NickLam

Thanks for the info on the books and the links in Abebooks. I will definitely check them out. Not sure bout ice cream recipes, but can I just use baker's percentages and increase the amounts of say.........a standard recipe from any book? Never made ice cream before...and heck, we don't even know how to operate the ice cream maker and the chef who used it has long since gone. The company is sending us an instructional booklet. It used to be part of Marche's, which my friend's family used to run, and after that closed down, they used it in another Italian restaurant to put plates and hang towels on! Apparently, they weren't selling enough ice cream in the Italian restaurant to warrant large batches of production. Ahahah so....we decided to relief them of their towel hanger for more productive purposes....if we ever figure the damned thing out Nightscotsman, Does does the Ryon Emmanuel book deal with emulsifiers and preservatives? And do the recipes include such ingredients inside? Thanks!

THanks for the info Kerry. For the Gail Damerow book, how suited is it for commercial purposes? The machine I have does a minimum of 20 litres......or so thats what the chef we took it off told us. Ahahaha we are in over our heads on this one....but a free machine, used less than 10 times......we jumped at the opportunity to take it!

Ryangary, I think these molten cakes are pretty sensitive coz lots of recipes out there don't really work that well and the ones we develop are 'hot property', well, at least it is here in Thailand. You can search on the net for chocolate truffle cakes and there is a recipe by Wolfgang Puck out there somewhere. Never tried it but I think it would yield a tough cake. Here are some tips..... Get small cake rings around 3" X 2". Make a basic ganache with your favourite chocolate. I use a mix of dark and milk chocolate for Thai tastes. Sweeten the ganache if necessary with glucose, invertase or light corn syrup. When the ganache sets up, pipe ganache into 'pucks' an inch smaller than your rings. Mine are 4 cm high coz we use flexipans to mold them. For the cake base, use a chocolate pound cake recipe but half the flour and use cake flour instead. Let the batter rest 1 to 2 hrs minimum before using. Butter and flour your rings well. You will need the flour to ensure easy release (Just tap the ring with a knife all around) and to make sure your cake's walls are crisp and the molten chocolate won't collapse the structure. You can try cocoa powder (I mix cocoa with flour), but cocoa contains fat and won't crisp up the sides. Using a medium tip, pipe a 'base' of batter into the ring. Place a frozen chocolate ganache puck inside, then pipe more batter in and cover it. Freeze or chill. Bake at 200 deg celsius or 12 to 15 mins if chilled or 18 to 22 mins if frozen. Let rest 5 minutes before unmolding. Apologies for not being able to post an actual recipe here but its company policy. But there are many recipes out there that you can try. Then again.....you can contact your local Valrhona distributor coz they have a ready-made batter that you can scoop and bake. Have not tried it yet, but it should be good! All the best!

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a pro book on Ice creams and over at Chips Books, the 2 that catch my eye are Les Recettes Glacees by L'Ecole Lenotre http://www.chipsbooks.com/recglace.htm#recglace and the one by Ryon Emmanuel http://www.chipsbooks.com/artglace.htm. Basically, I'm looking for a book that'll teach how to make ice cream commercially. We just managed to get a huge German ice cream machine for free and are looking at how we can make add ice cream to our list of wholesale products. We want a book that can show us about using different emulsifiers, preservatives, methods, etc...etc...... Does anyone have any other recommendations? Thanks!

Recchuiti and Jean Pierre Wybauw's books mention the need to precrystallize the chocolate for some ganache recipes. They didn't really explain much into detail....or I wasn't reading attentively enough, but maybe it has something to do with how the beta crystals set up and help the emulsification of chocolate and cream. I've actually noticed that ganaches do set up firmer and tend to melt less faster using the precrystalisation method than the pour hot cream into chocolate method. For the hot humid Thai weather, that makes it so much easier. Not sure for mousses though, but maybe your recipe is hinting at the same concept?

