On a recent trip to Singapore I fell hopelessly in love with the unholy, neon-colored love child of a Sno-Cone and a Jell-O salad, also known as the ais kacang.
The ais kacang is wildly popular in Singapore and Malaysia (where it's sometimes called an "ABC"), served in outdoor food centers and in mall food courts countrywide. In its most basic iteration, it consists of a scoop of roughly shaved ice drizzled with varicolored sugar syrups and evaporated or condensed milk sitting on a nest of corn kernels, red beans and cubes of herb jelly or gluey sago pearls.
It's the hyperstimulating carnival of desserts, with every texture -- Crunchy! Chewy! Icy! Glutinous! Creamy! -- and dozens of flavors exploding in your mouth all at once. Some versions even include a scoop of ice cream or a pile of fresh mango or (eeek!) durian. More is more, right?
Never mind that it's still 45 degrees and raining here; I've been craving ais kacang as if it's midsummer in Southeast Asia. So I decided to make my own. I simply ground up ice in my food processor and doused it with Torani raspberry syrup (the kind you use to make Italian soda) and a milk syrup I'd made by cooking evaporated milk with brown sugar. I omitted the corn and beans, but next time I'll try adding some sago pearls or chopped fresh berries.
Pandan is the leaf of the Pandanus amaryllifolius plant. It's ubiquitious in Southeast Asian cooking, especially in desserts. Pandan is used in curries and meat dishes, wrapped around chicken and fried, used to perfume rice and to flavor cakes, ice creams and popsicles. Light green pandan cakes are a popular dessert in Malaysia and Indonesia, similar to a chiffon cake. Pandan leaves are also woven into baskets baskets, which can be used for serving food. Pandan is not readily available in the U.S., which is why it's rarely seen on menus, but can sometimes be found frozen in Asian markets.
I was looking at the Aug./Sept. 2007 issue of Saveur magazine and reading a great article about Hmong farmers in California by Andrea Nguyen, one of my new favorite writers. (If you want to subscribe or buy and download the issue click here.) The Hmong are a semi-nomadic people who have lived in parts of China and Southeast Asia for centuries. Always on the move, recently a large portion ended up leaving Asia and immigrating to the US, especially California, where a great many are farmers growing their fantastic produce. While traveling in Asia I had the chance to try some Hmong cooking. Their cuisine relies on extremely fresh produce and meats that are cooked simply and full of flavor. One thing that I really enjoyed was the Chile-Scallion relish called Kua Txob Tuav Xyaw Dos (pronounced koo-AH za too-AH sher daw.)
It's a spicy, tangy, herbal, slightly salty, rough paste that is used as a relish and condiment. Always made fresh each day and put on the table the relish is put into soups and stir fries, used to boost up the spice level to your own preference, and served by itself as a garnish for plain or sticky rice.
The best way to get the best consistency to the paste is to do it by hand in a mortar and pestle. Preferably a nice solid one like a Thai mortar and pestle. They are an immense and heavy piece of stone that sits solidly on your counter so that you can let the solid pestle thump satisfactorily down on the ingredients. I realized after reading the recipe that I had the few, simple ingredients growing in my garden. It's easy to make and only takes a few minutes. Time to make the Kua Txob Tuav Xyaw Dos.
This gem comes from the press release announcing Cold Stone Creamery's expansion into Mexico and Southeast Asia. I'll admit it's a better turn of phrase than "taking the international sweet tooth by cavity." Full disclosure, I've never eaten the Creamery's ice cream, I suppose I should since there's one in a mall near my house.
The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based purveyor of fresh-made ice-cream that's blended to order with mix-ins on, you guessed it, a cold stone, started scooping up international markets back in 2005, when it opened its first overseas store in Tokyo. Since then Coldstone has opened 22 more stores throughout Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.
Its first Mexican store will open in September. There's been no word yet as to whether the Creamery stores South of the Border will forgo the signature stone slab in favor of a gigantic molcajete y tejolote to mix the ingredients with the ice cream. The company's next international markets will be Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. I don't think it's gonna happen, but I'd love to see the Creamery's Southeast Asian stores use young coconut, jackfruit and some of the brightly colored gelatinous squiggles that are a staple of the region's frozen confections.
If you are an culinarily inspired traveler like me (not that I travel
much, but I'm not going anywhere unless there will be very good food involved), but schlepping through
jungles to eat beating cobra's hearts like Tony Bourdain is a little too
exotic, then perhaps something like Worlds of Flavor is more suited for
you.
Worlds of Flavor is a travel program from both the Culinary Institute of
America and the Viking Range company. This isn't a vacation where you
lounge around on the beach all day. Travelers follow a world-renown chef or other culinary expert to Spain, Italy,
central Mexico, Southeast Asia, India, and the Mississippi Delta. The trips are all about the cuisines of those
cultures, involving visits to local markets, demonstrations by home cooks, meetings with local professional chefs,
wine-tasting, and even some hands-on cooking classes.
The tours last about 10 days, cost anywhere from $2500 for the Mississippi Delta Tour to over $5000 for Spain.
Durian is a large, spike-covered fruit from South East Asia, sometimes known as the "king of fruits," and
famous enough to make the list of 50
things to eat before you die. The fruits weigh anywhere from 2 to 10-pounds and are famous for their
unusually creamy texture and rich taste to those who like it, but the most famous quality of durian is its unmistakable
odor, described as everything from a combination of onions and sweaty socks to rotting fish and sewage. The smell can extend for up to 1/2 mile, drawing the many animals that like
to eat it, including pigs, elephants, squirrels and even tigers, right to the ripe fruits. The ripening process
continues even after the fruit has been removed from the tree, developing more pungency and a creamier texture. Due to
the texture of the flesh, which is that of thick custard, it is considered to be a delicacy and a treat to many people.
If you are an culinarily inspired traveler like me (not that I travel
much, but I'm not going anywhere unless there will be very good food involved), but schlepping through
jungles to eat beating cobra's hearts like 
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