miladyinsanity

I've a recipe for Lindsey Shere's Almond Tart. Pie crust, and a nut filling made with cream and sliced unblanched. I may make this. Wonderful. I'll be able to eat my way out of my wardrobe in less than a week flat.

I'm honored. No promises, but I'll try to make a batch too.

Sadly, this is why it's so hard for me to find a place to eat this. The taste of it makes me cringe for some reason, just the way a piece of pork fat would. Yes, you may strip me off my eGullet membership now. I don't think you usually fry the yam cake this way. What my family does is slice it and panfry--crispy edges! ← What makes you cringe? The texture of the cake or the minced preserved radish? If it's the latter, you can leave it out if there are lots of other ingredients. My family is like yours, MLI. We've never cut it up into chunks then stir-fried. We've sliced and panfried for the crispiness. ← It's the radish. I love the cake part, that's why I want to eat it. Yeah, but around here, they often fry the garlic and the radish together beforehand, and then when a customer orders, they use that oil to fry the radish cake. And you can call me May.

MSG. Seriously, Maggi is a brand of soup cubes and granules and instant noodles--in southeast Asia, it's a joke that when a student moves overseas to study, they bring these in their bag with them. Not sure which seasoning in particular they've been referring to though.

I don't like to use evaporated milk or condensed milk--the latter because of the sweetness factor, and because I think it tastes better with fresh milk. If you want it richer, how about using cream instead? My ratio's actually only 6 large egg yolks to 1 cup full cream milk, and less than one cup sugar including the sugar for caramelizing. Duck yolks are supposed to help make it richer too. Perhaps you want to try 12 egg yolks to 1 cup milk? Or you could go all out, 12 egg yolks and 1 cup cream. I've never tried steaming it, because baking in a water bath has worked wonderfully for me. Is that possible in your turbo thing? My recipe's basically been infusing the milk with whatever I want to flavor it with (I usually dissolve the sugar in here as well) then mixing it with the yolks after the milk has cooled. Then it's into the moulds and then the oven. Have you been beating the mixture? Too much air is not a good thing either.

It's the best way to be, don't you think May miladyinsanity? Actually nut tartlets would be nice. Using sliced almonds baked in tartlet tins with a pecan-pie type-base as binder but lighter. I bet thirty one point four sliced almonds would fit into an average tartlet tin. Nut tartlets would be appropriate fto serve to people who think math is nuts anyway. ← Absolutely. Nut tartlets... Okay, pate sablee crust with ground almonds or hazelnuts, almond frangipane, some fruit to cut the richness (pears?), pie crust with florentine layer on top? Hm... I think this takes us all the from more-ishness to Too Much ness.

What is it that goes wrong? Curdles? Too hard? Texture is coarse because there are bubbles? If you cut the sugar too much, it will curdle and become scrambled eggs, yucky, sweetish scrambled eggs at that. And are you steaming it or baking it in a waterbath? Also, what's the ratio of milk to egg yolks? If you use whole eggs, the texture may also be coarser.

Cruellers cut into rings so they can get globs of jook inside; diced pei dan; slivers of preserved chili radish; and cilantro! Yep, yep, yep, and yep. I also like slivered ginger. Growing up we would also place raw fish slices at the bottom of the bowl to be cooked by the boiling jook poured on top. ← That's Yee Sang Jook. My dad's favorite, but I've yet to get past my fear of raw fish, though I know it's not really raw already. I like pounded, then deepfried dried shrimp, with plenty of sliced young ginger, onion oil and a little soy sauce. Ikan bilis is good too, with pepper and soy sauce.

Sadly, this is why it's so hard for me to find a place to eat this. The taste of it makes me cringe for some reason, just the way a piece of pork fat would. Yes, you may strip me off my eGullet membership now. I don't think you usually fry the yam cake this way. What my family does is slice it and panfry--crispy edges!

I don't usually drink plain milk--only full-fat please. Even then, I prefer it flavored--preferably with some cocoa powder or chocolate or coffee. I can taste the difference even though it's flavored. Haven't been drinking much lately, because my favorite cup broke and I drank everything from that cup, especially cocoa. I cannot remember the last time I drank plain milk. But I shall try it Really Really cold.

I'm thinking of layering lemon curd with cheesecake. As in (from bottom up) some sort of crust, lemon curd, cheesecake, and then lemon curd again. But should I bake the first three layers (crust, curd cheesecake) and then pour more lemon curd on top and bake just until it sets? I want to try the PH recipe, unless it's not as perfectly suited to what I have in mind as something else?

I've a recipe for chocolate body paint somewhere if you decide to go down that route, David.

Karen, you're absolutely nuts! (coming from me, that's a compliment--see username *g*) I was going to make tarts. But I think I'm going to go for pie instead.

A local bakery chain got into the business too. They were selling little cups with layers of cake, puddings, jelees, etc. I've seen pictures of Pierre Herme's verrine creations....so pretty!

Do these have filling? I like the Japanese dango (chewy chewy chewy!), and they look somewhat the same.

Would my pupils turn pitch-dark too? I still have a full head of hair, although salt and pepper (more salt it feels like). I can use some shoe shine waxes on them just about now... What's the thickening agent for gima wu (black sesame sweet soup)? I would imagine that sesame itself is not sticky and doesn't have starch content. Would it be sticky rice flour (nor mai fun) that thicken the sweet soup? And gima wu is not particularly CNY-ish like tong yuen, right? Or maybe people eat tong yuen with gima wu? ← Nah. You fill the tong yuen with the zhima hu. And then roll in toasted sesame seeds. You can do the same with fa sang hu, and roll in peanuts.

I think even if the sesame seeds become paste, you can still use it to make zhima hu? Except that I wouldn't use commercial paste to make it.

It was explained to me that xi fan is gruel, ie the grains of rice remain mostly intact and if you let it sit, all the rice will sink to the bottom and there will be a layer of liquid on top. Zhou/Jook is porridge, and it's thicker and compared to xi fan, it's sort of pasty.

You two make a great pair. One SO doesn't eat shellfish, and the other doesn't eat fish. I hope you manage to post the pictures, Caitlin. Sounds like you had a great trip!

I don't think you can do that for mangosteens. The seeds can get really big.

Maybe pate de fruit with an actual piece of lemon in it?

Doddie, how do you eat it, though? Are you supposed to crack it open like you normally do crabs? And did Billy try it?

FWIW, I've several chocolate and beer cakes, so it can't be THAT bad, right?

You never had a sister, right? This sounds frighteningly like my daughter's situation. She keeps her good pots (gifts from me), and her favorite foods, in a separate locked cupboard in the shared kitchen! Oh, and write her name, in big black marker, on her containers of food. ← This sounds like something I should keep in mind since I'll be moving into a hostel soon.

I've been keeping <a href="http://www.estarcion.com/gastronome/archives/001640.html#001640">this one</a> in my files, but haven't gotten a chance to try it.