LT Wong

I looked through the McGee book recently in a bookshop and was quite disappointed. As much as I like his "On Food and Cooking" his new book is just a very dumped down version which hardly includes any interesting or new information if you haven't just started cooking for the first time. I have to agree. If you're intending to get his new book, it is best that you browse through it first before deciding. And if you already have "On Food and Cooking", you'll be sorely disappointed as I was when I ordered the book before going through a copy of it.

I made the babka a month back, and it was delicious. I'll second the advice to add more filling. The cassata looks delicious!

The rice added to the black sesame is for thickening purposes. If you omit it, you just end up with something more watery than if you had added the rice.

Ondine, In our home, we wash and scrub the nuts before soaking them for 5-7 days with a change of water every day. These are then boiled for about 10-15 minutes in boiling water before we break the 'eye' to dig out the flesh. The bad ones have a nasty smell, and I smell each one before I dig the flesh out. The flesh is pounded, and then mixed with some of the rempah, sugar, ground prawns and pork before stuffing them back into the nuts. There are many variations of this - whether to just put the pounded flesh in, or mix it like my family does with ground pork and shrimp, or just pork alone. Some recipes do not even stuff the meat back, but instead mix it like we do and fry the flesh to be used later to mix with rice for eating. The rempah has tumeric, galangal, garlic, serai, buah keras, shallots, fresh and dried chillies and belacan. I cook the chicken (and pork ribs) with tamarind and a little coconut milk at the end. You can omit the coconut milk if you want, but it's a nice finish. Choose nuts that are heavy to the touch, and they shouldn't rattle when you shake them. Good luck.

arriba! I, too, had a very disappointing experience with the rum vanilla cake. I had exactly the same results - great flavour, but not the texture that the write-up mentioned. So, you're not the only one.

My first book on this is Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts, and had great success with her recipes. I also like the pastry recipes from Sherry Yard and Dorie Greenspan.

Julie Shani's "Classic Indian Cooking" remains a favourite of mine even though I have books by Madhur Jaffrey (which are also good), Suvir Savan and Atul Kochar. It's the first one that I will reach for before I attempt others partly because all the dishes that I have cooked from it have worked (and tasted) beautifully.

I'd recommend Tekka market in Little India - it is a good source for most ingredients. The other suggestions that others have offered - Geyland Serai and Chinatown - are or will be under development for the next couple of years. I know there is a temporary market for the Geylang Serai hawkers, and the Chinatown market in its present location along Smith Street will be closed at the end of June. The stall holders will relocate temporarily to Outram Road which is about 10-15 minutes walk. Geylang Serai is where one will go for Malay ingredients.

A couple of pointers - You need to add some sugar and egg. Maybe half an egg for your recipe. Condensed milk in place of the sugar will also result in a softer roti canai. Knead and rest for an hour before kneading again briefly. Divide into smaller portions, cling wrap and rest overnight in the fridge. Nothing beats the stretching technique of flipping the dough. If this is not possible, use a rolling pin and then use your hands to stretch it like they do for filo pastry. It should be thin enough to see your hands through the dough. And then you fold and fry. Good luck.

I wouldn't think so. There's a lot of guidebooks these days on where to eat although not all of them are that reliable and with resources like eGullet and food blogs, you may just be able to find what you're looking for.

It is difficult these days to say that there are foods that are available only in Singapore that are not available in Malaysia, especially with the flow of culinary expertise across the two countries and elsewhere in the region. Singapore chefs lay claim to having invented chilli crab and the raw fish salad that is available during the 15 days of the Chinese New Year, but these are also readily available in Malaysia and in the case of the raw fish salad, even in Hong Kong as I know of a chef who had gone over there to introduce the dish. I'd say that there are variations in the flavours. For example, fried Hokkien noodles in Singapore is "white" (meaning no dark soya sauce is used), but the version in Kuala Lumpur is dark. Char kway teow (fried rice noodles) in Singapore is dark; the version in Malaysia is "white". Either versions of both dishes, done well, taste very good - it is all a matter of preference and taste. Wonton noodles in Malaysia (if you choose the 'dry' version, not served in soup) comes with a dark soya and oil sauce, which was available in Singapore in the 60s and 70s, but has since been replaced with one that also has chilli sauce. But even in Malaysia , there is variation in the same dish. Each state of Malaysia has its own version of laksa, and the Perankan food in Singapore is closer to that of Malacca than that of Penang, which has stronger Thai influences. While it is true that the hawker food in Singapore, especially in the proliferating air-conditioned food courts, tend to taste the same, there are still those who have been cooking up the same dishes their parents and grandparents did; you just need to know where to locate them.

