Brûlée Coconut, Palm Sugar, Pork floss sticky buns

"  It's savoury-sweet kinda thing, you know, obviously, but also smokey around where a mixed aroma of coconut, butterscotch and bacon meet and greet.  " [ezcol_2third] What in the world is pork floss?! And where the hell do you get palm sugar?!  Or both, for that matter?! Ok fine, so I knew this is gonna be a hard pitch.  And I'm probably not helping my case when I tell you that pork floss, invented by an anonymous Chinese likely on a night of massive insomnia, is a brownish cotton ball made of predominantly pork, which is cooked, shredded, then painstakingly dehydrated while being tumble-fried inside a wok until what used to be muscle tissues have then transformed into super fine, fiber-like fluffs.  Whaaat?!  And as if that's not mind-bending enough, its flavor profile wonders in between savoury and sweet with a maple bacon or jerky-like porkiness oozing into your sensory space as your mouth grapple to understand this textural anomaly. It's really just like any other culinary ingenuities that took form initially as a means to tackle food preservation before refrigeration, but ended up being cherished by its culture even till this day.  Stretching from southern China down to Southeast Asia, hey, pork floss matters. 

THE PINEAPPLE BUNS/PO LO BAO

"THEY HAUNTED ME LIKE THE SWEETEST NIGHTMARE" I want to begin today by saying, "I'm sorry, Kelly.  I sidetracked." A few weeks ago, a reader sent me an earnest suggestion saying that ever since she lost contact with one of her beloved things to eat, the curry beef buns from Chinese bakeries, that she has missed it dearly, and that it may fit eloquently into this humble blog of mine because from what it seems (and she's right), that I'd love me some curry, too.  Oh yes, Kelly.  Oh you have no idea, curry and me are like this.  We tight.  However

Rise baby Rise!

Cuz I don't brown up nice in the oven.  NO!  I meant I can't bake!  I'm paralyzed in the field of baking because I'm innately handicapped in following instructions.  But I, too am a mere mortal who's powerless against the calling of fresh-out-of-the-oven pastries.  And I have a thing for biscuits. For one, it is one of the few pastries that doesn't need egg (ok, I LOVE eggs but can't have them.  That's a Ginormica sob story for another time).  And plus, they're just endlessly versatile.  They are the personal escorts,  the Emporors Club of the pastry world.  They will play any role you want them to play for the day, breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert!  Fantastic!  If one could just be a gentleman, invest in a little courtship beforehand to get to know the biscuits well, to help her reach you-know-what.   What? It's the RISE, baby!!! Make the biscuit happy, and she will return the favor.  And all that biscuit ever wanted, is to rise.  Since the birth of biscuits, how many of us amateur bakers' tears were shed over the walking-dead who didn't

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