Viet sweet stand, Hanoi

My selection: eating my way to the bottom was quite an experience!

I know I said the Hanoi fish with turmeric & dill 'cha ca' would be my next post, but here's a quick sweet themed entry in the meantime...

Again location is Hanoi, but this time a dessert.  Actually 'sweet snack' would probably be more accurate (as I believe the Vietnamese, like the Thais, don't do desserts really - they eat sweet stuff as a snack preferring to have just a little fruit after a meal).

The snaps below are of a little street stall, where you sit on the bench opposite and choose want sweet madness you want concocted. If, like me, you don't speak any Vietnamese beyond 'thanks', 'hello' and 'delicious' then this means smiling, bobbing your head, pointing and generally just fairly philosphical about what you end up with.

In the case what I ended up with included beans, tapioca pearls, palm seeds, taro, banana all in some form of syrup and the whole lot topped off with some sweet coconut cream and banana chips.  There were probably serval other things in there too.

I've eaten this kind of thing a few times in Thailand, the key difference here seemed to be that more of the items were not just in syrup but in a kind of gelatinous syrupy gloop (sp?) which was so stretchy and viscous that the lady serving it was having a hard time getting it off the spoon and in to the glass!

Along with frogsspawn like tapioca pearls and other unusuals each spoonful is textural insanity.

But I ate the entire contents of my glass, and, I think, quite enjoyed it.

There were also some nice looking rice flour dumplings which I didn't have room for, I think sesame seed paste or suchlike would have been found inside.
 

Nice looking riceflour dumplings. 

Ok so next post definitely is now cha ca, and it will be the last of my Vietnamese themed ones.  After that: back to Thailand, where I have been for the last month or so.

Andy

Thai Wafers, Chinatown

These are a sweet street snack common all over Thailand. a crisp wafer made from various flours: rice flour, ground toasted lentils and mung beans - at least that's how we made them at Nahm London, where we had a version of them on as a dessert.

The fillings are pretty varied but usually include meringue, often golden sweetened egg strands and sometimes even sweetened shredded dried shrimp. Tasty crisp little morsels, Thais go mad for them.

p.s working at Bo.Lan at the moment, stunning food, will write about it soon.

A Thai dessert - grilled banana & sticky rice parcels

For the majority of the last 5 weeks or so I've been the pastry chef at the restaurant (with a sprinkling of salad, soup and stir-fry sections providing extra variety). I could ramble on about the weird n' wonderful ingredients involved - like jasmine-smoked flour, burnt coconut ash puddings, golden duck egg strands...etc, but I wont (however I will try and take some snaps of it all and get them up here).

Instead I thought I'd do a Thai dessert for the blog, not a complex one like we do at Nahm but something pretty simple which would be a nice way of ending a Thai meal (though traditionally Thais don't really do dessert as final course to a meal, they eat sweet things as snacks.... but hey).

I've eaten these several times on the street in Bangkok - see my snap below (in fact there's load of stalls selling this & similar good stuff right near the infamous Khao San Road...right here in fact), and they're damn good. Sometimes you find them steamed but I'm more a fan of the grilled version....


Ingredients (for 6+ bananas / portions):

One 'hand' small ripe Asian bananas (yep... you could sub in normal banana here).
A cup of white sticky rice.
2 cups of coconut cream (if using bought 'coconut milk' then this is rich, thicker part)
Caster sugar - about 5 tablespoons.
Pinch of salt
A panadanus leaf or two (if possible)
Some banana leaves.

Optional additions - a few tablespoons of extra coconut cream (you can thicken this by heating with a little whisked-in rice flour), and some toasted sesame seeds.

Method:

You need to soak the sticky rice in cold water overnight first. The next day drain the rice and put in a pan and add the two cups of coconut milk and the pandanus leaf (if using). Cook until the rice is softish and edible, about 15 / 20 mins. Take the pan off the heat, remove the leaf and season with the sugar and pinch of salt, add more sugar if needed - it should be quite sweet. Set aside and allow to cool.

Now get the bbq going or a griddle pan heating up peel your bananas (slice them if you like too, you'll need to if they are the large non-Thai variety). Wipe your banana leaves clean with a new cloth and take off the tough rib at the bottom and cut in to sections big enough to roll each banana in*. Now add a thinish layer of your cooked sweet rice (about the size of your banana) to one of these sections, place a banana on top then bit more of the rice. Now roll up and secure with a tooth pick or something (the Thai ladies who make these at street stalls would do some ninja folding here; I'm not really up that).

*N.B if the leaves are stiff & hard to roll then you might wanna first soften them briefly over the flame from your gas hob.














Grill these on a medium heat, turning a couple of times, for about 20 mins, by which time the banana should be nicely cooked and the rice hot, sweet and a bit caramelised in places.











Serve the banana parcels hot, garnished with the extra thickened cream & sesame seeds if using:

Pavlova

Pavlova is one of the best desserts ever ....it's basically a massive hit of cream, fresh fruit & sugar - yep, pretty ideal.

It also has a special place in my heart, as my mum makes a demon one (I've made a fair few in my time, but think old mother would still take me down in a pavlova-off).

And, in case you're still in need of reasons to whip one up, it's also a brilliant way of using up egg whites, which (from making pasta etc) i always seem to have a lot of.