Can someone advise me on the type of linen used to line the proofing baskets? I've seen photographs and descriptions in some books that the type of linen used is Belgian linen, and it seems quite thick. The linen that I've seen are thinner. Thanks.

There are some mangoes whose skin when the fruit is ripe remains green. TP, I'm referring to what we Cantonese call "kwai mei". It is a very fragrant fruit with bright yellow-orange flesh. Very floral bouquet. Unfortunately, it also attracts a certain type of insect that lays its eggs when the tree is in flower. When the fruit forms, the larvae grow within the fruit and when you slice open a ripe fruit, you get a rotten core. But I agree with TP, I've yet to see an unripe mango that has flesh this shade of green. It does not look natural to me. Unless we can get the botanical name of this specific mango, it is very difficult to identify it. Am waiting for June when we get shipments of both Indian and Pakistani mangoes.

I'm 2nd generation Singaporean. My paternal grandparents came from Shun Tak in China. My mother's Hokkien Peranakan (Malacca, I believe). My food experiences growing up were Cantonese on my father's side, and really mixed (Teochew, Hokkien, Malay, Cantonese) on my mother's end. And with my mom's siblings living overseas in Canada and England, there was also "western food" that was different from the Hainanese form found in Singapore. My mom enjoyed baking, and I grew up eating lots of cakes and biscuits. Studied and lived for a while in the US, and had lots of friends from many different countries who shared a lot of food with me. Good thing I love to eat.

Off topic too. I can vouch for Kung Fu Hustle; it's really funny. Those of us old enough will be able to recognise settings and storylines from some old Hong Kong movies (House of 72 Tenants for one) and other more contemporary movies.

Yes, they are deep-fried. As Gastro888 said, you must have the right temperature for deep frying. Try to have the mantou at room temperature before you deep fry. And experimenting first is definitely a good idea. At the restaurants, they have temperatures that are impossible to duplicate at home on domestic ranges. Good luck.

On the 7th day, which is yan yat (everybody's birthday), the family comes together to eat again (!). And the next big feast is the 15th day, which is yun siew. This day is especially important to my Fujian friends, and they have an even bigger feast than we do! They call it chap goh mei, and lots of prayers and rituals before feasting. And in between, we 'lo hei'. Which is tossing a raw fish salad peculiar to Singapore and possibly South East Asia. During the 15 days of CNY, we eat with different groups of people - colleagues, friends, business associates - at restaurants, which during this period suspend their normal menus and have only CNY dishes with ingredients of symbolic significance and atrocious prices!

We keep the neen goh till it hardens before frying them up. And not in the fridge either. My late granny liked to dry it out in the sun. And it's at least a good two weeks before we get to eat it. It's hard as stone when we cut it to fry, but once fried, it's soft and gooey - the way we like it. Occasionally, mould develops on the surface. My great-granny said it's okay to just wipe it off. But my granny said if you're squeamish, you can just cut a thin slice away. I have just got a copy of Grace Young's book. Will test out the recipe, and the duration for the cooking......

