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Post by Blue on Sept 11, 2012 14:31:54 GMT
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 11, 2012 16:01:39 GMT
I'm afraid those moon cakes are old school (which I made 18 years ago). There is a new type of moon cake, created by one cakeshop in Hong Kong, six years ago, which has taken the Chinese culinary world by storm. The one I sampled had a mango type skin and the inside was filled with mango pudding. Heavenly!
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Post by Blue on Sept 11, 2012 16:30:54 GMT
Let's see . . . . the moon cakes at the top (lotus seed paste mooncake and 5 nuts mooncake) cost roughly US$14. The mookcakes on the bottom right cost roughly US$7. I won't make any comment about the calorie content. Mooncakes were after all designed to be eaten by entire groups of people with the intent to find a hidden message on how to overthrow the Mongolians. There's no way I can eat them by myself: my office co-workers will support this calorie workload with me of course. I never liked the mooncakes with duck's egg yolk: they end up in the garbage can. Of course Haagen Daz is marketing their ice cream mooncake: www.hokangtao.com/2012/08/haagen-dazs-mooncakes-promotion.htmlAnd starbucks is selling its mooncakes (including coffee mooncake): Everyone be prepared to see Chang E, the woman on the moon, as well as the rabbit on the moon.
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Post by Blue on Sept 11, 2012 16:33:35 GMT
And yes, I made mooncakes myself during a company's MidAutumn Moon Festival event. It turns out that you can mess up with outer mold/skin; that is, the secret to a good mooncake is its filling!
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 11, 2012 20:36:12 GMT
Ooo, mango pudding filling sounds great! I have been a fan of mango since my first experience in Hanoi 11 years ago.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 11, 2012 22:27:51 GMT
Ooo, mango pudding filling sounds great! I have been a fan of mango since my first experience in Hanoi 11 years ago. What you've never had mango for the first 40 years of your life? Portland can't be that culinary bare
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 11, 2012 23:11:52 GMT
The following recipe comes from the Man Wah Restaurant, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, HK. People would give their eye teeth out for such recipes, and as such I had to kiss an awful amount of backside to obtain it, 25 years ago when i worked there. The following is in Chinese weights, AVOID recipes on the internet in grammes or ounces.
1 Catty = 20 ounces 16 taels = 1 Catty
Mango Pudding
4 large mangoes 0.5 Catty sugar 2 Catty (C) water 2 oz gelatine powder or leaves 0.5 C milk mango essence 2 oz cream
1 blend mango with milk and cream 2 mix well sugar, custard and gelatine powder 3 boil water, cool slighty 4 dissolve (2) into (3) 5 add (4) to (1) 6 add mango essence 7 colour with lemon yellow - H 6604, orange yellow- H 1794 8 pour into moulds.
Having chefed in 3 hotels, this isn't the best recipe for mango pudding, but it's the easiest to make.
Best wishes
Ed
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Post by Blue on Sept 12, 2012 14:27:18 GMT
Mangoes in Taiwan are heavenly, but mango juice served in Thailand is very pure. Had mango juice and mangoes with sticky rice during my transit in the Bangkok Airport during the summer.
What do you mean by “leaves” when you list 2 oz gelatine powder or leaves? Is there any preference for gelatine derived from animals or vegetarian gelatine in the form of carrageenan? They sell a lot of lemon carrageenan-based drinks in Taiwan.
Then, what's “milk mango essence”? If I can't find it in the supermarket, what would be a good substitute?
Finally, what will the pudding look like if one skips lemon yellow - H 6604 and orange yellow- H 1794?
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Post by Blue on Sept 12, 2012 14:31:45 GMT
Wonder if someone has some sort of recipe from the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . I had very expensive afternoon tea over there with a live orchestra. Imagine how nervous we would all be if we were all there performing live at tea time! Maybe we would cause some people to have indigestion . . . . . .
Anyway, Edcat, hope that one day I could try egg tarts, mango pudding, and other Chinese desserts made by you.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 12, 2012 15:30:04 GMT
Thanks Allen, if my appeal is not successful, chefing professionally again would not be a choice but a necessity.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 12, 2012 15:34:08 GMT
Sorry there are a few commas missing from the recipe. Mango sorbet can be added instead of some of the milk, aka Dorchester Hotel, london.
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 12, 2012 18:05:16 GMT
I can't blame the delay experiencing mango on Portland. The food here is quite sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
Thanks for the mango pud recipe. I am a little confused about the ingredients, such as the custard and milk mango essence. The ingredient list indicates what I understand is to be 10 oz of milk mango essence, but in the directions milk is treated separately from mango essence. Are these two ingredients, or one? If the former, how much mango essence is needed?
You say that some of the milk mango essence can be substituted with mango sorbet, but I am not sure that I can get the mango essence at all.
