Thai cooking survival guide by a Thai soprano-wife-mother.

Where is the real Thai taste?

I am Thai. A Thai who grew up in a modern household; yet, I had the fortunate opportunity to witness the greatness of the Thai past. I was the last generation of my family to see the real Thai way from within my very own teakwood fence.

I remember Bangkok in a calmer way than most people now. The coolness of fresh air with the faint sweet aroma of Thai flowers – DokJumpee, DokPuth, DokMali, DokKaew, and DokPiguln- in combination with the sound of brass bells from a wooded tram on which I would ride along Rajchadahmneun Avenue, was the Bangkok that I knew. My mother was the oldest daughter in a family of five children.

Back then, she and her eldest brother were the two who were married and had their own children. We lived in one of three houses on my maternal grandparents’ large property on the west side of the Grand Chaopraya, the river so deep that it supports not only domestic traffic but is also the path for international freight ships, making it the major blood vessel of the country.

My grandparents occupied the largest house, also the first house at the front of the property, which faced a major road but sat far enough back and was disguised by many large and shady fruit trees. My eldest uncle and his family lived in the second house in the middle, and our house was set farthest back on the property. I was very happy with my never-ending activity from playing with my playmates ‘from tree-to tree,’ and waiting every afternoon for a Chinese “Olieng,” or iced coffee, iced tea and sweet snack goodies, vendor to arrive in his boat in the canal- “klong-” that marked our property line and the neighbor’s in the back.

I had many playmates, and I vaguely remember they all lived with us on our property- as to where on the property, I wasn’t sure. A few years ago, I asked my mother about them and received confirmation that those were our- or, rather, my grandparents’- hired help and their families who had been there since my maternal great-grandmother’s day. I was surprised that I could remember back that far, since my mother said that they had moved out when I was very young. She also confirmed my memory of the tram but said that it stopped running soon after I was born. I don’t know if I’m dreaming, but I have flashes of memory of this wonderful time, here and there, throughout my life.

My great-grandmother- the mother of my maternal grandmother- represented the real Thai extended family. She was a Thai-Mon. (Mon – the nation that got swallowed up by Myanmar-Burma back then. The Mons relocated to Siam since the Golden Age of Ayuthaya.) The word “Thai” means freedom, and coming to Thailand meant to open the door of opportunity among the peaceful people and under the cool shade of the Great King.

My great-grandfather was a Chinese boy who came to Bangkok with his family. He grew up to be an inventor, an author, a scholar, and a businessman who owned and operated an international trading company with his old country, China. Along with a British physician, Dr. Bradley, they started the first English language newspaper in Thailand and also invented the first Thai typeset for the typewriter. Later, my great-grandfather was granted a title from the King.

How to to Cook Biskuti Ya Nazi Recipe

Those who love dessert recipes will agree with me that Biskuti ya Nazi is one the best dessert recipes in Kenya. I have tasted and enjoyed it and I wish to teach you how to make it.

Some of our African recipes are less known by the outside word and for that matter we see it as our responsibility to show the world how to make these Africa recipes.

In a place like Mombasa and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania Biskuti ya nazi is highy regarded as the best food to serve your guest and on this page we will give you the engredients and methods to make it.

INGREDIENTS TO MAKE BISKUTI YA NAZI

Three egg whites

One cup granulated sugar

Two and a half cups desiccated coconut

One cup macadamia nuts or cashew nuts, finely chopped

DIRECTIONS TO MAKE BISKUTI YA NAZI

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Lightly grease two baking sheets.

3. In a medium bowl, with an electric mixer on high, beat egg whites into soft peaks.

4. Gradually add the Sugar, beating after each addition until peaks are glossy.

5. Fold in the coconut and nuts.

6. With wet hands, roll tablespoonfuls of the mixture into rounds and set on baking sheets.

7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly golden.

8. Cool on racks and store in an airtight container.

Though it may sound strange to you if you are not from East Africa, Biskuti ya Nazi recipe is one of the food recipes you should learn to make for your family.

Who said that you dont how to cook? Having been born from a family of many girls, I was not supposed to cook when all my sisters are present but when I joined work and start to live on my own, thats when cooking lessons became a reality.

Of course not every person like cooking but for those who enjoy to explore new foods and have the taste for delicious yummy yummy, this recipe in a must not miss.

