Tepee

Carrot Top...to elaborate...the chinese 7th month is the Hungry Ghost Festival, where the dear departed's souls are let loose to 'indulge'. My mom, being a vague Taoist, does offer food and incense from joss-sticks too, but wayyyyyyyy less than yunnermeier's. Basically, they do this outside the house gates, for wandering souls. When we were young, we were discouraged from going outdoors after 7pm just in case our luck was particularly low and we bump into one of them. Also, during the night offering, we were reminded not to answer to anyone calling our name, in case it was them calling/wooing us. Of course, instead of heeding mom's warning, we did a lot of 'Bali High' calls, until we came across some indeterminate calls...."Why did you call me for?"..."Call you? No, I didn't." Halloween is carnival stuff and miles less creepy than going through the 7th moon those days. And, there are no treats. Maybe that's why we celebrate the Mooncake Festival after that. However, none of us (the 4 children) are traditional believers now...with Roman Catholic, Protestant and Bahai being our faiths. I do wish people would leave traditions alone, and not commercialize it. It's a struggle every year trying to tell non-believers the true meaning of Christmas. p/s 7th month 14th day is not a holiday here. and, Laksa, my mom offers oranges and apples too.

Wah! What a list...my cup runneth over! Tks, hz.

Gimme your address, PLEASE, and I'll do justice to the food...er...not particularly altar food but nyonya food. YES!

What a feast! I can just smell the food! Um..could you (very roughly) name the dishes? Lemme see...I think I can identify acar (pickled veg), and that interesting layered block looks like some glutinous kuih, and, of course, there's mangosteen, rambutan, langsat, pomelo and durian, thoughtfully peeled, black ang koo?? What happens to the food after the rituals?

Will be in LA/SF in Dec. This thread will be useful, especially for those in my party who will die without chinese food (must be authentic, though) for more than 2 days.

Ben-sook-sook...you've said many things....your well-oiled tongue must be the result of a lot of lard consumption...but keep it coming. You know, I'd just love to sit at your feet to learn/listen from your rich experiences. Ninjai Fan: Just to clarify what you mean by vegetarian mooncakes. Well, mooncakes are basically vegetarian (barring the nut type called ng yan which has ham in it) unless egg yolks are not counted as vegetarian? Otherwise, the mooncake is totally vegetarian. I've seen a lot of mooncake recipes and they don't even have lard in the skin. Just curious...and sympathetic.

Shanghai Mooncakes...mmm...buttery crust, nice. Methinks I oversteamed the yolk, though. Added melon seeds for the non-yolk ones. Teochew Spiral Mooncakes will be on the agenda next week.

I'm pretty busy at the moment...but if you can wait, I'll snoop out the recipes later. We (um...the Msians) will be glad to translate any recipes you're interested, though.

Gosh, I've never done that before..perhaps, Laksa can chip in on the taste. I'm sure it will not have the same oomph as the fresh stuff, though. When we need santan, we just go to the market/grocer and ask for 1 coconut (for 250 ml of first-squeezed santan) or more. Then they'll do the grating for you. Clicky.Some markets even sell squeezed fresh milk. We just put this finely-grated coconut into a muslin bag and squeeeeeeeeeeze.

Haze or no haze, I gotta have my ayam berempah (ayam=chicken, berempah=spiced). Close-up Note: A thousand apologies for swinging this thread off tangent.

Great, got your email. BTW, the van parks outside the stationery shop back-2-back with the 7-11 store at BK4. And, oh, tomorrow's fried chicken rice day ... duh, maybe not, with the #@%! haze.

Definitely and Doubtlessly! Yay, free French lessons! Next time I'll provide the napkins.

Let's sweeten this thread with some Tau Foo Fah...made this using glucono delta lactose (GDL) as the coagulant. Usually, we use gypsum (sek ko) but decided to try this 'safer' alternative. Well, the texture is very different. The one using GDL is more like the silken tofu, only with more liquid/softer. The TFF using sek ko is firmer; I think sek ko is a stronger coagulant. This one's for my fav sook-sook Ben... I like it with sugar syrup fragranced with pandan leaves and a knob of ginger, but the children like theirs with palm sugar syrup.