You can use all sorts of fruit / nut / chocolate combos on them but certain fruits just dont work methinks, e.g apples, pears, pineapples, oranges, bananas etc... my favorites are things like strawberries, raspberries, peaches, mango, blueberries & passion fruit.

Anyway, the basic recipe i use:

(makes a bit of a monster one - enough for 8 people to gorge on, half the recipe if you like)

• egg whites - 6 large or 8 medium
• caster sugar (if you've left your spent vanilla pods in it all the better) - 320g or so
• white wine or rice vinegar - a teaspoon
• cornflour - a teaspoon
• cream - about 600ml
• a vanilla pod if you have one
• a load of fruit to whop on top
  

Method:

• Pre heat the oven to 140 degrees C
• Find a v.large bowl, tip in your whites and beat with electric whisk until firm peaks.
• Now add teaspoon of vinegar & cornflour, continue whisk and gradually add the sugar until all incorporated
  
• find a large baking tray and line with parchment (a drop of oil rubbed over parchment helps prevent stickidge)
  
• dollop the meringue mix all over in a haphazard fashion (few peaks are all good) until you have used it all up.
• bake in the oven for about an hour - if you want quite soft in the middle then turn it down to 100 degrees C when you put it in, if you like quite crispy then leave at 140.
  
• when it's had the hour turn the oven off and allow the thing to almost completely cool in there - otherwise it will crack like mad
• whip the cream until it's just floppy and doesn't run (be careful not to over-whip), oh and if you have a vanilla pod then scrape the seeds and add to the cream 1st.
• dollop the cream over the cooled meringue and top with tasty fruit and things like toasted flaked almonds or crushed toasted hazelnuts.
  
• for the record my 2 fav's are probably raspberry and toasted flaked almonds and mango & passion fruit.N.B if you want to posh it up bit more you can cut circles of meringue out 1st then cream and fruit them individually, like this:
  

Thanks again to benbroomfield.com for his artful snaps.

Andy

Mango, passionfruit and coconut sundae.

Here's a recipe i've been meaning to put up as a few people have asked for eee....

It's pretty much the dessert i did in the Masterchef final ...the one where i didn't help my chances by presenting in a retro (i.e cheap n nasty) sundae glass!

Anyway, it tastes pretty good (i think Wallace said something about bathing in it - nice image) and i recon tis a nice way to end an Asian menu.

Needless to say the key is to get really good ripe mangos (look for slightly soft and sweet smelling ones) and passion fruit (look for wrinkled-as-hell ones).

Ingredients (should do about 4)

Sorbet:

• 2 ripe mangoes - Alfonso (or Honey / Pakinstani yellow) if you can get them
  
• Juice of 1 large lemon
• 3-4 tbsp water plus 200ml water
• 250g sugar
• 3 tbsp liquid glucose

Passion fruit syrup:

• 10 - 12 ripe passion fruit
• juice of one large orange
• about 4 tablespoons of caster sugar
• a vanilla pod
• a fresh lime leaf (optional)

For the rest of the sundae:

• 2 ripe mangos
• 1 fresh coconut (you could use frozen shredded coconut or, at a push, dessicated)
• 2 small cans sweet dessert coconut milk (chaokoh - the brand you find in thai stores do the small cans for desserts) OR a 300ml or so carton of cocnut cream (the thick stuff)
• about 300ml of double cream
• a tablespoon of caster sugar
  

First make the sorbet:

1. Cut the flesh from the mangoes and blitz in a food processor with the lemon juice and 3-4 tablespoons of water, until smooth. Transfer to large bowl and put in fridge.
2. Place 200ml water, the sugar and liquid glucose in a saucepan, stir until the sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, allow to cool.
3. Stir the sugar syrup in to the mango puree together and then transfer to an ice-cream maker. Churn until soft scoop (about 30 mins) then in to a tub and freeze (about another 40 mins)

Meanwhile make the syrup...

1. Pulp the passion fruit and push through a sieve to leave the pips behind (try to get every drop of the precious juice), do this in to a small pan
2. Add the sugar and orange juice, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod add them too and throw in the pod (plus the lime leaf if using).
3. bring to the simmer and reduce until syrupy consistency, put in a bowl in fridge to cool
   

And the coconut cream...

• i did this in a foam syphon thingy (mix the creams and sugar together, add to syphon, charge and put in fridge for 20mins), but assuming you dont have one of these ridiculous contraptions then i would whip the the double cream until fairly firm then fold in the coconut cream and sugar, then chill.

The rest...

1. split the coconut and shred most of it's flesh with a zester or something, then toast in a dry frying pan until lightly brown and toasted.
2. take the flesh from remaining mangoes and dice pretty small

To assemble:

1. Take a tall glass and add a ball of mango sorbet at the bottom, top with some cream, then add some mango cubes and a drizzle of syrup
   
2. Add more cream top with more diced mango, and syrup,
   
3. Finish each with final dollop of cream drizzle of syrup and sprinkle over some toasted coconut

Soz about the lack of pics!

p.s if you wanted to jazz it up further you could finish it with a mango crisp (mandolin slices of mango, dip in sugar syrup and dry in oven on silicon liner for 4 hours or so @ about 80 degrees C).