Nutrients saved with pressure cooking

A lot has improved in the last 20 years with the modern day pressure cooker. They’re most definitely safer than Grammies pressure cooker, and theyre built with style. Even though the pressure cooker was first built around 300 years ago, it’s become the leading cooking method for today. When food is cooked with pressure, it’s cooked the healthiest way possible. Food comes out tastier and faster than any conventional method. Meats come out tender and juicy, and vegetables are colorful and their flavors are intensified. Pressure cooking makes it easy for even the busiest cooks to prepare meals. With a 70% reduction in cooking times, your time spent slaving over the stove-top can be spent on more important things. Use your pressure cooker to make complete casserole style meals, or cook several foods at the same time and have a home cooked dinner served in minutes.

Nutrients

How meals are cooked can have a huge impact on their nutrient content. Cooking your food in an open pot of boiling water is the most effective way to destroy the vitamins. To conserve the most nutrients feasible, many experts recommend that you use as little water as possible. You should also cook your food as rapidly as you can because many vitamins are sensitive to water, heat and air exposure. Water used for cooking can dissolve and wash away water soluble vitamins, while the high temperature deteriorates them. Many vitamins including “B” and “C” are water soluble and the simple act of washing them takes away some of the vitamins. Fat soluble vitamins such as “E” and “D” are stored and metabolized with the fat in our bodies. Fat Soluble vitamins are not as sensitive as water soluble vitamins and are not cooked away so easily.

It is crucial to select the best cooking method that optimizes and keeps the nutrients in food. In a study published by Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, experts looked at the effects of different means of cooking broccoli. Up to 97 percent of specific antioxidant compounds were ruined by microwaving, while steaming the broccoli caused only 11 percent loss. Therefore, any cooking that lessens the time, temperature, and water will help to retain nutrients. Pressure cooking under steam is one of the best methods because it minimizes time and calls for little water.

The super-heated steam which is created by high temperatures within a pressure cooker, makes the food cook swiftly, and intensifies the natural flavors. This enables cooks to use less salt, sugar, and use less costly herbs and seasonings and also get a far better taste. Pressure cooking creates an airless atmosphere that holds more nutrients than other cooking methods. When food is cooked with less liquid, more vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients are preserved and not boiled away during cooking. The procedure of cooking in a steam environment is virtually a fat-free method of cooking as well.

As a rule, accelerated cooking approaches are much better for preserving nutrients than slower methods. Any type of cooking alters food in some way, and more nutrients are wasted when food is subjected to heat, light, moisture and air. The order in which nutrients are typically preserved from quickest to slowest is: Pressure Cooking, Microwaving, Steaming, Stir-frying, Poaching, Roasting, Baking and Broiling.

There are a few tips you can utilize to maintain nutrients. Leaving vegetables in larger portions will minimize the surface area of food. That way fewer vitamins are damaged when they are subjected to air. Always cover your pot to hold in steam and heat. This will also assist in decreasing your cooking times. Leftover cooking water can be used for: sauces, stews, soups or vegetable juice.

It’s not tough to see why a lot of people are beginning to catch on to pressure cooking. They’re efficient, save electricity, lock in nutrients, safe to use, designed to last and highly flexible.

Lists of tools you need to attain the tasty barbecue that you desire

Making a tasty barbecue is really simple. Some people can cook tasty barbecues and some can’t. To those people that assume that tasty barbecues are hard to make probably thinks that barbecues are just putting all the uncooked meat on the grill. The truth is there are more to it than the things you imagined. To attain the tasty barbecues that you want, you will need to combine various recipes about barbecues and by using the best tools needed in barbecue making.

Tools are essential in making our work fast. With the right tools for the job, it can save us time and gives us the best experience that we wanted. The same goes with grilling barbecue. With the right tools you use, it can make your barbecue grilling fast and convenient. You probably know that there are various amount of tools available to buy that can help you on your barbecue grilling needs but you don’t know what to buy because you are confused from one tool to the other. So, presented here are the lists of tools you will need that can help you in your barbecue grilling experience.

In making barbecue, the very first basic tool you should prepare is the tool that you will need in preparing the barbecue meat. The actual result of your barbecue basically starts before putting your meat in the barbecue grill. The tool you will need is the tenderizer. The tenderizer is the best tool for tenderizing your meat. The tenderizer will allow you to let the marinade of your meat sink in. We all know that there are lots of tenderizers found on the market so in order to find the best tenderizer, make sure to buy a tool that has long spikes that will allow you to stab holes into your meat. And also sharp knifes are essential to cut the fat off your meat.

