SuzySushi

I, too, am just catching up reading this fabulous blog! Great food, fascinating background & stories, and I can't remember the last time I've laughed out loud so many times in one sitting. (I wish I could write with your easy grace. . .) Just a note about "old cocoyam" (taro) and "new cocoyam" (malanga or yautia) from the middle of the Pacific. They're closely related and I don't really know the botanical differences. We grow many types of taro here. . . dryland taro, wetland taro. . . Some are better for making poi, some for eating like a potato. There's Chinese taro, and tiny Japanese taro (ko-imo). They have different colors, ranging from purple to yellowish cream, and somewhat different flavors and density. What they all have in common is that you can't eat them raw, because of the high oxalic acid content, and some people find them irritating to handle so must wear rubber gloves when they peel or grate them. The leaves are cooked and eaten as a spinach-like vegetable.

Wow! Just wow! Have you tried making other filo-based pastries and savory dishes the same way without brushing the layers with butter individually?

Milk comes in bags???

Haven't seen the book (I'll have to go check it out for my stepson the tattoo artist!). This is my favorite gross-out cake.

Just a thought for the beets: I've recently started making a beet risotto that my daughter (the picky eater) adores. Steam or microwave the beet roots until not quite tender; peel and dice. Add to the rice (and sauteed onion/shallots/garlic/whatever) while you're cooking it risotto style with beef stock (I use Swanson reduced-sodium beef broth). The beets are deliciously sweet and, combined with the broth, tint the rice a pleasant peach color. Chop the beet greens and saute separately with garlic. Yum!

I save the little gold clips (like alligator clips) that come on bags of locally roasted Lion brand coffee. They work well for just about everything except those humongous chip bags from Costco -- I may have to break down and buy a bag clip. Cereal, BTW, immediately gets transferred to plastic canisters to keep the bugs out.

I've been mulling this over, trying to think back on what I measure and why. I measure proportions for baking -- flour, sugar, butter, liquids, baking powder/soda, salt -- because if I don't, the recipe sometimes doesn't turn out. Yet I also go by feel -- how smooth a dough feels or how thick/thin the batter is -- and make adjustments as necessary, because flour behaves differently depending on the humidity. Similarly, I measure when making batters, such as for pancakes and crepes, but adjust those too if they seem too thick or thin. I measure when making salad dressings and white sauces, to get the oil/vinegar or butter/flour/liquid ratios correct, but adjust those to taste/texture, too. I measure portions of grains -- rice, kasha, couscous, etc. -- and cup-measure the ratio of liquid except for Japanese-style rice, where I eyeball the liquid (lots of experience there!). For most other cooking, I generally measure by eye -- e.g., 3 ounces of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. I use pinches and dashes, pour spices into the palm of my hand and think "that looks like enough for six people," and taste, taste, taste.

Also, The Exotic Kitchens of Indonesia: Recipes from the Outer Islands by Copeland Marks.

Maybe you could use paneer for this application, in keeping with the Indian theme. Although I don't think it would melt like other cheeses. ← Yeah, that's what I worry about. In stew and things, it usually holds its shape pretty well. Any knows of a good melting Indian cheese? ← I don't recall exactly. . . it's my impression it was some kind of cheddar.

I recently came across a recipe from an Indian website for an Indian version of mac & cheese that contained a spiced tomato-and-onion masala -- but deleted it from my cooking files after reading through & realizing that it required three saucepans plus the oven! (One to cook the masala, one for the pasta, one for the cheese sauce, then assemble the components in a casserole and bake.) I generally make mac & cheese as one-pot meal!

Fish sauce will give you a more Southeast Asian flavor. Use it instead of -- not in addition to -- soy. Good balanced with lemon or lime juice, a touch of sriracha, and sugar if you like a sweeter taste. It's also standard in Thai coconut milk-based curries. I definitely would add a bottle of oyster sauce to your collection. It adds depth to stir-fries (use with or without soy sauce). A mix of oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken stock, and a dash of sesame oil also makes a great dip for Chinese dumplings.

I absolutely agree with your advice, Steve. Sitting at the sushi bar and engaging the chef in conversation, however brief, is the best way to get the best quality sushi. It can be as simple as catching his eye at the beginning of the meal and asking, "What's good today?" Even if you eat at a cheap conveyor-belt sushi place, you'll get better quality sushi -- freshly made and better pieces of fish -- if you order directly from the chef rather than pick the sushi from the rotating belt.

Wonderful to see you blogging, Mark! I'll hazard a guess that the unifying ingredients have a lot to do with spices, most native Dutch cooking being bland.

I was often sick with tonsillitis as a child. How my grandmother used to bring me cookies from the Italian bakery, soft, leaf-shaped ones tinted green and sandwiched together with chocolate frosting. They melted in my mouth even when my throat was sore. How my other grandmother used to take me to Howard Johnson's for an ice cream soda and I lit upon my forever favorite -- pistachio ice cream with chocolate syrup. Howard Johnson used a pointy, cone-shaped scoop and the scoop of ice cream perched at the rim of the frosty glass. I've long had a penchant for green foods, as long as they weren't vegetables.

You're back!!! Yetty, we missed you!!! Hope to see you around a lot more on eGullet!

While you're at shepherd's pie, Chicken pot pie Chicken a la king on toast points And I second (or is it third?) the idea of more fish dishes... Cod or scrod if you can get it Fillet of flounder or sole if you can't

Hey, don't knock it -- they may be onto something! We're having a big BBQ next week, about 24-30 guests. I think that'll be a good time to experiment!

Shark = same (pronounced sah-may) Swordfish = kajiki, makajiki, or mekajiki (varieties of swordfish, broadbill swordfish, and marlin) King mackerel = sawara Tilefish = shirakawa and many other names Here's a list of many Japanese names for fish.

I never make them since they're so easy to buy here but the filled versions include vanilla custard, chocolate custard, haupia (coconut) custard, guava jam, etc. You fill them like a jelly doughnut after they're fried.

I second the "steam it" idea.

Chichi dango (what the recipe calls "coconut mochi") are more Japanese than Hawaiian, and they're usually just cut into small rectangles (a little bigger than a domino), picked up with one's fingers, and eaten. The dough can be tinted with food coloring, so that half the pieces are pale pink and the others are left white. I've never had them served with anything except a cup of green tea. (The ordinary kind--not tea ceremony tea.)

Update on glasswort/salicorne/sea bean/samphire/sea asparagus: It's now being aquacultured in Kahuku on Oahu's North Shore (see article). Besides being served in upscale local restaurants, it's available as "sea asparagus" in the produce or seafood departments in Don Quijote (formerly Daiei), Marukai, and Down-to-Earth. We picked some up at Don Quijote's main store the other day. Raw, it was overly salty and bitter, but blanched 1 minute and refreshed under cold water, it was wonderful! I'd buy this as a vegetable any day! Down-to-Earth was also doing a demo with sea asparagus in a Japanese rice vinegar & sugar dressing. Yum!!!

This is a particularly European way to conduct the slicing of a loaf, other than simply tearing it. Holding the bread and slicing by cutting towards oneself so that guests may see the simplicity of the excercise, is, besides practical, symbolic of hospitality and the act of offering. ← Welcome to eGullet! I'm glad to know it's not just his eccentricity!

I've heard it called a lollipop. Maybe there's another more formal name somewhere!

I make my crepes sarrasin with regular flour as well as buckwheat flour because I've found the batter to be very workable. But a while back, Chufi posted her recipe for crepes that use only buckwheat flour in the eGullet Crepes Cook-Off thread. (I keep promising myself to try that one day...)