Teochew Spiral Mooncake Shanghai Mooncake (2nd from the bottom)

You're welcome, Apicio. White lotus paste, being very mild in flavor, easily complements a myriad of skins. Its neutral taste explains why there are so many spin-offs using the lotus paste as a base...like pandan, honeydew, and etc... Transparent: I've set up a page on Mooncake Moulds. If anyone is really keen on making mooncakes and can't get ahold of the moulds, I could get them for you. No problemo. The smallest wooden biscuit mould weighs around 120 gm and the biggest 600 gms.

Paradasia: You beat me to posting on Pulasan. We bought some from the pasar malam (night market) recently. I prefer the crunchiness of the rambutan's flesh over the more jelly-like flesh of the pulasan. It was very sweet, though. Besides, since the bunch we bought were probably picked off some jungle tree, half of it had suspicious holes in them. Hubby just came back from his first wild jungle fruit feast in Miri, East Malaysia. He must have tasted about 6 fruits he'd never seen before, and brought home two. OK, this first one, probably most of you are acquainted with, except yours truly. This is the Sibu olives...kana (Laksa mentioned earlier that this is his fav). To eat it, you blanch it for a few minutes in boiling water, fish it out and roll it in some sugar. Nice. Cutting the seed into 2, one can dig out the meat inside which is pleasantly nutty. OK, now this next one I hope to get the real name of. DH was told that it is called buah talak, while SIL said she saw a pic of it with the label Dawai. Paradasia, if you can source this fruit, it would be quite saleable, I'm sure. It's delicious, especially, chilled! First of all, the fruit looks and feels so CUTE! Rubbery and hairy, the size of an average durian. There's some pantang (taboo) that it must never touch the ground or it won't ripen. So, it's usually heavily wrapped in newspapers to act as a buffer. It's very easy to open when it's ripe. Opening it up reveals a fruit like the cempedak. The fruit is lighter in colour, the texture of the flesh is closer to that of a custard apple and mangosteen, and tastes rather like a cempedak, but better, not so pungent. The seeds are small, like a peanut. They tell us to wash and dry them. Frying them will loosen a thin skin and then you can eat it like a peanut. Cool. I like.

Thanks, mooncake appreciators! Apicio: My recipe for the skin ---> 225g koh fun (cooked glutinous rice flour), 200g confectioner's sugar, 60g shortening, 200 ml cold water. For the green tea one, I made a paste out of 3 tablespoons of green tea powder with 3 tblsp of water. For the orange one, I added a few drops of orange oil and 1/4 lemon juice (no oranges in the house) . Suzysushi: Am afraid these mooncakes, which have to be kept refrigerated, will morph into something else by the time they reach you. Hz: My, my, your agent fees have certainly shot up. Sue-On: Last night, I brought 20 of the ping-pei's to a niece-in-law's birthday dinner. It was polished off in no time. My SIL's mom said it tastes better than a well-known restaurant's. Shucks. Just brought over another 20 to my mom's to be distributed to my siblings. The rest will definitely not see the new moon (Mooncake Festival will be on Sept 18 this year). Yes, the original ping pei is white - to reflect the 'snow' appearance as well as the taste, since eaten chilled, it leaves a refreshing cold feeling. Today, I passed by a bakery with a banner which offered NEW mooncakes (what? more NEW flavors?). I didn't even look closely to see what flavors they were...shudder, shudder. If I can get some yam/taro this week, the Teochew Spiral Mooncake will be next.

Made 3 dozens each of these mini Ping Pei's today. Green Tea skin with Red Bean Paste filling. Orange-flavored skin with White Lotus Paste filling.