The next tool you will need is the tool that is needed for barbecuing. The tool you should buy is a set of long handled tongs and long handled spatula. These tools will help your grilling job much easier. It is also great that you will have a long handled brush to keep the moist of your meat while grilling it. A metal skewer is also essential to have especially when kebabs are included in your menu. Metal skewer has its own advantage than using the wooden one. You can use the metal skewers in higher temperature compared to the wooden one. In grilling your meat, thermometers are also needed to in managing the temperature to prevent the meat to be overcooked. In general, the interior smoker thermometers are also essential when smoking the meats.

And the last basic tools you will need are the special tools for barbecue. The lists of tools listed under the special tools are the tools needed when cooking something in the grill besides meat. The example is in case you will grill vegetables; vegetables are mostly falls though the grates of the grill. A solution to it is a grill basket. Grill basket will help you keep the food in place and also away from fire while it gives access to the smoky flames that really gives flavor to our barbecue. The grill baskets are also great for cooking items which is small such as shrimps and etc. The basket keeps the pieces inside a net so that you will not be troubled about the food falling onto fire. You can also buy grill baskets that are designed for grilling fishes.

The idea here is not to limit yourself in making barbecue. As stated above, there are tons of different things that you can do in order to make your barbecue experience the best. You can choose from various tools that available in the market that can aid you in making tasty barbecue. The things sited above are only the basic tolls that you will need in keeping good shape in grilling and also to keep the satisfaction of everyone eating the barbecue.

Cooking Tips

Have you been frustrated by cracks in the top of your cheesecakes? Would you like tips to make flaky biscuits? Or would you just like to know a bit more about sweet potatoes? Try these cooking tips from the Good Cooking Central website today for better results in your kitchen endeavors:

BISCUIT TIPS:

If you want biscuits that are crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside, you roll the dough thinly and fold it over once before cutting out the biscuits. They will then split open easily when you’re ready to butter them.

To re- heat biscuits, put them in a well-dampened paper bag. Twist the bag closed and put in a 300 oven for several minutes or until warm.

For soft-sided biscuits, bake them in a pan with sides and put the biscuits close together. For crusty biscuits, bake them on a cookie sheet and separate them from each other.

PREVENTING CHEESECAKE CRACKS:

Grease the sides of the pan before adding batter. The surface will not stick to the sides of the pan and crack when the cheesecake starts shrinking as it cools.

Run a knife or a metal spatula around the edges of the pan immediately after removing the cheesecake from the oven.

Drastic temperature changes can also cause a cheesecake to crack. Avoid putting a warm cheesecake from the oven into the refrigerator.

To disguise cracks, top the cheesecake with fruit or some other topping.

SOUR MILK:

Since sour milk is not really sold in the grocery stores, when a recipe calls for sour milk, simply add 1 TBSP. of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk. You can also use buttermilk to replace the sour milk called for in a recipes.

BAKING POWDER:

If you use too much baking powder in a recipe it will produce a product with a coarse grain, and will cause the product to eventually fall. If you use too little baking powder, the product will not rise enough and be heavy.

Baking powder tends to lose its strength over time and should be kept in a tightly covered container. Moisture will cause the baking powder to deteriorate faster.

When increasing the amount of eggs in a recipe, decrease the baking powder by 1/2 teaspoon for each extra egg added.

CUTTING FAT WITH APPLESAUCE:

To reduce the fat content in your baking recipes, substitute applesauce for half of the amount of vegetable oil called for in the recipe. Using all applesauce produces a low-calorie, moist product.

ADJUST TEMPERATURE FOR DIFFERENT PANS:

Keep in mind that the type of pan you use when baking can determine the outcome of your finished product. For glass pans, turn down baking temperature by 25?. If you substitute a shallow pan, reduce the overall baking time by one quarter. If you use a deeper pan than suggested in the recipe, increase the overall baking time by one quarter.

ALTERNATIVES TO COOKING WITH BUTTER:

When browning or sauting onions, hamburger, etc., replace the butter by spraying your skillet with non-stick spray or use chicken or beef broth instead.