia making those delectable loukoumades and fighting off the hornets!]

you know this is a culture where people eat not just for the sake of eating and merry-making, but to make sure everyone else around you gets fatter than you do.

[spit-roasted pork for sale. note the wild-looking butcher in the background. he's famous!]


don't miss next year's festivities so you can hasaposerviko* with the gang!

* i don't think that's a verb but whatever.

you'll never know a good cannolo until you meet one

one hungry afternoon, i felt an appetite for destruction coming on and so i bought some cannoli from alati-caserta to satiate me. boy, did i destroy those things...shredded them like a ninja turtle on a pizza delivery boy. 


[4 cannoli with ricotta and chocolate bits crema]

alati-caserta are undeniably one of the best cannoli-makers in town¹. crunchy rolls of fried dough stuff with a crema made of sweetened ricotta and magic... oh the delight! (though i have heard that some people have been diluting the crema with miracle whip which sounds terrible in itself! barf!)


[the same box of cannoli 20 minutes after purchase]

my friend benny "the sicilian" says there's only "tree places in this city" that you can get good sicilian cannoli, and that the best ones in the world come from palermo (after all, sicily is the birthplace of the cannoli); obtaining a world-class cannolo from palermo, however, might put a dent in my carbon footprint.

however, next time i get hungry for cannoli again, i'm going to my friend's place (aka mamma luigi's house). stay tuned, cause i need to catch up on my yearly cannoli quota soon before i fall behind...

¹this in reference only to retail outlets. if i counted homemade ones, then mamma luigi's is tops. sometimes i wish she were my adoptive italian mom.

two bites don't make a wrong

(that's a terrible pun. i should slap myself because i hate puns.)

my attempt at duplicating two-bite brownies was a win -- popped in the mouth, like the decadent chewy ones you buy in the store supposedly made by some grandmother, except not as sweet and definitely way cheaper than dropping $4 for a bag of 12.


[this picture doesn't do them justice]

i don't actually remember making them. i might have had one too many beers. but i think this is what i did:

melt 1/2 cup (125 ml) of unsalted butter with 7 oz (200g) of dark chocolate in a heat-safe bowl over simmering water. remove from heat and add 2 Tbsp (30 ml) of cocoa powder, and let it cool slightly.

in a separate bowl, i think i beat 3 eggs with 1 cup (250 ml) of sugar, 2 tsp (10 ml) vanilla, and 1/2 tsp salt. stir in the chocolate mixture until well blended. add 1 cup (250 ml) of flour and mix well.

bake them in your greased mini cupcake/two-bit brownie pan for about 10-12 minutes at 350F (180C). they won't be baked all the way through but you don't want them to.

i don't remember how many the batch made but it should make at least 6 or 8 two-bite brownies, the last i counted. my math might have been bad because of the beer.

when life gives you guavas...

what do you do with an excess of ripe guavas? make guava ice cream!

(guava with lemon ice cream)

WTF is a guava you might ask?

it's this!


(part of the myrtle family, guavas are small, sweet and fragrant tropical fruits with hard seeds that crack like micro-golfballs when you bite into them).

take a buttload of guavas (the riper the better), pass the pulp through a fine sieve to remove the seeds, and then cook it up in a plain ice cream recipe, adding lemon and vanilla as you like.

the formula i used was something like this:

1.5 cup guava paste
2 eggs
1/2 to 2/3 cup white sugar
1 cup milk
1 to 2 cups cream (the fatter, the tastier)
dash of vanilla extract
lemon juice and some lemon rind
guava juice (optional for more guava flavour)
1/2 to whole sachet of unflavoured gelatin

equipment required:
- candy thermometer
- double boiler
- ice cream/sorbet maker OR you can try this method which lets you take out some of your pent-up anger.

stir together the dairy products in the top section of a double boiler, beating in the eggs. mix the sugar with the gelatin and beat it into the mix, stirring constantly to make sure it doesn't clump. bring it all to about 70 C (158F) making sure the mix does not hotter than that.

once it gets up to temperature, remove it from the heat and make the temperature drop down to 18C (64F) as fast a possible. here in downtown canada, all you need to do is to set the pot in the snowbank that is usually your back porch in the summer. for the rest of you, try a large bowl of ice cubes and water.

you can store it in the fridge at this point until you're ready to icecreamify it (i.e. run it through the ice cream machine). icecreamify it in the ice cream maker to add freeze and air to the mixture. if you like it with less air (more like a gelato), that's your prerogative.

store in an airtight freezer container and serve it when your heart desires.

sweet soups

chinese sweet soups are the weird dessert/snacks that most westerners don't understand – think of it as chocolate pudding, except minus the chocolate and milk; then replace them with ground nuts or sesame seeds and finely ground rice and then cooked to thicken it, and then delicately sweetened.

and then the big surprise in bowl are the tiny delicate glutinous rice dumpling-type balls filled with ground peanuts and sugar, called tong yuen (soup balls).

sometimes eaten therapeutically, these sweet soups are more or less a winter treat... read more and you'll see what i mean.


(this one is roasted walnut sweet soup with tong yuen; background is some sort of watermelon or strawberry ice cream with tong yuen and served cold [the sesame, hong hum, kowloon, HK])

beware of this this guy (frawley)... some call him the dessert monster. he can eat his giant bowl of almond sweet soup and then finish everyone else's when they aren't looking... see that grin on his face? you know he did something with that spoon that he shouldn't have:


(look at the hypoplasia on that guy!! so deviant...)


