“You’re the best Mama in the whole wide world!”
Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear that sentence?
SIX AND A HALF YEARS.
Who knew it would just take a homemade peach galette to do the trick?
PS – Did you know? I’m also better than all the chefs in all the restaurants in the world. Although, surprisingly, it was a batch of fresh cranberry beans that helped me achieve that status.
The last few summers we’ve dabbled in a little bit of fruit preserving, but this year, we became much more serious. I’ve been cooking from recipes in this book. There has been a lot of fruit picking this summer, and we’ve even been able to harvest from our own garden.
Can you believe that view? Unfortunately, picking strawberries by the coast also required that we bundle up in sweaters and scarves.
Like the backwards sweatshirt? Let me tell you what’s in her basket: NOTHING. She ate everything that landed in her basket, including much of the fruit that I picked. I started switching rows whenever “Ms. Sticky Fingers” came near.
Now that’s what I like to see: the kids being put to work and earning their keep!
It makes me happy to open my cabinet and see it packed with rows and rows of homemade preserves. We’re putting it on everything – oatmeal, yogurt, thick slices of toast, and sometimes, when the kids aren’t looking, we even take a big spoonful and just eat it straight out of the jar. Shhh!
I swear we are eating more than desserts in Taiwan. But I just love the desserts here! I always tell people that the highest compliment a Chinese person can give a dessert is “Hmm, not too sweet!” and I’ve really been in not-too-sweet heaven here.
We went to Eastern Ice Store (No. 38, Lane 216, ZhongXiao E. Rd., Sec. 4, (02) 2777-2057) after dinner one night, and it was packed! Have you ever had a tapioca pearl drink? Well, those things were invented in Taiwan, and this place makes their own tapioca pearls. Usually places like this offer a variety of different toppings, like sweetened, cooked beans or sweet potatoes, or chewy things like tong yuan. You can choose from a bunch of different tastes, sweetnesses, and mostly, texture. In the summer, you eat it on bao bing, which is shaved ice. In the winter, you have them with some sort of hot soup. Business at this store is so good that the proprietor owns an apartment in the priciest complex in town. Can you believe that?
My aunt directed us to a little shop close to our house, which we had no idea was there. It seems we were the only people in town not to know, because it was packed! We got to try some new things that I’ve never had before.
This is dou hua, which I talked about in iced form here (for summer). During the winter, it’s eaten warm, and this version is made with milk. It’s warming and creamy and, you know, not too sweet. You can choose some toppings to go on it, and we got my favorite topping of peanuts and small tong yuan.
We also got a hot red bean soup, called hong dou tong. It’s made from adzuki beans, and cooked until the beans are falling apart. It’s also got some black rice in it for texture, with some dried flowers on top for fragrance, and we added some tong yuan.
This is very Taiwanese. There are all these old fashioned vendors around the city, often wizened old men smoking cigarettes in between making your mwa gee (mochi), though we happened to find a cheerful middle aged woman. They keep little rounds of sweet rice cakes in their stall, and when you order a box, they’ll fill them with a filling of sugar with little black sesame seeds and then roll them in ground peanuts. You have to eat them fast or the moisture in the rice cakes turns them into a congealed mess. Many of the old-fashioned vendors have some kind of noise-making contraption on their cart to draw attention to themselves, and these kind of vendors have a little motor which makes a soft slapping noise, so my family and I always refer to these as “dong dong dong.”
We also had a more modern version of these at the dessert spot. Here, the mwa gee is poached in a syrup and then taken out of the soup and tossed with ground peanuts and black sesame seeds. Similar to those you get at the street carts, but these are warm and gooey.
We’ve been eating well, as you can tell. I am going to miss these desserts when we come home!