Hi Austin, all the best for your cookbook.......and if you can.....please have a recipe for Kway Teow Nam Tok Luer (The boatman's noodles) in it. Ahahah especially for the one near the Victory Monument which adds a bit of weed in the soup! But maybe not...coz its more Northern than Southern. If you are looking to do a review on Japanese style suki restaurants in Bangkok, please stop by Akiyoshi in Tai Sin Square on Sukhumvit....Soi what, I can't remember. Its my mate's place and its packed full every night and a good place to stuff yourself silly. As for recipes, whilst I was in Australia, lots of my Thai mates would use ready made pastes bought from Chinatown to make their meals. Every other Thai cookbook has recipes to make the nam prik from scratch but lets face it.........the average home cook will probably not want to do that, even with a food processor as the pungent herbs will make the blender unuseable for other dishes. Also, by blending, the flavour isn't as good as one that was ground and pounded in a pestle and mortar. What I'm trying to say is that maybe, you could devise recipes that can be based around ready made pastes available in your target market countries. Using these ready made pastes as a base, your recipe can spike them up by adding this and that. My mate's maids do really amazing stuff with these pastes and their Gaeng Khiow wan, Nam Prik Ong and many other dishes are simply breathtaking.....in more ways than one With the Thompson and Vatcharin books out on the market already, from my point of view.......I'd like to see something simpler, something more accessible. One thing's for sure, you'll sell a hell of a lot of cookbooks to Thai students studying overseas! My friends actually call their maids back home for recipes.....and when told to do the paste from scratch, they give up. Then they buy the pastes and muck around with them till it tastes ok to them. In my experience......their ad-hoc versions lack ALOT, and if you can somehow work your magic and recreate the taste that they can get back home in a foreign land, it will be a great book for them.

Great links and yea....ahahah any place that calls itself a 'lounge' sounds high class! But Matsu at ATY building should be reasonably easy to find. I seem to remember ATY building.........but pretty sure its not that hard to find. Besides, with their restaurant number, I send for a skymail map to their restaurant using a mobile phone. Thats why Japan rocks!

Hi Culinista, I'm a Global Knife fan and have been for a couple of years. Is there any way to get my hands on the article you are writing? Will it be published in a normal newsweek edition that I can get here in Thailand? Love them Globals but I'm not sure about one thing though......other than the hand polished edge and the V edge in the pros, what other difference is there between the normal Globals and the Global Pros? Is the RC for the pros a bit harder? Different steel alloy? I know the normal Globals use Molybdenum, but how bout the Pros?

Thank you thank you thank you! Ahahaha I will be visiting these places for my 'fix' of Hoshihikari. Finding these places would be a bit of a headache.....but with the phone number and the nearby koban, it shouldn't be a problem. Thats what I always do.....get the cops to call the place, find out where it is, than draw it on the map for me to follow! Thanks again Hiroyuki, your help has been indispensable. Cheers!

