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Posts tagged ‘Recipe For Disaster’

Melt with You

Fonduefixings I had to put this Christmas gift fondue pot to work pronto. I vowed to clean up my food act beginning Jan. 9 and steaming vessels of melted cheese don’t really fit into that virtuous plan. I had to go out with a bang.

No time for experimenting, I opted for a traditional gruyere and emmental combo with a hit of kirsch. (Do you know what would've been really classy? Kraft Crumbles fondue. Totally crumbelievable. Ok, I was just joking, but Kraft has quite a few fondue recipes as it turns out.)

FondueThe only addition to the original recipe was a touch of freshly grated nutmeg. I’m not trying to make a statement, The Vampire wine happened to be a party leftover and the only white I had on hand, though I think pinot grigio is acceptably dry for a fondue base.

I had a fromage fest both Friday and Sunday because who knows when I'll have another chance in the near future.

Devil of a Time

Devilfixings_1 I wanted to make a curry from scratch to while away a potentially dull Christmas evening. I was limited to what I could forage in my pantry, freezer and mediocre local grocery store on Christmas Eve, but I did alright. Weirdly, the only thing I needed to leave the house for was potatoes, though I ended up buying a fresher piece of ginger, the world's saddest stalk of lemongrass and chicken drumsticks and thighs rather than trying to chop up the whole bird I had frozen. While not ideal, I keep galangal, candlenuts, birdseye chiles and shredded lemongrass (as well as curry, pandan, banana and kaffir lime leaves) in the freezer for situations such as this.

Originally, I was leaning towards Thailand for inspiration, then remembered devil curry a supposed Eurasian Christmas dish. I say supposed because this isn't a cuisine I've experienced it first hand (though I have tried Macanese food). It's not like Kristang culture, the Portuguese-Malay mix centered around Malacca, is exactly booming (I think I'm just partial because my name, Krista, is in the word). They're a dying breed, literally.

I found countless variations of devil curry in cookbooks and on the web. Nyonyas tend to add Roastpork_1 shrimp paste and cabbage, Singaporeans use tomato, cucumber and chicken cocktail franks (at first, I figured this was a Muslim adaptation– in Kuala Lumpur I had a morning choice of beef bacon, turkey ham and chicken sausage–but the char siew kind of throws off that theory). I actually had a can of Vienna sausages on hand, but didn't feel the urge to include them, authenticity be damned. I wouldn't have bothered with the Chinese roast pork, except that including it was an excuse to have crab rangoon delivered. However, the sliced meat came completely submerged in a gloppy brown sauce (pictured, right) that I had to strain off.

I settled on a fairly simple version from Eurasian Favorites by Wendy Hutton and added a teaspoon each of shrimp paste and tumeric powder (the root is one thing I've forgotten to keep in the freezer) because those extra ingredients seemed important.

Chicken Curry Devil (Curry Debal)
1 2 ½ pound fresh chicken, cut into bite-sized portions
1 tablespoon black soy sauce
½ cup oil
2 medium onions, quartered
3 cups water
2 stems lemongrass, bruised
1 ½ teaspoons salt
8 ounces Chinese roast pork, cut into ¾" pieces (optional)
3 potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon hot English mustard powder

Spice Paste
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
12-16 dried chiles, cut in ¾" lengths, soaked to soften
4 large red chiles, sliced
14 shallots, chopped
2 tablespoons garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon galangal, finely chopped
3 candlenuts, chopped

Devilpaste_1 1. Prepare the spice paste by processing mustard seeds in spice grinder until coarsely ground. Add both lots of chiles, shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal and candlenuts and blend to a smooth paste, adding a little of the oil if necessary to keep blades turning.

2. Put 4 tablespoons of the spice paste and the soy sauce in a large bowl and stir to mix well. Add chicken and stir to coat with the mixture.

3. Heat a wok, add ¼ cup of the oil and heat until very hot. Add marinated chicken and stir-fry until it changes color all over, 3-4 minutes. Remove chicken pieces. Add remaining oil, reduce heat and stir-fry remaining spice paste and quartered onions over low-medium heat for 4-5 minutes.

