Half the people at the Chinese market do not speak English. And they don't understand American gesticulations. As you know, tofu has little to no taste, but the tofu they make there is the best that I've tasted. Its texture is the best. I wanted to tell that to the guy who makes it. I held up a package and gave the Chef Boyardee "OK" sign and "thumbs up" sign, two signals I thought would work positively. But he kept pointing to where they are at, where I just picked up one.
I asked four people where I will find spring roll wrappers, the brittle unrefrigerated kind, usually seen in large stacks such as prepared tortillas are displayed around here. But nobody knew. Then, there they were in a gigantic display right on the edge of an aisle on two tall upright shelves devoted to them with stacks of various sizes. I didn't know that they come in square shape too. As much fun as I've had there, I've only seen the interior periphery. The vast aisles in the center are yet to be explored. It will be jars and jars and jars and boxes and bags of thousands of things that you have only a clue about. On the edge by the spring roll wrappers inside an aisle, I saw GIGANTIC bags of bonito flakes, the exact type I've been ordering from Amazon.
Imagine the potential.
Anyway, back home I fell asleep after the pork belly was put into the oven on low heat.
Seven hours later it was burned.
To an impossible crisp.
What a f'k'n bummer!
One sliver in the middle was salvageable. I ate only a portion of that. It was oily and gross.
Had I done this in the pressure pot, it would have turned itself off. But then it wouldn't have been genuinely roasted.
Back to square one.
* cumin
* hot New Mexico mixed chile powder
* dry mustard
* salt
* black pepper
* brown sugar
* generous liquid smoke
Insufficiently intense.
That's okay for now. Live and learn innit. As I say, university cost a LOT more than this, and this is a lot more fun. Plus, I have other experiments to get to. I want to try whipped fresh coconut cream mentioned in comments. I think that's a brilliant idea.
Did you know that Amazon sells dull knives that are curved to work out the white part of coconuts? Nearly 1,000 reviews.
I'm going to be buying a lot of coconuts.
Fun with pork bellies. Fun with coconuts. Fun juicing everything imaginable. I bought seaweed and fresh water chestnuts to juice them and see what happens. Whole worlds of food related experimentation are opening up and a few failures here and there are expected.
9 comments:
Did your coconut cream have a soapy taste?
It's chilling. I think the fat has to be somewhat solid. I'm not sure. Regular cream must be chilled. Maybe this is the same.
I'll come back here with update.
I'll change the flavor with sugar and vanilla as you do with regular cream if it does taste like soap.
Fun, like Christmas, comes its own way, in a variety of ways.
After growing up with a mom who clipped thousands of magazine and newspaper recipes, and collected shelves full of cookbooks, I have an inner alarm that rings when I encounter food zeal in others.
While I can turn the alarm off and find a place to regard another's interest in food as a creative pursuit or focal point that makes their life interesting or meaningful, it's difficult for me to enter into their intensity without feeling swamped.
The Chinese market sounds like a fascinating place to explore and use as a springboard for new cooking ideas, taste combinations and food-related products.
Yes, it does taste like soap. What a great descriptor.
As I whipped it the fat separated out more liquid but would not whip.
I tossed it and opened another coconut, used the juicer to produce coconut cream and drank it. It's delicious.
Much better than what comes in tins.
But only about 1/3 cup.
And they're a good deal of trouble to open. And that tells me the cost of tins is probably fairly reasonable.
The two advantages I see is better taste and coconut cream from the coconut to your estómago with nothing in between.
To then,
* great taste plus a great deal of trouble, plus meager quantity
VS.
* compromised taste plus no trouble, plus good quantity, plus reasonable cost.
I think they add water. But I don't know for sure.
And when you add water to the juicer version, that tastes great too.
Shame the whipped version didn't work out. Soap flavor is not good.
Thank you for the hint. The experiment was worthwhile.
I might keep trying.
Becuase whipped coconut cream with berries sounded like a very good idea.
When exhaustion results in sleeping through a much-anticipated project to the point of ruin by neglect, is there a learning curve to be realized for body and soul at that juncture which runs alongside the fun and potential of the food that provides nourishment and zest?
That's where my aversion to food zeal activates. When one love is substituted for another and a thousand fun, beautiful and seemingly very good ideas don't take the place of what is most needed for healthy survival.
Zeal is fun and inviting when the first layer of care is intact and in place. When it's not, all sorts of hell breaks loose.
Hell did break loose.
But if I don't push it then nothing gets done. And I did learn. Several useful things, actually.
Ah! It's the lauric acid that gives it a soapy taste. The coconut oil is ~50 lauric acid.
I found this link. It's where I saw the hint of putting an 1/8 teaspoon baking soda in to neutralizer it. If Chikelit comes along maybe he can explain it. Whipped coconut oil would be an excellent substitute for whipped cream otherwise.
Neutralizing Lauric Acid in Coconut Cream
Top sleuthing.
I'm going to try it.
It seems temperature is critical. Because cold, it's hard like butter. But then it turns liquid.
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