Educate me a little please

[Windmill Boy]

Hello All

At Work we are doing something new (well new to me at least,  being the consumate Euro influenced east coaster that I am).  We have switched over from doing an italian dessert buffet to a pacific rim dessert buffet.  It is kind of good for me as I was getting tired of making Tiamisu all of the time.

Our new menu includes Lemon grass Rice Pudding, tropical fruit tarts, Passion fruit creme brule' served in Asian soup spoons, Kona Chocolate Cake (European in my opinion but I guess they need to apease the chocoholics and they do produce a small amount of chocolate in Hawaii and a good amount in  Indonesia also).  I am making Banana Lumpia's.  Sauted bananas lightly caramelized with cinnamon sugar, rolled in toasted Coconut and wrapped  in a won ton and deep fried sliced and served warm with a chocolate sauce. Oh yes, the customers  are also getting our homemade Mango Lime Sorbet.

So  just for my knowledge, what other truly ethnic desserts do Asians / Polynesians prefer to eat?  Or are desserts not as important as in western cultures?   I recently went to a bakery in little Tokyo and most of their offerings were western pastries. My Japanese Coworkers really didn't have too many suggestions.  I've had those Deep fried donuts tossed in Sugar in Chinese Restaurants and a sweet custard in a  pastry shell in Chinatown but otherwise not much sticks out.  Please if you are able to give me a suggestion can you give me a quick description.  I am sort of looking for dishes that would be accepted by mainstream America  not something like Durian  milkhakes ha ha ha

On a slightly seperate note  I have been realizing lately that I don't think we have any poster's from Hawaii / Guam or anyone looking towards these areas.   Are the Asian / Polynesian women here considered too westernized? is the Asiatic culture still strong amongst natives?   I never hear too much about searches or adventures  in polynesia / micronesia in general.  I realize these areas are less populous but does any one have any thoughts about this.

Thanks for your time

Windmill Boy

[jon]

... in response to Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jun 30, 2001

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/7298/recipes.html

[Carrisse]

... in response to Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jun 30, 2001

You should use ripe Manila mangoes.  Cut into halves (cut both cheeks and leave seed).  Caramelized sugar, add mangoes and drench with wine then flambe away.  Serve warm with whipped cream and powdered sugar.

How about Pound cake with Tropical Flair.  Bake pound cake in loaf pan.  Let cool.  Cut lengthwise with serated knife and brush layers with mango liquer (mango puree with a little bit of rum). Set aside.  Cut up ripe Manila mangoes, strawberries (yes sir, these berries are grown in Baguio), ripe kiwi. Mix in bowl with raspberries and red grapes, add a tablespoon of sugar.

Whip heavy cream and add a tablespoon of mango liquer and 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar, continue whipping until stiff.

Arrange cake layers-cake topped with cream then with mixed fruits.  End with whipped cream and arrange remaining mixed fruits.  Cool in the refrigerator for 2 hours.  Serve cold.

You can serve brulee ala Philippines--our very own leche flan.  I'll post the recipe when I find it.

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to Mango flambe and other recipes, posted by Carrisse on Jun 30, 2001

Carrisse

Sounds Good  can I come over?  ha ha ha.  

I will keep your suggestions in mind if they decide to change the menu over the next few weeks while we are doing this buffet  but we are also serving Mango Lime Sorbet.  We discussed using leches some how  and I used them for something else a couple of weeks ago but they didn't make it onto this menu.

Thanks

Windmill Boy

[Peaches]

... in response to Mango flambe and other recipes, posted by Carrisse on Jun 30, 2001

Just made today nam nam nam my favorite

8 egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
1 can (14 oz or 396 g) condensed milk
rind of lemon or  a teaspon of vanilla
1/2 cup of sugar

Melt the sugar and let it caramelized evenly on the
sides of the pan.
Stir eggyolks until well- blended but not frothy.Pour evap
and condensed milk in the eggyolk while stirring. Add
lime or vanilla. Mix well. Pour the mixture in the pan  
(where the caramelized sugar is). Steam for an hour .
Let it chill and serve cold.