4. Add water, lemongrass and salt and simmer 2 minutes, scraping any spice paste from the bottom. Add chicken, cover the wok and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add roast pork, if using, and potatoes and simmer until cooked, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix vinegar, sugar and mustard, then add to the wok, stirring for about 1 minute to mix well.

5. Transfer to a large bowl and serve with steamed white rice.

Serves 4

Devilcurry_1 The end result was spicy, but not as hot as I'd anticipated. I'm betting that the devil curry will taste even better tomorrow. Especially since I used hotter chiles than the recipe called for. I can never find long red peppers like Holland chiles. But the curry definitely had that Malaysian quality, which I think comes from the belacan, candlenuts and massive amounts of shallots. I'm always dubious about the quantity called for, especially when some are small and garlic-sized, while others are almost as big as an onion.

* * *

Eggs_5 On Christmas Eve I made Carmelized Salmon Deviled Eggs for a party. (Initially, I felt mild shame for using an Emeril recipe, but all was well when it turned out that another partier had brought a Rachael Ray creation.) Weird, I have no particular fixation on deviled dishes (which I thought meant mustard, but with the curry I think it means heat even though it does contain a touch of mustard). I just needed a recipe to make use of my impractical Rubbermaid egg carrier that I've only used once in three years.

Peas Porridge

Lambfixings I had a Costco rack of lamb that needed eating, so I went looking for a low-fuss recipe and came up with Roast Lamb with Marionberry-Pecan Crust. Very Oregon, sometimes I feel like rooting for the home state. And I got to put my jar of organic reduced sugar Trader Joe's marionberry preserves to use (jams always sound appealing, but then I never manage to finish them).

The nutty, sweet and tangy flavors meshed with the very mild flavored meat. My only issue was trying to keep the crust from flaking off while slicing the slab into chops. Is there a secret to an adhesive coating?

Lambchop I couldn't resist turning to traditional mint as a side dish seasoning. Smashed Peas with Mint Butter tasted fresh (despite using frozen peas) and slightly sweet, and the vivid green hue was impressive. If I only knew that James was going to make split pea soup for lunch this same Sunday, I might've looked for a different accompaniment. We've eaten a lot of green peas in the past few days.

Mustard Seed Magic

Sunday evening I was inspired to make a few recipes from the January 2006 (typing 2006 is really frightening) Food & Wine. You never know what will jump out at you, but I liked the simplicity and flair of Sai Viswanath’s Indian inflected creations from DeWolf Tavern in Rhode Island. I decided on replicating two dishes, the garam masala-crusted chicken with fig jus and green bean-chile stir-fry. The tumeric-ginger cauliflower also sounded appealing, but I figured I’d save that side for another night.

Ingredients_1  I was hoping to use things I had around the house. All I had to run out in the freezing afternoon cold for were green beans, dried figs (which I thought I had—I swear I have every other dried fruit known to man all baggied up in the cupboard) and a jalapeño (I always have birds eye chiles on hand, but didn’t want to deviate. As it turned out, I could’ve gotten away with a little extra heat, the jalapeño was nearly imperceptible in the beans). The recipes were straightforward enough that this could’ve been a weeknight dinner (I try to reserve Sundays for time consuming endeavors) though you can’t totally ignore the chicken, it needs a little tending to.

Roastchicken James asked if I had used five spice, which I hadn’t, it was garam masala. But that made sense. It had never occurred to me before that the combo of cumin, coriander, black pepper, cloves and cinnamon (of course, there are countless variations) is totally an Indian five spice powder. I didn’t make my own, but went with a scoop from a 99-cent packet of Swad brand blend. I’m obsessed with Swad, seriously, but I’ll save my fervor for another time. The oil and spice slathered bird smelled very sweet as it roasted.

