19 Sep
slow movement

aromatic spring onion oil

Mom’s recipe for spring onion oil has shallots, rendered pork lard & spring onions. There’s also a vegetarian recipe for spring onion oil without lard. Just add spring onion oil to ‘thick’ noodles eg egg noodle, udon, soba or spaghetti together with soy sauce, spring onions, rocket, peanuts and chilli oil. Street hawkers in sweltering Changsha sell Liang Fen, aromatic tossed noodle salad. Liang Fen has noodles, coriander, cucumber & mouth-numbing red chilli oil. In Yunnan Liang Fen is a cooling jelly topped with crushed peanuts, fresh fruit, sweet syrup, brown sugar & lime juice.

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29 Jun
slow movement

Bubble Teas

Bubble tea has become a ‘fast food’ kids drink from disposable plastic cups with an extra wide straw. Bubble tea’s called ‘bubble’ cos of the chewy pearls/boba of yam, tapioca, sago or jelly, or else the foam topping. Original bubble tea consisted of hot Taiwanese black tea, tapioca pearls, condensed milk, syrup or honey but are now mainly a mixture of coloured syrups. Delicious Dragon Well bubble tea caught my eye at a Hangzhou street stall & recreated in London with purple yam mochi. Recipe for Singaporean Nonya ice dessert called Chendol.

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