Lilicoco's Footprint

Dessert for Summer: Tofu Pudding

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:49:00 +0000

Tofu pudding, pronounced as "Douhua", is sometimes referred to as soy pudding or soybean pudding. It is usually added with sugar water and red beans, tapioca pearls (same as the ones in bubble tea), peanuts, or green beans as a dessert.

Tofu pudding with tapioca pearls

Tofu pudding recipe:

Mix soybeans with amount of water (1:10), then grind them into thick fluid.
Filter out the residue, boil the soybean milk (take the foam above it out)
Add water to soybean pudding powder, a mix of tapioca starch and hydrous calcium sulfate. (powder to water = 1:8)
Mix soybean milk (hot) with soybean pudding powder solution (5:1). Do not stir and put it into refrigerator until it is cooled to tofu pudding.
Add sugar water and red beans, tapioca pearls (same as the ones in bubble tea), peanuts, or green beans as you like.

My Favorite Taiwanese Beverage - Bubble Milk Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:17:00 +0000

Sometimes Bubble Milk Tea is also called Pearl Milk Tea, or Tapioca Milk Tea. The name of Tapioca Milk Tea, of course, comes from one of its ingredient - tapioca, and Pearl Milk Tea is the most common name in Taiwan, named after black-pearl-like brown-sugar-thicken tapioca added in this beverage.

This is how the beverage looks like...

The pearls are sometimes referred to tapioca pearls, which is boiled tapioca. Because the "Pearls" are more than 10mm in diameter, we need a big straw for that. The chewy tapioca and sweet flavoring milk tea combined to make the taste really a pleasure.

The following is the tea shop. Besides Bubble Milk tea, a variety of beverage are also available. However, Bubble Milk tea is the long-time best-selling. We can also choose to have it 70%-sugar, half-sugar, 30% sugar, iced, half-iced, or without ice. It is quite customized.

Another interesting thing is the name of the shop in the picture - Come Buy. It is pronounced as "cheers" in Japanese, and in English, of course, can mean "Come and buy from us!!!"

Tempura in Taiwan

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:38:00 +0000

Sometimes, it is difficult to tell what the food is by its name. At least, for tempura in Taiwan, it can refer to at least three different things.

In Japanese restaurants: and only in Japanese restaurants, tempura is a dish of deep fried seafood and vegetables.
As a food: tempura is a mix of fish paste, corn starch, and other flavoring or seasoning, then pre-fried before sold in markets. Tempura is usually served deep-fried or boiled as part of the following dish.
As a dish: boiled tempura served with white carrot, oily bean curd, pig's blood cake (yes, the one on the top of Reuters' "Travel Picks: 10 of world's most unusual foods" list), and Black Wheel (similar to tempura, fish paste with vegetables, eggs and seasoning).

Tempura as a dish

Tempura is served topped with source. The source differs from stand to stand and decides the taste of tempura. The most common ingredients of the source is soy sauce, sweet hot sauce, tomato ketchup, ground pepper...and etc. But again, it differs.

After finishing tempura and other food in the "tempura dish", people usually add soup (actually is the water used to boil all the tempura, white carrot....) to the left source and have it as our after-meal soup. (remember? Chinese have soup AFTER meals)

One of the must-try street foods in Taiwan, it is widely available in night markets or the corners of streets.

Street price:

Small (as above picture): USD$1-1.5

Large: USD$1.8-2.5

Oysters Chitterlings Vermicelli in Taiwan

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 May 2013 05:38:00 +0000

One of the things Taiwan is known for is its street food, so it is no surprise that Taipei is listed in CNN's "Asia's 10 greatest street food cities". CNN's top 10 street foods in Taipei list, frankly speaking, is different than my top 10 (remember, I am a Taiwanese). However, we have consensus on oysters vermicelli (or "oa misua", as it is pronounced in Chinese).
When I was young, it used to be only oysters in this dish. When the cost of oysters are getting higher and higher, more and more oysters are replaced with chitterlings. So now they are actually oysters vermicelli, oysters chitterlings vermicelli, and sometimes chitterlings vermicelli, but people somtimes use the same old name "oa misua" for all of the three.

Usually, the oysters are flour-thicken, so they will not taste fishy. One thing that might stop westerners from tasting this dish is usually the chitterlings. I know, chitterlings are strange, or even awful for western food. But trust me, there will be absolutely no p**p smell. Instead, the taste of chitterlings are so good that many people here even prefer chitterlings than oysters.

Is this good? Try it and find out...

Street price:
Small: USD$1-1.5
Large: USD$1.8-2.3