Hey, JC. Haven't seen you around for some time. Hope to see you on Aug 31! This gerai is in Bandar Kinrara, Puchong. At first, there was this one stall operated by 2 guys at BK5, at the corner of the turning into BK5/2. They only open after 6.15pm. Then, I stumbled on another similar chicken stall in BK4, operated by a husband and wife team, from the back of a van. They open at around 5.30 pm. I wonder if it comes from the same supplier, but they do fry it on the spot. Most ayam goreng is fried dry to the bones and there isn't much meat to the chicken to begin with. But, theirs are decent pieces and the meat is still succulent. I wonder if they add the whatchamaccalit mamak herb which is addictive, because we are really addicted to it. RM2 per piece.

Eh? A simple pleasure like Nasi Lemak is not cluttered with Etiquette. Enjoy it however you like. Keywords: Enjoy and Like. My girls are getting pretty good at eating with their fingers. AmyDaniel: Have you had 'real' Nasi Lemak before? If you had not, be thankful. If not, it is a craving that reaches a hair-pulling nail-biting level if you can't get your fix on a regular basis. A few months ago, we discovered a stall in our area which sells Rice with Fried Chicken. Sounds ordinary, right? But then the fried chicken they sell is no ordinary fried chicken. You can smell the bewitching aroma from a distance when they are frying it. I've got pictures in the other computer. The marinade is a secret mix of spices and kerisik, and is faintly spicy hot, so the children can take it with no sticking-out-tongue effects. They give you some sweetish sambal to go with it. You know what? We've been having this same fried chicken at least one meal a week (sometimes I shred the chicken for a sandwich) ever since. We are that hooked. The point of this story is I so feel for Msians who are out of the country for some time..... NOT!

Let's see what Laksa messing with Nasi Lemak can whip up. I'm not shy to admit I'm greedy. I like ikan bilis in both its separate crispiness and as a soft treasure in sambal. I don't like it in between, though. No, sirree!...no chewy ikan bilis for me. Not really about separate components, but I do like my sambal separate from the rest of the stuff, mainly, because of my low threshold for heat*. I suffer if the chilli oil leaks into the rice. I relish taking spoonfuls of rice together with a heap of sambal, but somehow, the oil part kills me. No salted fish in P. Msia as far as my experience goes. Hmm...you mean, it comes with your nasi as a basic deal? * Isn't it cruel that despite years of 'training', my tongue is not seasoned? I love spicy food but TP eating hot stuff is not a pretty sight.

Heh...looking at the cons, I admit I was going to give PC a miss... until wesza's post. Well, I'm technically a Hakka, so for the sake of my roots, I'll give it a try.

Pros of this dish: 1. No waiting time between entrees. 2. Great conversation piece..."Hey, what do you think we'll unearth next?", and, etc... 3. Aesthetics...could work for or against, depending on the artistry of the assembler. 4. In the hands of a sifu, there would be pleasant, if not delicious, blending of flavors. I'm sure there should be a harmonious set-up. 5. We should ask Aprilmei if this dish is generally served during certain festivals, in which case, there would be a symbolic significance, probably made up of the like-sounding names of the ingredients. 6. The bigger the better???? Not if quality is compromised, though. But, in villages, where such a dish is a feast, it would look like the cup runneth over, if a big basin is served. 7. Less headache with dinnerware for the kitchen. Cons of this dish: 1. Hygiene, if there is no server. 2. Aesthetic...if there's digging (ugh), I don't want to imagine the sight. 3. I'm having a problem with the 'basin' used. Is it made of clay, porcelain or aluminium? You know what? I don't think the cons entered or featured in the minds of the people who created this dish.

Mari makan is an invitation in Malay: Mari = Come Makan = Eat

I beg to differ....I don't see this thread going firey, except *pant, pant* from the nasi I had this morning. The beauty of nasi lemak is in all its simplicity (with the basic condiments) and in all its complexity (with all extra indulgences), there's nothing controversial about it. Enjoy. Edit: Word should be 'complexity' instead of 'perplexity'. Guess I was a bit perplexed at the original time of posting.