Greenbeans While at The Met (which isn't great, but compared to the world's most heinous Key Food it's almost heavenly), picking up ingredients, I tried to find an ice cream that would compliment the leftover caramel sauce I’d made the weekend before to go with sticky toffee pudding. I ended up with a pint of the limited edition Haagan Dazs eggnog flavor, but haven’t tried it yet since I was too full after eating dinner and downright tipsy after swigging a bottle of Czech beer, also a party remainder. I didn’t realize how strong the effects of 10% alcohol actually were outside of the celebratory context. I guess that’s why they call it social drinking.

P.S. Did anyone else use the '70s Keys to Reading textbooks with stoner titles like "Mustard Seed Magic" and "Air Pudding and Wind Sauce"?

Super Casual Holiday Dinner Party

My Super Casual Holiday Dinner Party was originally intended as a post-Thanksgiving feast since it’s never worth my while to cook anything substantial on the fourth Thursday of November. Everyone goes out of town except me (though this year I was able to rustle up two friends to go to Chestnut). So, I waited for the following weekend, but by this Saturday, Christmas spirit seemed to have taken over. Maybe it was the snow that fell that evening, that December was on the calendar or that we’d bought and decorated a tree that afternoon.

No matter, I was surprised at the number of RSVPers. Usually it seems like 30% will bow out, but I must’ve picked a good weekend because almost all were takers. I initially was anticipating 15 guests, that somehow swelled to 30, then subsided to somewhere in the 20s. I threw a similar shindig last year and attempted table seating, which was nightmarish.

This year it was totally buffet style, a mix of real (“blemished” Thomas Paul aviary plates off ebay, those green, blue and orange Isaac Mizrahi plates that everyone seems to own, and some caprice patterned Eva Zeisel, not the new all-white Crate and Barrel edition) and Chinet plates, classy plastic Costco cutlery that looked like metal, and everyone sprawled out, some in chairs, some on the floor. That’s why I called it Super Casual. I’ve got the food down…presentation skills, not so much.

The bizarre thing is that our apartment is spacious by NYC standards, probably close to 2,000 sq. ft. but the kitchen is woefully small. I would gladly give up the second rarely used bathroom (but never the second refrigerator—that’s pure decadence) for more cooking space.

I hate to admit that most of my recipes came from Epicurious. Cooking is like drawing to me. I can totally render something if I’m looking at it, but I can’t reproduce images from my mind. I like having a recipe to follow. I might know that I want duck and a citrus sauce with some sort of twist, but I can’t envision the exact end product. Instead, I have to browse for something to fit my criteria. The orange honey and tea sauce I ultimately settled on was exactly the type of accompaniment I had in mind but couldn’t articulate.

I don’t really get too esoteric or foody-ish, I’m very much a grocery store girl. A majority of my ingredients came from Fresh Direct (weird because I’ve only used them three times, and only for Thanksgiving) Trader Joe’s and Rossman Farms, nothing fancy. The arugula was organic because it cost the same as regular. I mean, a carrot is a carrot and no one’s going to spaz over my using store brand sour cream. And if they did, I wouldn’t be hanging around them for long. Food, for me, is fun, a social vehicle, not something to show off. 

I’ll freely admit to being a pathetic photographer (instead, I ramble on and on with words). Cooking for 25 can be harrowing, particularly in a tiny kitchen. And my serving dishes and pots couldn’t accommodate the quantity. It was all about batches and hoping for the best. So, just getting the food coordinated and on the table was a feat in itself. After an hour of sating guests with snacks (vegetable pate, duck mousse, muhammara, baked brie, and Asian sweets) and alcohol, it seemed cruel to make them wait while I snapped shots of all the dishes. You’ll have to use your imagination for much of it. Though I suspect attendees might soon come forward with additional photographic illustration.

The Menu:
Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Mexican Cream and Toasted Pepitas
Moroccan Arugula Salad with Beets and Ricotta Salata
Duck Breasts with Orange Honey and Tea Sauce
Carmelized Spiced Carrots
Jeweled Rice with Dried Fruit
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Mulled Apple Cider

Muhammara
Surprisingly good. I kind of hate roasting and peeling peppers, it’s a pain, but the end effect is worth it. It almost looked and tasted like the dip contained dairy, maybe it was the ground walnuts.