Hi Irwin, Konbu is simply the giant kelp seaweed used by the Japanese for making their soup stock. As for the Kao Man Gai sauce, if its made in Thailand......its good, coz my mate's family produces it. They also produce an organic version. It was first exported into L.A. where there are lots of Thais, and just spread like wildfire in the States. Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Well, this recipe has been in my family since forever, and over the years, I've added some stuff to further enhance the flavours....like the konbu, kao man gai sauce and saffron. Hope to share a bit of Singaporean food with everyone here. By all means, adjust the quantities of everything here to your taste....I seldom measure when cooking this, just a bit of this and that. All measurements here are approximate when given. Anyway, if any of you have been to Singapore, you will be familiar, hopefully, with Hainanese Chicken Rice. Its a Singaporean dish created by Hainanese people (From the Hainan province in China) when they emigrated to Singapore. Its a long long recipe for description, but reveals the secrets of Hainanese chicken rice. Its really very easy. Also, most of the techniques and ingredients have been run through a mate of mine, whose family runs Loy Kee, one of the best and largest Hainanese chicken rice stores in Singapore. Components of Dish: (a) Boiled Chicken (b) Chicken Rice © Sauces (d) Soup For the Chicken (1) 1 large whole chicken, with head, feet, etc..etc... (2) 1 Large knob of ginger (3) 4 cloves of garlic (4) 1 bunch of Pandanus leaves (Might be hard to find if you are not in Asia!) (5) 1 piece of konbu (6) Ice for preparing an ice water bath (7) Tomatoes, cilantro and cucumbers (8) Kikkoman naturally brewed soy sauce (Other brands may taste wierd) (9) Fragrant sesame oil (Chee Seng brand is the best) - Set a large pot with enough water to cover, thow in the chicken's head and feet as well as the tied up pandanus leaves - Wash the rice properly and leave in colander to strain all water - Rub the chicken inside and outside generously with salt, then rinse it away with water - Cut away large flaps of fat around the cavity above the bishop's nose and around the neck. Place fat into a small pan and cook gently over a small fire to extract the chicken oil for use with the rice - Peel garlic, peel and slice ginger into the size of your country's coins! Shove into chicken's cavity - When water has come to a boil, put the chicken breast down into the water - Add the konbu (The konbu contains natural MSG, which brings out the flavour of the chicken) - Cook the chicken uncovered on medium heat for 20 mins - After 20 mins, switch off the heat and steep the chicken in the hot water for a further 20 - 30 mins - Use a meat thermometer and poke it into the thigh to make sure its just cooked. - The meat in the thigh has to be slightly pink. - The gentle cooking in the hot water prevents the chicken proteins from contracting too much and toughening due to high heat, thereby preserving a juicy and smooth texture. Thank Howard McGhee for that explanation. - Prepare the ice water bath in a pot large enough to submerge the whole chicken - Dump the hot chicken into the cold water to immediately stop the cooking process. Leave it there till its cool. - When chicken is cool, debone it a la Martin Yan, I usually chop up the backbone and serve along....if you don't want to, make sure to dig out the meat, especially the 'oysters'. - Slice cucumbers, tomatoes - Arrange everything on a plate, drizzle sesame oil over chicken...be generous - Drizzle soy sauce over chicken....be generous too! For the Chicken Saffron Rice: (1)1 large knob Ginger (2) 1 large head Garlic (3) Long grain jasmine rice (Amount up to your requirements), washed and left to drip dry on a colander at least 30 mins (4) Pinch of saffron or more........as I get Iranian saffron for cheap.....I put 2 pinches (5) 1 piece of konbu (6) Salt (7) Broth from cooking chicken (8) Rendered chicken fat (9) 1 bunch of pandanus leaves - Finely mince ginger and garlic....use more if you like. I use ALOT. - In a hot hot wok, put in the chicken fat + some veg oil if not enough - Fry ginger and garlic till fragrant but not browned, throw in raw, washed rice and toss well - Salt to taste - Fry rice till its dry and whitish. This extended frying of raw rice ensures that when its cooked, it absorbs the maximum amount of stock possible - Put rice into a rice cooker, ladel in stock till the appropriate level...and add 3 to 4 tbs more to compensate for the extra dryness of the rice - Tie up the pandanus leaves, throw it into the rice cooker along with the konbu and saffron - When rice is cooked, remove konbu and pandanus, fluff the rice For the chilli dipping sauce: (11) 6 Fresh Chillies, preferably bird's eye (12) Juice of 8 Limes (13) 1 clove of garlic (14) 1 knob of ginger, sliced (15) Sugar to taste (16) Salt to taste - Blend everything togather For the Garlic/Ginger/Spring Onion sauce: (1) 5 cloves garlic, peeled (2) 1 knob ginger, peeled (3) 1 bunch spring onions (5) Salt to taste (6) A few tbs of veg oil - Blend everything togather Thai Kao Man Gai Sauce: (1) 10 Birds eye chillies, chopped up with seeds (2) 6 cloves garlic, minced (3) 1 knob ginger, minced (4) Ground bean sauce (Dtao jiu) (5) Stock from chicken These soybeans (Dtao jiu) are sold in a bottle and the best one for this Thai style sauce is this one http://importfood.com/sakh2103.html - Combine the garlic, chilli and ginger togather - Add bean sauce to taste (Its salty so add a bit at a time!) - Add chicken stock sparingly to dilute and add flavour - The sauce consistency should be thick enough to lightly coat the back of a spoon, be slightly salty, but not overtly so. For the Chicken Broth Soup (1) Chinese cabbage (Napa Cabbage or Wong Bok) (2) Daikon or Great White Radish (3) Pre boiled chicken feet (My favourite!!!!) (4) A few tbs of chinese wolfberries (5) Chicken livers (Another favourite!) (6) Chinese hairy melon (7) Chinese dried mussels (If you like the flavour ) (8) Thinly sliced lotus roots (9) The rest of the stock (10) 1 to 2 tbs of Japanese MSG-free dashi powder (Dashi no moto). This adds a further dimension of flavour that I really love. (11) Salt and pepper to taste - Boil everything togather till its cooked, add water if necessary, salt and pepper to taste To Serve - Plate rice, garnish with cilantro - Divide sauces into small chinese sauce bowls - Dish soup individually - Place chicken in the centre of table.....everyone uses chopsticks to eat it chinese style If you guys aren't used to sharing the main dishes with chopsticks....just serve individually. Thanks for reading this far, its a long recipe but easy to make and utterly delicious. Just wanted to share a recipe with everyone here and hope you all go try it and enjoy it like I have. Cheers!

