Category Archives: Sweet Dishes

Thanksgiving Leftover Becomes Pumpkin Pancakes

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: November 29, 2010
Pumpkin Pancakes

When it comes to serving Thanksgiving dinner in our household there is only one menu: Warren’s mom’s. I’ve made the same New England Thanksgiving dinner for more than twenty years. The celebration always starts with assorted homemade pickles and relishes, and basketful of piping hot Parker House rolls. Then follows roast turkey with oyster stuffing accompanied by mashed potato, creamed peas and onions, and mashed winter squash and turnip. Finally the dinner ends with apple and pumpkin pies served with vanilla ice cream or Vermont cheddar cheese. As always there will be plenty of leftovers. Since Warren forbids me to alter the Thanksgiving feast, I’ve become very creative with leftovers. This year I decided to make Chinese pumpkin pancakes with the leftover pumpkin pulp from making the pie.

Also posted in Recipes, Vegetarian | Tagged | 8 Comments

Raspberry, Mango and Summer – Perfect Together

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: June 24, 2010
Mango Coconut Tapioca Pudding

Just south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn bounded by Church Avenue to the north, Coney Island Avenue to the west, Beverly Road to the south and the Q line subway track to the east is an oasis of Victorian residences. Known as Prospect Park South the area was built around the turn of the 20th century for discriminating New Yorkers looking for a suburban lifestyle. Our friends Lauren and Maureen fell in love with one of these houses when they were hunting for a home about a decade ago. It was a huge rambling grey house in need of repair with an overgrown garden in the back. Although they knew there was incredible potential for the house, it wasn’t until they started clearing the garden that they discovered the real treasure: raspberry brambles.

Also posted in Recipes, Vegetarian | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Chinese New Year Resolution: Stop Avoiding Lard

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: February 13, 2010
Taro Paste with Gingko

I have a New Year resolution, a Chinese New Year resolution that is. I am going to eat healthier from now on. No I’m not going to seek fat-free products on market shelves, nor am I going to reduce the fat in my cooking. I plan to use natural animal and vegetable fats in my cooking. Yes, that’s right I am not going to shy away from either natural animal fats such as lard, tallow and organic butter, or natural vegetable fats such as coconut oil, olive oil and grapeseed oil. As it turned out these fats are not necessarily harmful to your health; in fact they are often essential for your body. Besides they are delicious!

Also posted in Recipes | Tagged | 6 Comments

The Great Chinese Culinary Divide

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: January 16, 2010
Xiaowotou in a Steamer

At first I noticed a few blocks of broken links on some Web pages. Then I started receiving “connection timeout” and “server reset” messages. Access to my favorite places like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube was unsuccessful. Furthermore many food blogs I regularly visit were inaccessible as well. These were not symptoms of a widespread network failure, but rather the result of surfing the Internet from Shanghai. Such was the extent of the “great firewall” of China I encountered during my travel there last fall.

Also posted in Recipes, Steaming, Techniques | 8 Comments

“Little Tiger” Christmas Cookies

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: December 8, 2009
Christmas Tiger Cookies

Christmas Tiger Cookies

It has been more than five years since we lost our cat, Lily, to cancer. Warren and I were very fond of her, and until now just couldn’t bring ourselves to adopt another cat. We finally decided we’ve given ourselves sufficient “adjustment” time. Early this year our friend Grace Young, author of The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen and The Breath of a Wok, had suggested we consider the Only Hope Cats Recue, Inc. when we were ready. So last week we finally contacted Kris at Only Hope Cats and found our beautiful four-year old rescued gray tiger tabby, Brandon.

Also posted in Recipes | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Durian… “Like Eating Sweet Raspberry Blancmange in the Lavatory”

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: October 12, 2009
Durian Puff

Durian Puff

If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on about durian it’s the odor. Not only is the odor strong and distinct, it permeates through layers of packaging and lingers interminably. Airlines and public transport authorities in Asia ban durian in the aircrafts, subway trains and buses. Hotels in the region similarly prohibit it in their rooms.

To foreigners not familiar with this fruit the odor is so foul that few would attempt to eat it. Durian is the only fruit that the host of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel, Andrew Zimmern, simply couldn’t swallow. But to many other people the aroma, which becomes more pronounced as the fruit ripens, is the allure of the fruit. Therein lies the conundrum of durian: the stronger the odor the more desirable the fruit.

Also posted in Pastries, Recipes | Tagged , | 19 Comments

Commercialization of the Moon Festival

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: September 28, 2009
Snow-skin mooncakes with cherry almond filling

Snow-Skin Mooncake with Cherry Almond Filling

I walked into the K-Mart store near Penn Station in New York last week and discovered to my horror that the Christmas section is already fully stocked with artificial Christmas trees, holiday decorations and ribbons. I had to check the date on my New York Times to make sure I had not completely missed Columbus Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. This senseless commercialization sent shivers up my spine.

Just like Christmas in America and the West, Asian merchants have learned the art of commercializing holidays. I was rather surprised, though not completely unexpectedly, to find mooncakes being marketed all over Asia as I traveled in August even though Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (中秋節) is not until October 3rd. From Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong and Singapore to Shanghai, neighborhood bakeries as well as multi-national food chains were touting their specialty mooncakes in advertisements as well as by shelf talkers in their stores.

Also posted in Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Recipes, Vegetarian | Tagged | 28 Comments

Eggland’s Best Caramel Ginger Soufflé

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: April 6, 2009
Caramel Ginger Soufflé

Caramel Ginger Soufflé

I’ve never entered a recipe contest before and was a bit apprehensive about participating when Foodbuzz announced the NYC Eggland’s Best Recipe Contest. However I was reminded of a forum message in an online Chinese language food forum by Heaven_Travel (天堂游). She lives in China and regularly writes about her cooking adventures. She first caught my attention because of a forum message on soufflé. She’d watched a television cooking show with a “handsome” (帥哥) foreign chef demonstrating how to make a passion fruit soufflé. The chef apparently had repeatedly used “lovely” to describe the ingredients as well as the soufflé. So if everything is so lovely she thought she ought to attempt the recipe. Besides she was completely seduced by the chef and the passion fruit. But unable to find passion fruit she substituted peach nectar instead. What a clever girl I thought. So if a Chinese cook can create her own soufflé recipe so can I!

Also posted in Recipes | 7 Comments

Celebrating New Year with “Sticky Cake”

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: January 24, 2009
Chinese New Year Cake

Chinese New Year Cake

In America homophones are language oddities that spark interest only as intellectual curiosities. But in Chinese culture they play a very large role in everyday and holiday symbols. Perhaps this is because there are so many homophones in the Chinese language. So it is that many food traditions during Chinese New Year are connected to play on homophones. One such food symbol is the Chinese New Year cake known as “nian gao” (年糕) in Mandarin.

Also posted in Chinese New Year, Recipes | Tagged | 15 Comments

Making Mooncake with Love

By Kian Lam Kho | Published: September 11, 2008
Moon Cake with Tea

All my friends thought I was out of my mind when I told them I was going to make homemade mooncakes. Well you see mooncake is one of those things better left for a professional bakery to make. Making them is time consuming and can be very tricky to handle. But the idea of making them at home intrigued me, and I was determined to make an attempt for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival this year. In fact I wanted to experiment with more modern and innovative flavors. So, I got on Amazon and ordered two mooncake molds and made my very first homemade mooncakes: Earl Grey Tea Mooncakes with Egg Yolk and Pine Nuts.

Also posted in Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Recipes | Tagged | 25 Comments
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