Yes, we are eating our way through Taipei. There’s such a strong food culture here, and I love all of it, especially the down and dirty street food. We always go to our local favorites while we’re here, but I’m trying to branch out this time, searching the internet for new things to try. So many places to eat, so little time to do it. One of the first places I read about was a fairly famous dessert hot spot called Tai Yi Milk King. (82, Xin Sheng S. Road, Section 3, (02) 2362 3712) It’s a little far from where my parents live, right across the street from the entrance of Tai Da University, so I wasn’t sure we would have the opportunity to try it. A tiny spark of hope alighted when I found out that my aunt has been working at the University, and then when I heard mention of a trip to the office, the whole family was packed up and ready for a tour of the campus within minutes. The fact that it was only 10 in the morning on our second morning didn’t stop us from gorging on dessert for breakfast.
They’re famous for their tong yuan there, which are soft, yielding balls made of sweet rice flour encased around a filling like peanut or black sesame paste. They’re boiled and then added to a soup. It’s a little like eating hot, filled mochi. You can buy frozen tong yuan in the States, but they’re nothing like the fresh ones. These were fantastic. F got the black sesame tong yuan in a hot peanut soup. He liked it but was full for hours afterwards. The day we got these was the day after a national holiday in Taiwan where everyone eats tong yuan, salty or sweet, so we managed to get in on the celebrating as well.
When we’re in Taiwan during the summer, I live on bao bing, which is shaved ice with a variety of toppings. It’s refreshing, and some hot summer nights, this is the only thing I want. But it’s still popular during the mild winters here, and I did not regret getting this bao bing, which was topped with red beans, fresh shiao tong yuan (small ones, that are not filled) and sweetened condensed milk. Yum!
Here’s a question for you – If you let an American child choose what kind of dessert he wants for breakfast, what do you think he’ll choose? Why, the least Chinese one possible, of course! He zeroed right in on the picture of the one with sliced bananas, chocolate sauce and sweetened condensed milk. As the adults happily shared and admired each other’s snacks, Otis kept offering us bites of his, puzzled by our vehement refusals.
It was a worthy field trip, for sure. I think tonight, F and I will be going to the Night Market.
It started one day when my friend pulled me aside at brunch and told me of her small obsession with rainbow cake. I’d seen stories about various rainbow cakes floating about on the different blogs I read, but truth be told, they looked a little gross. But after she sent me the link for the cake (I think that one looks amazing), I started thinking about it more and more. And finally, it possessed me entirely and I had to make it for Otis’s birthday. Does that ever happen to you?
Otis was pretty excited about the prospect of rainbow cake, and I decided to go one step further by baking them in ice cream cones. I ended up doubling this cupcake recipe here (without the lemon), which made 36 cupcakes. I divided the batter into 5 and tinted them with food coloring gel. As my friend pointed out, it is a real commitment to food coloring. I made them at the very last minute so that the cones wouldn’t get soft, which, in my opinion, made them more trouble than they were worth. Particularly because I believe that many kids were disappointed to realize that there was no actual ice cream involved.
However, we had cookies to save the day! I wanted to continue the rainbow theme, so we made rainbow cookies for the kids to take home as a thank you goody.
Apologies in advance for the awful pictures to come, but it was late and dark. I used a double batch of this sugar cookie recipe. I weighed the dough, divided it into fifths and colored it with gel food coloring. With both the cake and cookies, you need to use the gel, which is more concentrated.
I spread the first layer of dough inside a long, rectangular tart pan, using an offset spatula. You can also use a loaf pan, but line it with plastic wrap first so you can remove the dough easily later. I tried to make the layer as flat and even as possible.
Same with the second color, trying to distribute the dough evenly before pressing it into place with my offset spatula. It looks disturbingly close to playdoh, doesn’t it?
I eventually layered five different layers of colored dough. My pan was not deep enough so I just unmolded the dough and raised it up with some chopsticks, which worked quite well.
I refrigerated the dough overnight, straightened all the edges after I unmolded it and then sliced all of the dough into 1/4″ slices.
Once the dough came to room temperature, it was pliable enough to bend into the shape of a rainbow without cracking. The rainbows went back into the refrigerator and then Otis and I brushed on an egg white wash and then sprinkled them with rainbow colored sanding sugar before baking them.
