I decided on making 'Fu Chuk Yi Mai' for dessert today. In case you don't know what that means, it is a dessert that is made of barley and beancurd. I have never made it before on my own but I do know how to make it. My mom used to make it for us as we were growing up.
Part of the recipe calls for the use of pandan leaves to make the liquid fragrant. There are no pandan leaves in my corner of Australia so I bought pandan essence from the Asian store. The bottle holding the essence is opaque (can't see through it) and in my hurry, I had quickly opened the sealed top, poured out a teaspoon of it and before I knew it, had chucked the 1tsp liquid into the pot.
This is the result.
Lesson learnt today, pandan essence is GREEN.
Imagine my horror the very moment I dropped the liquid into the pot. I was completely helpless, couldn't do anything to reverse my actions and for a moment, actually considered my options of adding other things to make the green disappear. You know, basics of art. (BLUE + YELLOW = GREEN) ( RED + BLUE = PURPLE )
Therefore I was thinking ( ? + GREEN = COLORLESS) and nothing came up. I sheepishly then told Alex that he will just have to swallow green for dessert. Hahaha..
Take a closer look at the picture. By the time dessert was served, even the barley was green!
So I'm sharing my piece of new found knowledge here. Pandan essence is green and if you need to subsitute the actual leaf with essence, use vanilla essence instead. Looking back, I should have known that the essence will be green. Pandan leaf is green mah... so logically the essence will be green right? Silly billy......
Yeah haha. Laugh at me. I can picture the rolling on the ground and the thumping of the table :) Oh and I must add, the dessert tasted completely right. It was just the wrong color.
cheryl
5 comments:
OH!!!!!!!! GREEN BARLEY..NOW I know what you were referring to. Hahaha...yeah...OF COURSE Pandan essence is green...you'd use that to make...onde onde, kuih talam, etc. :p Funny..hehehe. Looks like cendol (which, incidentally, could be green from pandan too). Hehehe. Anyway, I think taste is still more important!
Woah..cheryu's becoming all wifey wifey... ;)
Hahaha...that is really so unlike you Cheryl. And by the time its served it looks more like green pea with beancurd :P
OMG!!! Hahahaha...I'm laughing... but it's just because I'VE DONE THE EXACT SAME THING too! Mine was worse as I got the wrong kinda barley too. I bought the big fat ones because I didn't know that barley would expand after you've cooked it. :S I remember cooking it for the first time here..and I thought..Hmm.. no pandan leaf..pandan essence will be just as good then! So, I added in SOME pandan essence. Then, I tried tasting it, but I couldn't taste the pandan. So, guess what? I ADDED MORE into my concoction of death! Haha.. So, in the end, I got (freakishly) green barley which did NOT have the taste of pandan at all! My friends were like.."uhm... what the bloody hell are you feeding us!!!!???" Haha.. :P Note to self: pandan leaf is NOT pandan essence.
Haha.. I'm glad I'm not the only one to have made this mistake. My pandan essence did taste like pandan though. But I also echo the same warning. Pandan essence does not equal pandan leaf. At least not in the color department.
Although Dan,your story is funnier. FAT GREEN BARLEY! Hahaha...
omg!!! hahahahahaha....
Post a Comment