Thank you!

You're a legend Hiroyuki! Ahahahaha, I can quench my thirst in Tokyo now. So sorry to trouble you again.......but could you find out which 2 shops in Tokyo sell their beers????? Thank you again for all your help.

Chad's the man when it comes to knives.........ahahah certified Knife Nut that is. In case the rest of you don't know yet.....he is currently writing the ultimate book on kitchen knives. The only problem is.....I want the book NOW! Cheers Chad, keep up the great work.

Wow, doomo arigato gozaimashita Hiroyuki san! That was some great info on Koshihikari there. Unfortunately, the Japanese characters are showing up on my Mac as wierd characters and I will have to find another computer to properly load the webpages. But I'm both saddened and surprised to see Hoshihikari only being available for a limited time That is one amazing beer and if only for one time, I'd urge anyone who loves beer to splurge on it and savour it. I think the spring water gives it a unique crispness, taste and superior thirst quenching properties. Strange seeing how alcohol actually dehydrates. For those who haven't tried Hoshihikari....gogogogo, get it b4 its too late.

Because it does not melt as easily as animal gelatin I think you should try dipping umeshu jelly in dark chocolate. I think making something similar to the american dark chocolate covered orange jelly candies would be very tasty. Or you could simply dab a bit of gold foil on the umeshu jelly and serve it as it. ← Whoa, Umesho jelly dipped in dark chocolate. Something so simple, yet sounds so absolutely deleesh! THanks for the great tip, John. And yeah, I will try using kanten to see how the texture turns out. But I grew up with agar agar desserts in Singapore and its great.

Thanks SuzySushi! I'll be getting some Choya or Umesho to try it. Ahaha hope it ends up tasting like the ones I've had from Toraya and Kitchoan And Sanrensho, thanks for the great tips, though I think the plums may not be enough for the number of guests. Sigh, if only I was back in Australia, a wild plum tree grew next to the bedroom window of my old house out in the suburbs. My neighbour pickles them and I always had to fight with the possums from eating the ones outside my 2nd floor window.

That would be Matcha cream frappucino in Japan. Ever since my sis intro'ed it to me at the Shibuya Starbucks.......I've been addicted! Slurped it everywhere.............even the Starbucks across from my home in Bangkok has it, though its super sweet here.

How about this one? ← Bingo! Thats the one! Do you know what company produces it? Ahahahahaa thanks for finding it, Hiroyuki.......now you're making me thirsty!

Hi, My friend's mom asked me to make a special dessert for her upcoming anniversary dinner and as she is Japanese......was thinking of making something with a Japanese slant. A majority of the people attending will be Thais so hopefully...people will appreciate it. Anyway, I've been looking for recipes for making plum wine jelly but can't really find something 'trustworthy'. I've seen plum wine and dark chocolate paired before somewhere and am looking to make something like this. (1) White chocolate mousse shell (2) Liquid matcha cream centre that will ooze out (3) Ogura layer (4) 'Kasutera' sponge moistened with umesho (5) Decoration will be small little cubes of plum wine jelly scattered around the dessert. Hence.....my search for a jelly recipe and help on making a special treat for my mate's mom's guests. Thanks!