(background: almond sweet soup; foreground: black sesame sweet soup)

here's fat auntie's recipe for almond sweet soup:

6 oz (around 2/3 cup) almonds, skins left on*
1 oz (between 1/8 and 1/4 cup) rice (uncooked)
6 oz water (around 2/3 cup)
1/2 to 1 stick of block or rock sugar (about 4 to 6 oz). or use a simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water)

1. make a sugar syrup: heat sugar in water until completely dissolved, stirring occasionally to ensure sugar completely dissolves. avoid boiling the mixture.
2. don't burn yourself.
3. remove from heat and soak the rice in the sugar syrup (a few hours to overnight).
4. lightly toast the almonds at a low heat in a wok until fragrant (between 5 and 10 minutes). do not burn them nor yourself. let them cool down enough to handle.
5. in a blender or food processor, finely grind the almonds with the sugar/rice mixture. this should take at least 20 minutes. the mixture should look fine like pancake batter, though it is not colloidal (it will separate eventually)
   
6. filter the mix in a metal coffee filter to remove bits that didn't get ground.
7. cook mixture it over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly (avoid boiling). serve warm. hopefully there aren't any leftovers that you need to refrigerate.
   

*almonds can be substituted for walnuts, white sesame, black sesame, cashews. you can also use chinese almonds (which are actually apricot kernels) and mix them with regular almonds.

tong yuen recipe to come...

pumpkin pie

just to set the record straight, i do not have a sweet tooth.

however, here's another piece of pie that's worth a blog entry about: this was likely the second best pumpkin pie i've had since being born... swear by the stray hairs on my chin.



decent crust, a filling not too sweet and just the right consistency (i.e. moist but not soupy, nor too eggy, nor too tough), simple on the spice, and a belle couleur. thanks to tammy's country kitchen in napanee (ontario), i am now a pumpkin pie aficionada.

(oh, and those who eat pie "à la mode" are heathens).

fresh harvest: apples

apple season means picking loads of delicious apples fresh from the local orchards (which are a-plenty here, like hobos in the streets).


this year, i decided to pick my apples from the bin at the market because it was faster, closer, as cheap, and just as good quality (if not better) than the u-picks. cons: you don't get as much variety and you don't get to stuff your face with apples while buying them from the stand.

using alton brown's recipe for a pâte brisée crust, i set out to make two pies at a time (one for someone's birthday party and the other for my un-birthday).

things i discovered on this pie-making feat:

1. having hard alcohol handy makes the medicine go down (and the keeps the flour in the crust from glutenizing quickly as opposed to water).
2. a sharp peeler makes a huge difference.
3. apple corers make things go way faster.
4. a helper makes things go twice as fast!

also using alton's super apple pie recipe as a guide, i used the standard fare of cinnamon and nutmeg for spices and also added freshly ground cardamom. AB's recipe called for some stupidly named spice called grains of paradise which i have no idea what that is, but after a little research i found could be substituted with cardamom.

that said, the only remaining thing about the pie pictured above now is that photo...

delightful almond and mango soft gelatin cakes

when life gives you mangoes, you make mango gelatin cakes (with almond gelatin on top).

[sorry this picture is blurry and underexposed due to my mango fever. i offer my humble apologies to my exacting photo critics. you know who you are, jerks.]

make it!
(tools required)
1 square 8-inch heat-proof dish
plastic film wrap
saucepan or microwave-safe bowl
spoons for stirring
mixing bowls

(mango gelatin)
2 ripe medium-sized mangoes (preferably of the ataulfo variety), chopped*
125ml (1/2 cup) water
125ml (1/2 cup) sugar
2 envelopes of unflavoured gelatin
80 ml (1/3 cup) water (for the gelatin)

*btw, make sure you take the peel off first.

1. line the heatproof dish with plastic film wrap.

2. pulverize your mango cubes if you haven't already. i used a hand blender which works fine.

3. in a small saucepan, dissolve the 125ml of sugar in the 125ml of water over medium-high heat. if using the microwave, put it in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat it on high until the sugar is dissolved (about a minute), stirring every so often.
4. pop the 2 packets of gelatin in the 80ml of water to soften the gelatin.

5. dump the gelatin mix into the sugar water and stir it up until the lumps are gone. let it cool a bit.
6. dump the liquid into the pulverized mango pulp -- stir it well together then do a little dance.
7. pour the mix into the lined square pan, refrigerate the thing on a level surface for about 45 minutes.

8. make the almond gelatin (see below).

(almond gelatin)
160 ml (2/3 cup) water
180 ml (3/4 cup) sugar
250 ml (1 cup) milk
8ml (1.5 tsp) almond extract
2 envelopes flavourless gelatin
80 ml (1/3 cup) water (for the gelatin)

9. dissolve the 2 envelopes of gelatin in the 80 ml of water.
10. heat the sugar in the water (either in the saucepan or microwave) until the sugar is dissolved.
11. dump the gelatin mix into the sugar water and stir until the lumps are gone.
12. add the milk and the almond extract to the liquid mixture. stir until well mixed and then let it cool to room temperature.

13. pour the almond liquid into the square pan on top of the mango layer. refrigerate for an hour, or until set.
14. remove from the fridge, and unmould it with the help of the plastic film wrap. cut into cubes or diamond-ish shapes. eat them to your heart's content.