Why is the first day of CNY a vegetarian day? Where I came from (Hong Kong), tradition has it there's gotta be a chicken dish on the first day of the CNY. (Hoi Nin) [Cantonese] (let the year begin). I believe it is the third day that is vegetarian. ← We've eaten vegetarian on the first day of the CNY for as long as I can remember. My late grandmother always ate vegetarian on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month (the 15th of the 8th lunar month is the only exception). The usual dishes are 18 lo han jai (there are 18 ingredients not counting the seasonings), sweet and sour mock pork, braised mock chicken, lettuce (san choi), sweetened salted vegetable. Black pepper chicken is a recent addition. We 'hoi nin' on the 2nd day, and we have shrimp, fish, chicken, duck, pork, abalone. Vegetables are accompanying ingredients in some of the dishes. Usually there is soup (lotus root with dried octopus), but too much food (and too tired) this year. Within at least a couple of the 15 days, we will have lap mei fan. Because everyone has a cholesterol problem at home, we try not to eat too much of this. I love eating this dish, but it doesn't go down well with the younger generation.

You can check out this book Asian High Tea Favourites. Or browse that site for other books. For a dinner tonight, I'm making several "updated" desserts. One is a black glutinous rice with coconut ice cream and grass jelly. This is usually eaten thick like pea soup, but I'm making it more like a soup with softened black glutinous rice grains. Alternatively, you can serve this with taro ice cream and drizzle in thick coconut milk. In a bind, vanilla ice cream will also do. My second dessert is a lemongrass jello infused with pandan and pomelo (similar to a grapefruit) leaves, and served layered with pureed mango. The gelling ingredient is not gelatin, but a powder supposedly extracted from a fig. The texture is softer than agar or gelatin. I'm also serving a cream of mango soup with pomelo pulp and sago pearls. For drinks, it's a choice of rose-flavored or calamansi lime drink with pandan flavoured agar strips.

I just steamed it for one hour and thought I didn't steam it long enough since it is really wobbly. The neen go turned out to be lighter than I though neen go are suppose to be, maybe the white coconut milk made it lighter in color. ← We normally do not eat the neen go until it is rock hard. We let it dry in the open air (sometimes under the sun if we can catch it). We sliced them and dip it in eggs and fry them. Other ways of eating them is to sandwich pieces of yam between sliced neen go, fry them and eat them. My cousin likes to eat them fried and coated with freshly grated coconut. I attempted making them once, but gave up 2 hours into the steaming. My neighbour, who used to make it yearly (but has given up three years ago), said she steamed it for about 12 hours! A friend of my grandmother confirmed it and she steamed it even longer - 16 hours. Can anyone else confirm this length of steaming?

I'm into my 2nd Kenwood; the first one jumped off the counter in a moment of distraction while making bread. I bought a Kenwood again, because the first one (a gift from my late father to my mom) served me well for more than 30 years. The larger model doesn't work as well with small quantities, but I usually make double-triple portions so it doesn't really matter. The noise, as others have pointed out, is considerable. A pastry chef friend of mine prefers KA, especially when it comes to the whisk, because he feels that the Kenwood whisk has too many spokes. He prefers fewer, and says that the KA is superior in this instance. However, he feels that the Kenwood is slightly better for handling bread doughs than the KA.

I bought some Mycryo this festive season to make chocolate pralines and bonbons for gifts, and tempering could not have been easier. As McDuff mentioned, you need to melt the chocolate to 40-45C and then then cool it to 34C before adding 1% Mycryo (that is, 10g for 1 kg of chocolate). Stir well and then cool further to 31C for dark chocolate and 29C for milk. I used a hair dryer to keep the temperature within range to prevent it from setting too fast.

There is variation even from the same brand. Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese is available from both US and Australia, but they both perform differently in my cheesecake recipe. I was told by the supplier that sometimes it is also due to improper handling during the transportation of the cargo, but unfortunately we won't know until we've purchased and made use of it.

Black sesame White sesame Adzuki beans Glad to hear that someone likes durian gelato - one of my favourite flavours. Strawberries + balsamic vinegar is a fantastic combination; I've made it a couple of times. Mango + passionfruit is another personal favourite combination. I once had a vanilla-jalapeno ice cream in a restaurant in Colorado. Interesting with bursts of heat.