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to here's the recipe 'te Carrisse..., posted by Peaches on Jul 1, 2001

Peaches

Interesting recipe and technique of pouring the ingredients into the hot sugar.  we normally heat up the liquid (we use cream) and mix the egg yolks with the sugar and temper it into the liquid  strain and pour into the containers into a water bath and bake in the oven.  I think that it has to be really sweet due to the condensed  and evaporated milk.  that condensed milk is just like white motor oil.  I wonder if the recipe has been modified due to the possible lack and storage problems of cream or due to the hot climate substituting the canned milks instead of the cream. well at least you get an additional caramel flavor to your version.

Thanks

Windmill Boy

[may10]

... in response to Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jun 30, 2001

Bibingkas are sort of rice cakes cooked authentically by charcoal to get that distinct filipino taste.  Growing up, it just used to be made of "galapong"  (or pound rice) with water, egg , salt and then when cooked eaten with butter and grated coconut.  However, recently, bibingka has turned into a wonder and you now have them in varieties such as ube-flavor, with salted egg, etc..

If you ask me, nothing beats the original bibingka,  bought just outside the church during the dawn masses at christmas time cooked by small-time peddlers.  Somehow, they just seem more delicious.  *S*

[Jeff S]

... in response to Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jun 30, 2001

The problem with traditional Japanese and Chinese desserts is that they're not nearly sweet enough for the American palette. Sweet red bean paste fillings in rice flour are a popular one in Japan. My favorite is kuri manju - sweet bean paste in a pastry with chestnuts. Yuki will be able to tell you all about it. Other than that most Japanese desserts are mostly European ones except less sweet - things like bamkupfen (sp?) I'll bet you sure catch Stephen's attention with your Passion fruit creme brule' Come to think of it, the only time I can recall he taking his eyes off Tess is when the creme brule' was served.

- Jeff S.

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to Re: Educate me a little please, posted by Jeff S on Jun 30, 2001

Jeff

It is Baumkuchen  -- Tree Cake -- I was reviewing my notes and I learned it is traditionally made with 18 layers each baked upon the previous layer  in honor of the 18 accepted trades and crafts --  Those wacky Europeans.

I don't know if Tess should be Pleased or irritated about that  statement or not ha ha ha.  I personally am not crazy about Custards in general  and I think Creme brule's are passe' and way over sold.  But if people want to get them who am I to stop them.  I burnt my fingers on them last night  so maybe I am more biased than normal  but now I have the feeling back in my fingers again.

Windmill Boy

[Jeff S]

... in response to Re: Re: Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jul 1, 2001

I guess I spelled it with a Japanese accent. Ahso desu ka. It's really good but I bet a pastry chef's nightmare. Did you ask Yuki about kuri manju? By the way, did you know that Yuki means snow. You have to start calling her snow white. )
-- Jeff S.

PS keep your fingers cool!

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Educate me a little please, posted by Jeff S on Jul 1, 2001

Jeff

her name really is Yuuki   so maybe the meaning is differnt. I call her Super Yuki  or occasionally   Storm (from the X men -- inside joke  Believe me she usually reminds me of a quiet mouse)  Her last name is ABE  and some of my coworkers just call out ABE  when they want her to do something and she replies Hai.  or ABE MARIA  ha ha ha  The head pastry chef has been calling her Yukihama lately  since she is from Yokohama.  

I found a web site teaching japanese and the teacher was also named Abe  I mentioned this to Yuki and she tried to tell me that there are different Charectors to Represent ABE and her family's was not the common symbol for ABE.  both this and the online lessons that I started to read were very confusing to me  So I might invest in Japanese for Dummies instead  ha ha ha.  I am definately not a born linguist!

About baumkuchen  I think most pastry chefs in America are basically unaware of it  At school we had a rotating spicket machine that would bake the layers one by one and you would dip the spicket into the trough below with the batter and then bake the next layer.  But they told us that maybe there were only 10 of those machines in America  since it is such an unfamiliar dessert here.  I do think it is odd that it has such popularity in Japan though.

Windmill boy

[Jeff S]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Educate me a little plea..., posted by Windmill Boy on Jul 2, 2001

What part of Yokhama is she from? My wife is from Asahi-ku. Her folks lived in Tsurugami where she grew up and she lived in Wakabadai when we were dating.

