Tamarind and Thyme

Dulce de leche. Do those words make you drool yet? Thick, brown, sticky, caramelised condensed milk is all that it is and it’s awfully easy to make. I finally got around to making some when I saw tins of condensed milk at my local budget supermarket (Netto, if you must know). I bought three, as I estimated that was what my largest pot could hold, brought them home and then nervously watched them all night. And that’s without even boiling them yet!

You see, I had read a few horror stories online about how unopened tins exploded while being boiled, spattering hot brown goo all over kitchen and ceiling. Of course, I started to wonder how exactly did that goo escape? Through a small puncture or were there sharp metal shards all over the place?! Upon careful rereading, the exploding only happened when the boiling water evaporated enough to expose the tins to air, whereby the risk of their exploding increases exponentially. Other techniques for making dulce de leche involve pouring the condensed milk into a pan and then baking it slowly in the oven. Nah, I was going to risk it.

The next day, while watching the men’s Wimbledon finals (which incidentally, lasted longer than the boiling!), I placed the three tins on their sides into my stockpot and covered them with lots of cold water; they were covered by at least an inch or two. If your tins have paper labels, remove them; mine had the labels printed directly onto the tin, something I’d not come across before. The pot was set to boil for three and a half hours. Every half hour or so, I would top up the pot with boiling water direct from my electric kettle. Do make sure the tins are always covered! I checked on mine nervously every five minutes at the beginning but then realised that half hour checks were going to be ok.

After they’ve finished their 3.5 hour stint in water, turn off the heat and let the tins cool in the water. Don’t be hasty and open the tins while they’re hot as they’re still likely to spray molten goo all over you and your kitchen. When we finally opened a tin, this was what greeted us:

Oh yeah. Thick, sticky, caramelly goodness. It’s very thick and we tasted first on teaspoons. It’s sweet and slightly milky and gosh, it’s hard to describe it but you ought to try making it too since it’s so easy! I like my caramel with a bit of salt and so we next had some on crackers; salt and caramel are just perfect bedfellows.

The best part of boiling directly in the tin is that you can take those unopened tins and put them straight back into your storecupboard. I’ve read that the sugars might crystallise a bit but it’s supposedly a good thing as you get a bit of crunch.

Now I still have 2.5 tins of dulce de leche left… what shall I do with them?!

Oh, and if you’re reading this in time, tomorrow (Saturday, 12 July 2008) is the Korean Food Festival at the Fountain Pub in New Malden. More info over at London Korean Links.

Finally, all the Vancouver posts are done! Thanks for bearing with me and I promise some “nice food at home in London” posts for the next couple of months (save perhaps one or two posts on a weekend away I have planned in August!). I can only promise a couple of months as I’m going to be in NYC for a week in September! Do you have any recommendations for a first time visitor?

Now onto the web roundup:

Will it be cold in New York in September? I mean, will it be too cold for ice cream sandwiches?

Mark Bittman does it again – 101 simple recipes for picnics!

Robyn over at The Girl Who Ate Everything has a wonderful guide to Parisian patisseries in three parts.

Steamy Kitchen has posted on four different kinds of fried rice, each featuring a different processed meat. I’ll admit here that I have cooked with two of those processed products!

It’s only kind of related to food but this anatomy of a gummy bear over at Serious Eats just cracks me up!

I’d been down Denman in Vancouver many times before and had passed the quaint little ramen shop by the name of Kintaro Ramen each time and I had glanced at the menu, with its cheese ramen (apparently, “the ladies loooove it!”), but I’d never bothered to get into the queue. It was only this year, when my brother’s friends gave it the thumbs up, that I managed to finally head over there.

After meeting a group of friends at the corner of Denman and Georgia, and then watching a massive bicycle rally go through that exact corner, we strolled down towards the tiny restaurant where there was already a queue outside. The deal seems to be as such: you take your place at the end of the queue and everyone in your party must be there at the time. The queue works on a first come, first served basis – if there are 2 seats available, but a group of 4 in front of your party of 2, you’ll have to wait until they are seated first. Fair enough. To hasten things, you’re given the menu (in both English and Japanese) to pursue and your order is taken while you’re waiting outside. We queued for about half an hour at around 7pm on a Friday night.

When you’re finally seated, there’s still quite a wait while your order is prepared. Luckily, we didn’t have to wait too long for our gyoza.

These gyoza were fried very nicely and separated easily, something that I’d never seen before. Most gyoza I’ve had tend to be stuck together and so there’s always a bit of ripping of skin as we pry them from each other. The flavour was very good – quite porky but these were also the first I’ve had where the filling is quite finely minced, almost like a mousse.

After we scoffed the gyoza, it was still quite a wait until we received our bowls of ramen. As I’d never been there before, I went quite middle of the road with my order. I chose the miso ramen (their special recipe) with medium strength broth (rich and light broths also available). Their broth is pork based and vegetarians are not catered for – keep that in mind if you’re planning to visit! Each ramen also comes with a serving of pork, available in both lean and fat versions. Of course, I chose the fat!

And this is what arrived – it was a massive, and heavy, bowl of noodles. The broth was opaque and you could see from the globules of fat and tiny particles of meat in the broth that it is very pork based! It’s so rich that I don’t even want to imagine what the rich level of broth is like. But it was delicious. The miso flavour is not as strong as in regular miso soup but adds a lovely creaminess to the broth.

Fatty pork is also the way to go – you get this Swiss roll of pork belly that has both tender meat and melting fat. A friend of my brother had the lean pork and they were drier slices of pork loin. My brother had their shoyu ramen, with soy sauce in the broth, and this was just as delicious, with lots of pepper to flavour it.

We were in and out of the restaurant in under 35 minutes, excluding queuing time, which shows how fast we slurped it all up. Now I’m keen to return again to try their cheese ramen, which comes topped with, you guessed it, a big pile of cheese. It’s supposed to go very well with the broth!

Kintaro Ramen
788 Denman St.
Vancouver, BC
Canada

And what good memories they were! I expressed to my best friend that I had never had all-you-can-eat sushi in Vancouver before and immediately, she sought to fix that. One night, we headed to Kisha Poppo on Davie that has an AYCE menu and we went prepared (read: empty stomachs). All the fish was very fresh and came in generous portions and the sushi was noticeably lighter on rice than at other places I’ve been. It’s not just sushi either as there are various tempura and bbq items on the menu and even ice cream for dessert. We ordered, and got through, a lot of food and here are the highlights.

OK, those of you in the UK will just about faint when I tell you the price – $18.95 per person. That’s less than £10! What a deal!

The rest of my photos from that dinner at on my Flickr photosteam.

Kisha Poppo
1143 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada

There’s another branch in Richmond, BC.

My brother and I were wandering around the downtown Vancouver area thinking about dinner but not wanting anymore Asian food. After wandering around for a bit (and passing many an Asian restaurant), we recalled a couple of burger joints on Denman near the beach at English Bay. We chose Fatburger over Vera’s Burger Shack. Orders are placed at the counter and your food is brought to your booth.

I had the Fatburger (a 1/3 lb burger) while my brother had the Kingburger (1/2 lb of beef!). These were fully dressed and were moist and very more-ish.

The onion rings were excellent! The rings were coated in a breadcrumb mixture that made them seem less oily than their battered brothers. And of course, proper onion slices, not those fake reformed rings of chopped onion.

The fries too were good – crisp with no hint of sogginess.

Would I return? You bet! This is fast food I can get used to! (And I want to try their chili dog next.)

Fatburger
1101 Denman St.
Vancouver, BC
V6G 2M7
Canada

There are other locations around Canada and the United States.