flailing in my kitchen v3.1
How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Before I had even moved into my new apartment, one of my friends gifted me an ice cream maker as a housewarming present. I'll admit that when I saw it, my first reaction was momentary panic because I had not planned for an ice cream maker to sit in my new (not-so-spacious) kitchen. But after my dad built me some shelves, I was able to find a spot for it to live.
It's a very thoughtful gift! Ga lemice cream is my favorite dessert, and I eat it three times a day.
...okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but I do eat ice cream pretty much every day. I don't think I eat that much of it, but it's nice to have as my breakfast, lunch, and dinner dessert.
I figured I should start with the most basic ice cream recipe, the "Simple Vanilla Ice Cream" that was listed in the manual. It was pretty easy to make and only had four ingredients: milk, heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla. I let it churn for about 25 minutes, and it thickened a bit and it was kinda cool!
So this Cuisinart ice cream maker claims to be able to make ice cream ✨ in under 30 minutes ✨ Except that's a LIE. First, you need to make sure the ice cream bowl has been sitting in the freezer for 24 hours. And even if you discount that time, you still need to freeze it for several hours after it's done churning in order for it to have a good ice cream consistency.
But that's okay. I'm living life slowly these days so I can wait a whole day for some ice cream. So after it was done churning, I tried a little spoonful and I put it in the freezer until the next morning. It tasted like vanilla ice cream! I didn't love the texture, but I thought it was a success.
You know what makes it even better, though? Oreos. I LOVE oreos in my ice cream. I bought a small pack of them and I crushed one up and mixed it in (just like Cold Stone!). I should crush up an oreo every time I scoop myself a bowl of ice cream.
So I decided that I would try making cookies 'n cream next. And it's basically the same as making vanilla, I just add crushed oreos to the churner for the last five minutes of it. I only used four oreos (because I had an individually wrapped snack pack), and I think it could have used one more. Recipes online will typically tell you to use a knife to chop the oreo into chunks, but I prefer to just put it in a plastic bag and smash it with something heavy enough.
I lied in this video! I actually only let it churn for twenty minutes! I don't think it really made a difference in the texture of the ice cream though. I enjoyed it, but I'll definitely want to switch up the recipe next time. I really want to try and create a creamier texture, and I think I want to try incorporating some egg yolk next!
Guys, the day has finally come.
After 6 years (!!) of searching, I am finally able to eat mue pue ou nam糜配烏欖 - congee with black olives!
So I need to talk about these ou nam烏欖 - black olives. They're black and football shaped. They're very salty, but they don't taste anything like your black olive that you find on a pizza or a charcuterie board. And you have to get them whole, with the pit still inside.
Back when I was little, you could easily find cans of ou nam at the Asian grocery store. But at some point, I guess they stopped shipping them to the US? When I asked my Soy Go細姑 - aunt (dad's youngest sister) about trying to find them back in 2022, she told me something like "Child! Don't waste your time! They don't sell them anymore!" BUT I KEPT LOOKING. Every time I went into an Asian grocery store, I'd look for them. Whenever strangers online posted about them, I'd respond and ask them where they got them. I basically never talked to strangers online, but I always made an exception for ou nam.
I heard a lot of crazy theories from people about why ou nam are so hard to find in the US. They're too salty and too unhealthy. They cause cancer. I don't know. The thing is, I knew they still existed somewhere. They were even featured on a Netflix documentary about Teochew food! See that? Olives were the very first episode.
But after six years of searching and not finding anything, I really thought I was going to have to travel to China just to get some ou nam. And then just a month ago, I visited my dad's family and I talked to my Soy Sim細嬸 - aunt (dad's youngest brother's wife), and she told me she's seen them at the market somewhere in California. "Why didn't you ask me?" 😅
She started searching on Weee! and she pulled up a page and showed it to me, and yeah, there it was, and they were able to deliver them to my apartment. I had never heard of Weee! before, but apparently they've existed since 2015.
So we placed an order, and it actually took over three weeks to get them delivered to me. I had honestly completely forgotten about it when a mysterious little box showed up in front of my door. I'm used to getting ou nam in a can, so I was surprised to see them in vacuum-sealed bags! Soy Go seems to think this is better though. I mean, it certainly seems a lot easier and safer to transfer these little bags than it would be to transfer cans or jars.
Because they're so salty, they're usually eaten with mue糜 - porridge/congee. Plain mue. I know I've mentioned a few times already that I LOVED eating mue as a child, and even today, I think I could eat mue every day and not be sick of it.
It had been a while since I last made beh mue白糜 - plain ('white') congee, but the process is pretty simple. You just wash a cup of rice and add maybe 4-5 cups of water and boil that. Once it's boiling, lower the heat so it's at a simmer, and keep it cooking until it's at the consistency you like. I actually prefer my mue to be a little thicker and less jui jui水水 - watery.
And you guys know I love lah bhah臘肉 - cured meat as well, right? When I last visited my mom's family, Gong公 - grandpa would cook mue and lah bhah and have that for lunch every day! (And you know I am more than happy to eat this for lunch every day) Lah bhah is typically made with pork belly, but he also prepares other meats in a similar way. Before I left, he made sure to give me some lah bhah to take home ❤️
I've been having many meals of mue and ou nam and lah bhah for the past couple of weeks! I really don't ever get tired of it.
I feel like I want to try to have more of my favorite dishes from childhood. Because...can you believe ou nam is actually not my favorite thing to eat with mue? (Well, you'd know this already if you read my blog posts pretty closely) But that's a post for another day.