The custard is not listed in the ingredients. How much of that is needed?
Thanks.
Best wishes,
David
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 12, 2012 22:35:18 GMT
mango essence is hard to come by; I got a whole batch from Hk. Sorry there should be a comma after milk and mango essence. The point of mixing gelatine powder with custard powder (sorry lost that bit, try 1 tablespoon) and sugar to to stop the gelatine powder coagulating when it touches the hot water. There would be no problem if you used gelatine leaf.
A better recipe is from the Dorchester hotel, London, obtained from a Maxim's dim sum chef in HK.
A) heat disolve: water 2 C sugar 1.5 C coconut milk 1 can gelatine leaves 2 taels
B) 5 fine diced mangoes mango sorbet 1 lb single cream 1 lb mango essence a little, maybe 1 capful 5 eggs
Add B to A
Best wishes
Ed
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Post by Blue on Sept 12, 2012 23:24:52 GMT
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Post by Blue on Sept 12, 2012 23:27:38 GMT
Several of us on this forum are crossing our fingers and hope you get a successful appeal, Edcat7.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 13, 2012 8:27:08 GMT
Thanks Allen, as much as I love chefing and as much as I dislike being unappreciated in my old job, it gave me the time and the funds to pay the bills and pursue other interests such as music. Chefing is a young man's job and that only gives me 10 years at the top.
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Post by Blue on Sept 17, 2012 16:14:30 GMT
And what does one do with the pomelo peels after eating pomelos for the Moon Festival? Crown oneself the King of Pomelos: bow down or curtsey!
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Post by Blue on Sept 17, 2012 16:24:46 GMT
Mmmm . . . . . mango . . . .
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 18, 2012 0:06:29 GMT
Oh How I wish I were back In HK!!
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 18, 2012 6:31:06 GMT
Last October I took the family to Disneyland. The drinks and snacks were at outrageous prices, but one treat I particularly enjoyed was a container of mango slices. Yum.
Best wishes,
David
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Post by Blue on Sept 18, 2012 15:37:47 GMT
David,
Fresh or dried mango slices?
I can still remember my first glass of pure mango juice. I was nine years old and was transiting in Manila on a flight to Taipei. Been to Taipei when I was 2-3 years old, but the time in Manila was the first time in my memory to realize how humid the tropics can be. The mango juice was very refreshing.
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 18, 2012 17:39:55 GMT
The mango slices at Mouseland were fresh. I do often get the dried mango slices at Costco. They are not bad, but are a much different experience than fresh.
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Post by Blue on Sept 21, 2012 15:45:11 GMT
Those mango pictures were actually taken in the Bangkok Airport in June on transit to London to visit certain people. Edcat, you may miss Asia, but I miss a good slice of rhubarb pie. I know there's rhubarb pie and rhubarb jam in London, and there's someone we both know who also loves rhubarb. An American radio celebrity Garrison Keillor sings songs praising rhubarb pie nearly every week: Yes, there's just something about rhubarb pie. It's worth going through the rest of the meal just to get it. Especially if it's Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Where's my baby, where'd she go I asked her friends but they don't know So I got me a piece of rhubarb pie And here comes my baby strollin by
I know my baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie I see that rhubarb look in her eye Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.See the 37 mark for the song.
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Post by Blue on Sept 21, 2012 15:54:27 GMT
Another thing to mention about the Moon Festival as celebrated in Taiwan. In the old days, people would simply sip tea and enjoy moon cakes under the full moon. Starting about 20 years ago, commercial interests started promoting barbecue at night under the full moon. Therefore, as the moon festival approaches, one can find materials for a barbecue (brushes to glaze barbecue sauce, charcoal, sticks, aluminum foil, etc.) being sold at convenience stores and supermarkets. Unfortunately this also causes a lot of air pollution during the night of the moon festival, and environmentalists in Taiwan aren't pleased with this direction of commercialization (besides the fact that there is so much packaging for moon cakes . . . . .)
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Post by Blue on Sept 29, 2012 14:45:05 GMT
I went to Costco to buy pomelos and blueberries today. The meat section was transformed to a barbecue section because of commercial interests promoting barbecue for nighttime activities in the MidAutumn Moon Festival. People were frantically purchasing steak meat, thin-cut raw meats, shrimps, fish, and squids for the BBQ. Not many people were eating at McDonalds or other fast food restaurants such as Yoshinoya (吉野家, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshinoya) as most people were BBQing stuff. That made my experience at Yoshinoya for dinner much more pleasant tonight. Fortunately winds from a nearby typhoon helped to blow all the nasty pollution generated by all the grills placed in the alleyways. Walking down one alley, I encountered every other household having BBQ outside with the smell of roasted meat and BBQ sauce being too much to bear. Would have loved to share some photos of the BBQs that I saw, but for privacy reasons, I can't.
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