Poor Otis was so excited about the test batch that we baked that he burned his chin peeking at his cookies and blowing on them to cool. I was surprised at how tender they stayed, despite all the handling. And the cookies were a huge hit with the party-goers and the party boy.
Our fruit trees are slowly getting established, and we’ve finally been able to enjoy the, ahem, fruits of our labors. A smattering of donut peaches, a handful of plums, a thimbleful of blueberries, and the second year of strawberries, strawberries, strawberries. Every morning I see Otis peeking between the plants, hunting for his mid-morning snack. And now he’s indoctrinated Bee, happy to be her forager. I can finally see how my dream of an edible backyard is coming true.
Today, we made dessert as a team. F, now officially the baker of the family, made us some galette dough during a break in his bread baking. (I found this recipe via Smitten Kitchen, which I love). Then Otis and I picked all the ripe strawberries we could find and broke off a stalk of rhubarb. Some chopping and tossing ensued, followed by a bit of dough rolling, and by the time we were finished with our dinner, a warm galette was waiting for us to top with vanilla ice cream. It was a really satisfying project for us all. F and I have been talking about weekend cooking projects for the whole family, and I think this was the perfect one to start us off. I’m thinking about gnocchi or orechiette and we’d love other suggestions as well.
And this does not require the entire family’s participation, but I think I’m going to have to make this granola.
a clean house:
“gold” orchids from F (he’s still gunning for “Honorary Asian” status and scored extra points for the gold color):
a bowl of “gold” oranges:
new clothes for the kids:
two kids with new haircuts:
(bee’s first)
“hong bao” passed out and tucked under pillows:
We ate our traditional dinner of dumplings with “hidden treasures” tucked inside: coins, dates, peanuts and “nian gao.” We all race to find as many treasures as we can find. I’ll just have to say here that – ahem! – the kids got a little help.
coins = wealth
dates = fertility
peanuts = long life
“nian gao” = promotion
Otis got 3 coins, Bee got 2 and Fifth Aunt Grandma K got 1. I got 3 peanuts. I guess it means I’ll have a long life of poverty. F got peanuts and dates. I guess it means he’ll have a long, lonely life of poverty (since I won’t be having those babies with him!)
Happy Chinese New Year!
We head home tonight. And sad though we are to leave family, you know you’ve spent enough time in Asia when you start wondering if it’s possible for your husband to take your child to school on his scooter. Standing between his legs. With a helmet, though…I’m still pretty American.
Last time when I was in Taiwan, I wrote about one of my favorite Taiwanese breakfasts. Another place I rush to as soon as I return is Shiao Ji Da Win Dwin (Shiao Family’s Big Won Tons – it doesn’t sound as weird in Chinese, I promise) I dream about this place when I am back in California, and in fact, I was so desperate for a taste of these foods that I very seriously considered coming back for my Grandfather’s birthday (when I was 8 months pregnant!!) just so I could eat these things.
This is ba wan:
Doesn’t look very good, does it? It’s such a unique food, I can’t really describe it in a way that would do it justice. It’s essentially a very chewy wrapper, made of sweet potato starch and rice flour, with a filling of meat and bamboo. It’s steamed first, then poached in oil to heat, and when you order it, they take one out of the hot oil, squeeze it dry, cut it open and top it with sauces (there’s a sweet soy sauce, a sweet and hot sauce, and often big dollop of garlic). Here they are, sitting in oil:
Yes, I know it sounds gross, and looks even grosser. I wouldn’t eat it for years because who wants to eat something that’s been sitting in oil like that, especially if it’s not crispy and made by Ronald McDonald? But a few years ago, things turned around for me, and I like these things now. It’s very Taiwanese.
This is my favorite, the food that made my mouth water when the pregnancy hormones were at their strongest. It’s tong yuan, mixed with wontons (pronounced “hwin twin” by folks originating from certain parts of the Mainland, like my family, and “win dwin” by the Taiwanese folks who own/work at the restaurant, who peer curiously at me and correct my pronunciation every time).