Mexican Pumpkin Soup
The original recipe made 14 servings and I upped it one and a half times to get 21 bowls worth. But I’m not culinarily savvy enough to get the proportions right. I didn’t think a straight 1.5 ratio would was necessarily correct, as nine cups of onions seemed excessive. I cut it down to maybe 7 ½ and to me, it felt a bit overpowering. I tried to cut the rawness with a little more milk and broth, a dash of sugar. I’d used all the canned pumpkin up, and then remembered a giant gross can of pre-seasoned pie filling that I’d accidentally bought a few years back and didn’t have the heart to throw away. It’d been hiding in the back of the pasta and grain shelf for ever. I tossed in a big blob, and I swear to god it saved this soup from allium overdose.

Salad Moroccan Arugula Salad With Beets and Ricotta Salata
Perfect, except that I didn’t have any serving bowls that could hold four pounds of beets and two pounds of arugula, which I didn’t deduce until after whisking the full dressing amount in the intended bowl. After being eaten down 75%, I threw in the remaining vegetables and cheese crumbles. I ate from round two and it was fine, not lacking in dressing. The first batch probably had a bit extra, whatever, it all works out in the end. Once again, I was thwarted in my quest for designer produce. I envisioned candy striped beets for this dish, but they were out of stock.

Duck_1Duck Breasts with Orange Honey and Tea Sauce
  I have a disproportionate amount of vegetarian friends, so my worries that we’d run out of duck were unfounded. I just wanted to cook poultry that wasn’t turkey. And goose is crazy expensive. Duck breasts were a good compromise, the best part of the bird and easier to manage. No hardcore carving. I knew the sauce takes an eternity to reduce because I did one smart thing and tried this recipe out a few weeks ago (I rarely do that, I know you’re not supposed to use friends as guinea pigs but it usually turns out ok). You need to cook shallots in duck fat, which is rendered after the searing. So, I was smart enough to save the fat from my test run to get the sauce accomplished the day before the party. I only needed to rewarm it and finish it off with honey and a butt-load of butter.

Carrots Carmelized Spiced Carrots
I totally destroyed cookie sheets with this one. There was way more marinade than carrot (despite using six pounds of root vegetable). I felt bad just tossing the liquid, so I drizzled, no make that poured the dark brew over the carrots while roasting. It immediately occurred to me that the sugars in the pomegranate molasses were going to char like crazy, but I just went with it. About half way through I had to rescue the carrots and transfer them to a glass dish. The apartment was totally smoked up and the larger of the two sheets, crusted in black gooey ash. They didn’t taste blackened, however. I’d originally wanted maroon and other colorful carrots for this dish, but didn’t have time to scour farmer’s markets or specialty shops. These were run of the mill orange sticks, but the roasting, spices and sauce darken the flesh anyway, the fuchsia quality would’ve been muted.

Rice Jeweled Rice with Dried Fruit
Pretty simple and nice because it doesn’t need a lot of attention, more than anything it sits. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember to add the pistachios at the end. I made this dish again last night with leftover parboiled rice that wouldn’t fit in the pan during the party, and forgot the pistachios a second time.

Sticky Toffee Pudding
There are many variations on this sweet date cake, but I went with the version from last month’s Saveur. I don’t think it’s online yet. Maybe I’ll abuse copyright and type it out later. I couldn’t track down black treacle (everyone’s got Lyle’s golden syrup, but not the dark stuff) so I substituted molasses.

Sweets_1 At the left, assorted mithai, candied pistachios and Thai marzipan fruit, which is one of the cutest things in the world. Who would've thought to use mung bean paste to simulate ground almonds? By the point in the evening, bolstered by many glasses of wine, I became obsessed with explaining what mung beans were and had to drag out the Visual Food Encyclopedia and totally got librarian on everyone’s ass.