Actually every kanji character has several meanings to supposedly be gleaned from the context and every sylable (there are only 56 in the entire language) may have several kanji. For instance the kanji for hashi (chopsticks) is different than the kanji for hashi (bridge) - while the first symbol of my wife's family name may be pronounched hachi (eight) or in her name, Ya. Uneducated people called her Hachigura when her name was Yagura. It's not a difficult language to speak (no conjugating verbs, no future tense, no pronouns, no masculine/feminine distinctions as in latin, and only 30,000 words (as opposed to 400,000 in English) but it's an incredibly difficult language to read and write properly, unless you restrict yourself to the hiragana and katakana alphabets only. That's about all I can manage. The American printed apanese newspapers, such as the Rafu Shimpo have the hiragana phonetic translation next to the kanji in parenthesis. Otherwise you'd have to stick to reading things intended for 3rd graders and younger.

When my wife and I were dating, she was surprised that I didn't know what baumkuchen was. She kept thinking she was mis-pronouncing it because EVERY American should have known such a popular western dessert, and I kept thinking she was saying something in Japanese. It was funny. Ask Yuki what creme puffs are in Japanese. Now that was something I thought she was saying in English. We did a lot of cocking our heads and saying HUH? at first.

-- Jeff S.

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Educate me a little ..., posted by Jeff S on Jul 2, 2001

Jeff

I'll try to ask her today.  Do they have ... See dick run.   Run dick run -- after jane.  Oh oh  watch out for Spot  books over there also?  ha ha ha  or is it all in Anime now a days?

I was lookiing through a book on modern Skyscrapers and they showed the tallest one in Japan which is in Yokohama  (a pretty cool design).  Behind it was Mt Fuji I think.  Is it really so close?  Like portland is to Mt Hood or was it trick photography.  Yuki said she is about 15  minutes by train from that skyscraper.

Windmill Boy

[Jeff S]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Educate me a lit..., posted by Windmill Boy on Jul 2, 2001

.. except Hiroshi runs after Kyoko, not Dick after Jane. LOL!

[kevin]

... in response to Educate me a little please, posted by Windmill Boy on Jun 30, 2001

One Filipino dessert that I can think of off the top of my head is bibinka.  Bibinka is pasty rice, sweetened a bit, wrapped in banana leaves.  Personally, I don't care for it.  I'm sure some posters on the board can give you the correct recipe.

Recently, I went to an Asian market that includes Filipino foods in its merchandise.  I bought some Magnolia ice cream at $7.95 for a half gallon(?).  It was mango flavor.  The last time I had Magnolia ice cream was when I was in the Philippines.  This time it didn't become soupy shortly after bringing it home and serving it.  I still have some left in my freezer.

I also bought a package of pan de sol rolls.  Pan de sol is sweet bread, and it is sarap.  When I was in the Philippines, it was served as a snack, simply with cheeses spread or sweet mayonaise.  When I was still married, a friend of my ex-wife visited her sister in California.  When she came back, she gave us some pan de sol rolls she got in National City, California.  These rolls were sarap, hot from the toaster with melted cheese.

Well, the day I made my purchase at the Asian market, as a gringo, I cooked my self some tocino burgers for supper.  I wonder if anybody else, Pinoy or Kano, has tried that combination.  The tocino burgers were sarap.  Actually I didn't grind the meat, I just ate it like I would eat a hamburger.

Unfortunately, probably because it's been so humid, the remaining rolls spoiled fast.  Within two or three days, mold was growing on them.  On the other hand, when I was in the Philippines, any baked goods that weren't consumed immediately after being bought, had ants crawling on them.

As for Filipino desserts, I think some folks on this board (perhaps Stephen & Tess Brittain, and Ray Snyder) might be able to at least tell you what's available.  There are Goldilocks stores in their area.

For anybody not famniliar with Goldilocks, Goldilocks is a well known bakery based in Manila  From what I've seen in the Philippines, a trip to Manila wouldn't be a complete trip without taking something home from Goldilocks.  Goldilocks has stores in the U.S.A. and Canada too.  There are some scattered in California (San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and probably one or more other cities), Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

- Kevin