Torakris, Watanabe san makes really great knives and his service is 2nd to none. He custom made 2 knives for me about 3 years ago. A white steel deba and yanagiba. As he was trying to add knife engraving to his repertoire then, I told him to do whatever etchings he wanted on the deba and it blew me away. His knives are excellent in quality and make and many knife nuts at the Knife Forums recommend him. Late last year, I needed a kasutera knife and asked him to make a special sujihiki. It would've cost me a bomb and made him quite a bit of dosh, but he refused coz he knew my usage purpose and didn't want me to be disappointed with its performance. Instead, he recommended Masahiro's knives. He knew I knew that the sujihiki could perform the job, but just slightly not as well as a real kasutera knife. Yet, he still turned me down! I respect him for that. My honyaki usuba which I got at an incredibly low price from Mizuno-san at Mizuno Tanrenjho is 'blackened' in vinegar. You could do that to the knives to help protect against rust, though tomato cutting will give it an awesome greyish/bluish/blackish hue as well as offer a bit of protection against rust. Other than the pesky rust problems.......Japanese knives are awesome. Alternatively, there are a few manufacturers that use Molybdenum or VG-10 stainless steels for their Japanese knives. Global Pro, Hattori and Shun (US Owned). I'm partial to Global Pros and Hattori KD's....though Shun makes a really nice damascus cleaver but the balance is not as good. There's also a powdered steel called Cowry-X but perhaps the performance, hardness and price is more suitable to knife nuts. The downside to Japanese stainless knives is that they are very hard, around 56 to 62 rockwell hardness, depending on brands. This usually means having to use ceramic or diamond steels. However, if you are looking at purchasing a sashimi knife, you won't need a steel. However, you will need a very fine waterstone to sharpen it. Sharpening in itself is another challenge, but its learnt easily. I use a 3000 and 8000 grit stone. The key is to sharpen it even before it has a chance to get dull by the slightest bit. Its really a 2 minute job, with 20mins spent soaking the waterstone beforehand. If anyone else is interested in Japanese knives but don't know where to get good ones or get them cheaper from a reliable source, check out http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/ Koki is an amazing guy who has bent over backwards many many many many times for lots of us gaijin knife nuts, to the extent that some unreasonable ones get him to hand choose $50 knives. The prices are much cheaper than anywhere and I've compared several prices from them and from Japan.....only a $5 to $10 difference. Check out their specials.....it always makes me reach for my credit card before having to slap myself back to reality. Hope this helps!

Evertime I'm in Japan, its always Suntory or Boss coffee from the vending machine in the morning, and calpis sometime during the day. At last year's beer festival in Tokyo however....I discovered the best beer I've tasted in my life. Koshihikari from Niigata. I think its beer made from Koshihikari rice. All I can say is WOW...super smooth, crisp, flavourful and a nice finish. Absolutely amazing. Dunno where to buy it in Tokyo though....but I will look for it next time!

Can't remember what its called, but this is a common dish that I first had in Dogen-zaka off Shibuya. Its finely minced tuna atop a bed of shredded lettuce, with an egg yolk on top. Its drizzled with kewpey mayonnaise and soy sauce mixed with dashi, mirin and sake. Thats so yum! Also, at East Mikuni, a large rectangle of top quality tuna quickly browned on the outside with a blowtorch, then thickly sliced and served with ponzu sauce. Had the chef at the sheraton in Bangkok do the same thing, but it didn't taste nice at all. Hence.....it all boils down to the quality of the fish.

Not really stamina, but rather a pick me up, coz a normal visit to Japan involves meetings all day, walking around everywhere at night, hard drinking till the wee hours and up again early to start it over again.... Anything Umeboshi always perks me up. At night...umeboshi onigiri from Family Mart, in the morning.....when hungover (Which is often ahaha like say....last year's beer festival in Tokyo!).....umeboshi by itself or in hot water. Even Umesho gives a slight boost. Dunno why, but it seems to smoothen out the tiredness and refreshes the body. Also......whenever I start to feel sick, yup, its umeboshi again, but one of those small expensive little balls of concentrated extract. My ex uses green tea extract as a perk her up, one of those small vials that comes with a dropper.