Spirited Hot Apple Cider
James was in charge of drinks and decided on a mulled apple cider. You couldn’t even imagine the trouble it took to track down applejack in our neighborhood (Carroll Gardens, which is hardly off the beaten path). I had this same exact trauma a few Thanksgivings ago when I needed apple brandy for a gravy.

Tom Yuck?

Ok, it might seem hypocritical to talk about something like tom yam pizza after just dissing Rachael Ray’s boo-sotto, but I never said I was classy. I’m harder on Americans than foreigners. I love the home cook, I hesitate to say house wife, geared sections of SE Asian publications like The Star. The food is almost all novel and atypical to me, so I don’t have issues if they’re oversimplifying or bastardizing recipes. 

That’s why I have no problems with Sylvia Tan’s books like Mad About Food. She doesn’t get too nuts, but does have a recipe for tom yam seafood pizza. So does Anya Von Bremzen in Terrific Pacific, the 1995 cookbook that totally got me started on my SE Asian kick. I’ve adapted the two into my own version.

Malaysians are crazy for anything tom yum, kind of how Americans equate pad Thai with Thai cuisine. By the way, Thai food sucks in Malaysia, it’s either bland and tame or Chinese food in disguise (same with Singapore and Hong Kong). I refused to believe this and couldn’t understand it since they share a border. Penang is less than one hundred miles from Thailand, like from NYC to Philadelphia (though some would argue that we can’t get cheesesteaks right). But Malaysians make anything tom yum: noodles, potato chips, buns, and yes, pizza (at Pizza Hut, no less). Who am I to buck a trend?

I was home alone tonight and trying to come up with Tomyumrawsomething that used up odds and ends cluttering up the fridge and freezer, and this was it. I used enough frozen products to make Clarence Birdseye proud: lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, pizza dough and shrimp. The limes weren’t frozen, but ancient. Unfortunately, the half bell pepper and red onion I also intended to salvage had to be nixed since both were on the cusp of decomposing. I really cleaned house. I’d used up every last wisp of flour while making lamb pies on Sunday, so I had to improvise with cake flour, which was no biggie since it was simply for dusting

Cheese isn’t a must for this dish, but mozzarella is mild enough to not offend. But this evening I only had generic cheddar, American cheese, Chavrie goat, Pecorino Romano, light Laughing Cow cheese and a gruyere on hand (huh, that’s a lot more cheese than I realized, plus there was a moldy fontina butt end in the crisper), none of which seemed wise melted with seafood. But I went wild and grated the narrow remainder of gruyere since this was a pantry streamlining exercise.

Tom Yum Pizza

1 lime
1 teaspoon olive oil

½ tablespoon minced lemongrass

½ tablespoon minced ginger

8 ounces peeled, halved shrimp (squid works too)

2 tablespoons tom yum paste

1 squirt fish sauce

1 teaspoon sambal oelek

1 pound ball pizza dough

5 ounces sliced mushrooms, oyster preferred

Small handful coarsely chopped cilantro

2 kaffir lime leaves, shredded

Mozzarella cheese (optional)

Combine ginger, lemongrass, olive oil and juice from half the lime. Toss in shrimp and let marinade for up to one hour.

Tomyumbowls_1Mix tom yum paste, the rest of lime juice, fish sauce and sambal. Set aside.

Roll out dough and place on lightly oiled cookie sheet (preferably pizza pan).

Spread tom yum sauce over dough and top with shrimp, cut side down, and mushrooms. Sprinkle with cilantro and lime leaves. Mozzarella is optional at this point. Gross as it sounds, I’ve made it that way and it was tasty.

Bake at 500˚F for 10 to 12 minutes.

Tomyumpizza

It turned out satisfactorily, the cheese was just accent enough, but over all the pie was too salty. I’d use less tom yum paste and fish sauce next time, and probably increase the amount of shrimp. Those adjustments are reflected in the recipe above.