You’ll often find sweet tong yuan in the frozen food section in most Asian markets in the States. It’s mochi with filling inside. The sweet ones have red bean, black sesame or peanut paste in side. It’s cooked and served in hot water, so that the mochi is soft and chewy and the filling hot and gelatinous. The tong yuan you’ll find here are salty so once you bite through that chewy mochi, you’ll find the juicy meat filling. It’s a little like eating a soup dumpling.
This place has been around forever. It started out as a little streetside vendor, when the daughters were all very small, and they still had to wash dishes out in the street. They’re been pretty successful, and now rent out a nice, big, air-conditioned restaurant, where the grown daughters now do all the cooking. Luckily, this place is close, so Otis and I have managed to sneak over there a few times (he adores wontons). I will miss these foods desperately when we’re gone.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, although it does occasionally hit the spot. (As an aside, did you know that there was a short-lived peanut butter restaurant in NYC? One of our friends was interviewed on CNN, waxing poetic about Fluffernutter sandwiches.) I do, however, love me a pb+j cookie. Same idea but in cookie form! Brilliant. Here’s a recipe I recently made up, adapted from various recipes. My cookie actually has relatively little sugar in it, because I prefer a less sweet cookie to go with my jam. This version is a little sandy in texture.
ingredients:
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c peanut butter (I used the natural, salted pb from Trader Joe, which is much runnier than Skippy, and has a nice, salty edge)
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 c flour
3/4 t baking soda
extra granulated sugar, for rolling dough
jam
Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract and continue mixing until well combined. Whisk flour and soda together and then add to the wet ingredients. I chilled the dough until firm, but I’m not entirely convinced this step is necessary. Form 1″ balls of dough and roll in granulated sugar. Use your thumb to make an indent and slightly flatten the dough, and fill the well with jam. I added another small piece of dough on top, to make it look more like a sandwich, and because, well, the last recipe I shared with you was a thumbprint cookie and I was feeling a bit unoriginal, but hey, you don’t gotta live with my guilt, so feel free to leave this step out. Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes.
A package of these will go out the door tomorrow to a friend who’s celebrating a birthday soon.
One of the first things I have to do when I come back to Taiwan is head over to Shiao Ding’s (Little Ding’s) and have some traditional Chinese breakfast food. Shiao Ding has been around for at least 20 years, serving up breakfast in their little shack of a building. They moved away for a while because their building was condemned, but business at their new site was poor, so they moved back, at reduced rent and with the understanding that the landlord was not responsible if the roof caved in. It adds to the air of authenticity to eat street food with the possibility of the building falling on your head, don’t you think?
Here are a few things you can eat:
soy bean milk
This one’s salty, with pickled mustard stems, tiny dried shrimp, crispy pieces of you tiao (chinese donut), cilantro, scallions, chili oil, sesame oil, soy sauce and vinegar, which gives it a sort of curdled look. Maybe sounds a little gross, but it’s tasty. You can also have soy bean milk sweetened with sugar, hot, warm or cold.
Here’s you tiao, which is a long piece of fried dough, airy inside. A bowl of hot sweet soy bean milk with you tiao used to be my favorite meal as a kid, but now I’m more of a salty fan.
This is shao bing, which is a flaky sesame flatbread. Many people split them open and fill them with fried egg, you tiao or sliced meat (although you really eat that in restaurants rather than at streetside vendors). The one in the picture is actually a sweet one, with a slightly sweet sugar filling.
Another one of my favorites: fan tuan. It’s a glutinous rice ball, with filling inside. I like mine sweet, with you tiao, ground peanut powder and sugar, but it’s more common to find salty ones, filled with picked mustard stems, pork or fish sung (which is dried and fried) and you tiao). It’s chewy and crunchy at the same time, and I love them.
I don’t eat these that often, but they are very popular: dan bing. It’s an egg, fried with scallions, and just as it’s about to set and finish cooking, a pancake is thrown on top. They slice it up and serve it with thick soy sauce.
Shiao Ding serves a few other things, but these are my favorite. I can get most of these things in California fairly easily, but it just never tastes as good. And newer, cleaner, safer places have opened up near my parents’ house, but I think my heart will always belong to Shiao Ding.