Sheepish Endeavor

I like cooking, though I probably enjoy planning and eating more, but I don’t revel in the act of preparing food like it’s some sensual ritual or zen process. My favorite thing is fussing around with menu ideas (I’m already fixating on what I can make—duck, not turkey—for a post-Thanksgiving dinner party that I fear won’t be well attended despite not falling on the holiday proper when everyone else seems to have places to be except for me). Perhaps that’s why the idea of being a chef has never appealed to me. Not that I’d want to be a party planner or caterer either. My cooking ambivalence is why I rarely record what I make, plus I use recipes, not things out of my head. But I’m trying to document a random dish here and there, just for the sake of practice.

* * *

LambingredientsWith the temperature finally starting to dip, Individual Lamb Pies from the latest Martha Stewart Living (I read it at work, if you must know) seemed seasonally appropriate. Besides, hers looked so cute with the little holes punched from the crust, and it gave me an excuse to purchase some relatively unnecessary kiwi green Le Creuset petite casseroles (two, rather than four because I’m cheap—I had to scrounge around the apartment in search of two other appropriate vessels, and settled on little Pyrex bowls ).

Everyone knows you’re supposed to read recipes thoroughly before attempting them, but I flaunted convention and there was trouble. I didn’t realize the lamb had to cook for two hours, that the pies had to refrigerate 30 minutes before baking, and I didn’t think to check the rarely used tub of shortening (it had gone rancid). So, I used all butter and barely squeaked by with the stick and a half on hand. I used every last poof of flour, exactly 2 1/2 cups worth. The rolling pin and board had to be dusted with old cake flour.

But it wasn’t a disaster by any means. The crust just didn’t seem as flaky as it could’ve been, and the pies weren’t ready until after 11pm, which isn’t all that unusual for Sunday evening when I always stay up too far past midnight in denial of rapidly approaching Monday.

CookedpiesI made an equally autumnal arugula, goat chese, fig and toasted walnut salad to tide me over. But it was one of those Cooking Light recipes, which are generally better than you’d expect (often the light aspect comes more from portion sizes than ingredients and I end up eating two servings, totally defeating the original purpose), though their salad dressings skew the vinegar to oil proportion in favor of the acid, which can come on too strong.

The benefit of cooking four pies for two people is that you can eat another the following night. The leftover pie was way more flavorful than the original, but didn’t look as charming minus the mini crock.

Sarawakian Experiment

Laksapaste_4Sarawak Laksa

300g Sarawak laksa paste (I'm keeping this metric because that's how the paste comes packaged)

8 cups chicken stock

1 cup thick coconut milk

16 oz thick rice vermicelli (I couldn't’t figure out how thick they meant, so I opted for the thicker of the two types I had in the pantry. I'm pretty sure Sarawak laksa doesn't use the round rice noodles, which are next to impossible to find in NYC anyway)

Toppings

¼ cup beansprouts (you’re supposed to blanch, but I didn’t bother)

3 1/2 oz. chicken (half a medium breast) poached and shredded
5 large prawns cooked and shelled (I used half a pound of smaller prawns because I needed to use them up. Consider this an American adaptation, heavier on the protein)

Ricenoodles_2Garnish

2 eggs, cooked into an omelet and cut into strips
¼ cup cilantro leaves, chopped

3 calimansi, halved (I lucked out in finding these at the Elmhurst Hong Kong Supermarket, as opposed to my usual Sunset Park location. Lime wedges would also be fine)

Boil laksa paste and chicken stock together for 15 minutes. Strain into a pot. Add coconut milk and mix well. Season to taste with sugar and salt.

Briefly boil dried noodles to soften. Drain, and divide into serving bowls. Add toppings in order listed. Ladle laksa gravy on top.

Garnish with omelet strips and cilantro.

Calimansi_4 Serve with sambal and lime halves.

Sambal
5 cloves garlic

2 shallots

Half a medium onion
¼ cup dried chiles, soaked in hot water
2 tablespoons dried shrimp, soaked and drained

5 tablespoons oil (the original calls for 6-8 tablespoons, but that felt excessive—hopefully, I didn’t ruin the flavor)
3 ½ tablespoons chile paste (I used sambal oelek)
1 tablespoon tamarind paste mixed with 3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

Pound garlic, shallots, onion, dried chiles and dried shrimp into a paste using a mortar and pestle. Or alternatively, use a food processor. I usually go for the mortar and pestle (it's easier to clean, and of course more traditional) but I don't have the patience to break down the dried chiles properly.

Heat oil and fry the sambal ingredients until brown and aromatic. Add chile paste and tamarind liquid and season to taste with sugar and salt. Continue cooking over low heat for 25 minutes.

Serves four.

Adapted from Savouring Sarawak, Flavours, July-August 2005.

Sarawaklaksa_3 
I'm definitely neither food stylist nor photographer, but you get the gist.

I was lucky enough to be given a package of Double Red Swallow Sarawak laksa paste as a gift when in Kuala Lumpur. This is the good stuff, straight from Kuching. It's hard to find even in Malaysia, never mind the U.S. I hope I did it proud. As I've never had Sarawak style laksa before, it's hard to gauge how close my version comes to the original.

I do think I my sambal turned out hotter than what I'd tasted in Malaysia. I have a high heat tolerance and it still burnt the taste out of my tongue (I just ate some with chicken and rice for lunch and my mouth is now numb). I was trying to measure the dried chiles with a food scale, using the metrics from the original recipe, but I don't think the calibration is sensitive enough–no matter how many chiles I piled on, the needle barely budged. My 1/4 cup suggestion  is less than what I used, and probably wiser.

Book ‘Em

What did I buy on vacation? Er, not much really. Mostly books, which gives some people pause. And groceries (which I’ll go into at a later date). Clothes and shoes weren’t really worth the bother–I’m on the larger end of the sizing spectrum as it is in America, so Asia is kind out of the question unless I want to shop at British chains like Marks & Spencer (which I don’t really want to) or Top Shop (where I did buy a shirt). In fact, I spent so much on cookbooks that my credit card was frozen for fraud protection. (Actually, I didn’t spend that much, maybe $100, I think they would’ve frozen it anyway just because charges were coming from out of the country.)

Nonya Flavours: A Complete Guide to Penang Straits Chinese Cuisine
Food From the Heart: Malaysia's Culinary Heritage
Singapore Heritage Food: Yesterday's Recipes for Today's Cook
Malaysian Delicacies
Delightful Snacks & Dim Sum

Malaysian Cakes & Desserts
Homestyle Malay Cooking
Eurasian Favorites

Rasa Malaysia

And two bilingual books I found in the Chinese section of Kinokunyia that have zero web presence:
Moon Cake
Hawker's Kuih-muih Favorites

And People Complain About “Gourmet”

Happy times, my fall Kraft Food & Family magazine has arrived in the mail. I was first disturbed/charmed by an unsolicited Spanish language edition that was mailed to me at my former address. The goal of this advertorial/publication appears to be using as many Kraft owned brands in a single recipe and convincing readers this is good eats. It almost makes Sandra Lee look like Thomas Keller.

My favorite recipe of this issue wasn’t only mildly grotesque: easy baked fish and chips using KRAFT LIGHT DONE RIGHT! Zesty Italian Reduced Fat Dressing (they love putting salad dressing where it doesn’t belong) to toss with the potatoes, and MIRACLE WHIP Light Dressing to swab on the fish before dredging it in SHAKE 'N BAKE Extra Crispy Seasoned Coating Mix (all Kraft products have very long names and lots of capitals). Surprisingly, they call for fresh fish, probably only because they don’t own any brands like Gorton’s.

While the savory stuff tends to be scary, the desserts actually look good. But my sweet tooth tends to run very mainstream, i.e. super sugary, fatty, lots of clutter. Basil pink peppercorn granita type concoctions just don’t do it for me like caramel cheesecake bars do.