H Mart - Upper Darby, Pennsylvania

I went to H Mart with TJ and CL. To get there from Penn, you take the L train to 69th St. Terminal, followed by a 5-minute walk. Sadly, we got on the wrong side of the SEPTA station, and had to get transfer tickets! I've never travelled West on SEPTA. I actually wanted to walk to 69th St, but apparently it's really shady (and it's about 3 miles?). The furthest west I've walked is to 50th St. (Baltimore and Market).

H Mart is a grocery store that primarily sells Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food, although there is other imported food. I was a bit let down by H Mart. Although there are many vegetables and foods not found elsewhere (green mango, yucca, etc.) it's quite pricey compared to the supermarkets in Chinatown. On the second floor, there is a food court with four restaurants and one overpriced bakery with pastries that are all pre-wrapped and made elsewhere (they don't have an oven; they do have expensive bubble tea and smoothies). There is a sushi restaurant, two Korean food restaurants, and one Korean-Chinese restaurant. I don't remember the names of them, but we each bought food from a different restaurant (except the sushi one). I had lunch and dinner there, while they (having stuffed themselves with pancakes and eggs earlier) just had dinner. We were there from 2 to 6 pm!

At the restaurant closest to the window, CL got a seafood noodle soup (and I got some kimbap). It came with radish kimchi that had sweet pickled garlic in it. CL didn't really like it, so she swapped her dish with TJ's. TJ had gotten a "noodle with seafood and black bean sauce" from the restaurant furthest from the window, but it turned out that there was pork in it! TJ is a pescetarian, so swapping was quite convenient. Her meal also came with radish kimchi. I got thick noodles and vegetables (number 25) from the middle restaurant, which had a yellow shop front. It was really good, and came with cabbage kimchi, miso soup, stewed potatoes! I was so surprised because the bowl is enormous; my chopsticks are shown on the bowl for comparison. I saw that other people also got these giant bowls. The bowls are about half filled with raw veggies and cold rice noodles, which were nice and chewy. There was a bottle of spicy sauce for me to add to my own taste. It was around $8.50 with tax, as were most dishes there. 

The kimbap was pretty good too, but the soy sauce with chili was really salty definitely not umami. $4 with tax. I know there's imitation crab it in...but I ate it anyway (we shared it; I also ended up eating squid that was going to get thrown away because neither TJ nor CL liked it).

H Mart itself is a decent size, has many snacks that I'd like to try, many varieties of miso, and kilos of kimchi (the smallest size was a pound, the largest was a bag the size of a microwave). The produce section offers a styrofoam backed and plastic-wrapped tray of nearly-going-bad-veggies for 99c, so I bought about 12 small potatoes, 6 Asian eggplants, and 4 zucchinis for $4.96. I just cut off the bad squishy parts (about 10% of the veggies).

 (not sure what it is...) 

(They're twice the size of avocados, and have smooth skin)

I also got some sort of mugwort cake with beans which looked so delicious! I thought it'd be sweet, but it's actually tasteless (like Chinese steamed buns without any filling). I've never had mugwort before, and I'm a little disappointed because I couldn't taste anything different than a normal floury-bread thing. I wish it had been sold individually, but it was not bad.

I also found something that I used to love when I was a kid: ready-to-eat crunchy instant noodles! It's not the same brand, but basically you can add the seasoning, crush the noodles, and then eat them the way you eat chips. There was a brand in Hong Kong that had Snoopy on the package, and came with a Snoopy sticker. I LOVED them. I got the hot rice flavour (but there was also beef and barbecue flavour). It's a bit pricey (99c) but, man, nostalgia!

Also, there was lots of vegetarian pudding. I didn't get any because I had bought some Kingo Pudding by Cocon at Chinatown recently, and here they are (they taste really good frozen)

Although these look like jelly made with gelatin, they're actually solid due to seaweed extract! Here are the ingredients for the pineapple one: water, sugar, nata de coco, milk powder, pineapple juice, seaweed extract, vegetable oil, citric acid, flavour, emulsifier, colouring (including tartrazine E102), and FD&C yellow No. 5. The lychee one doesn't include the last two ingredients, because, well, it's white. I'm not a fan of the pineapple one because it was too sweet, but I bought it for science (and for trying new things).

For those who want REAL pineapple jelly, then, pick these! Why can't gelatin jelly have pineapple? Well, pineapple has this enzyme called bromelain, a protease that breaks down proteins (our duodenum (small intestine) has trypsin, which is also a protease, which breaks down proteins during digestion). The protease breaks down gelatin (collagen protein), so the jelly won't set. I was so astounded when I learned this in high school Biology. The jelly itself is softer, though.
Ultimately, I wouldn't take SEPTA all the way to H Mart regularly, even though there are some pretty neat veggies there. Chinatown is the way to go for now for me!

Portal Cake!

Today I made a Portal cake but failed at making jelly. This is a very sad day.

My brother finished his AP exams today, and as he is going to college next year, this is a graduation/belated birthday/end-of-high-school/congrats on [college name]! cake. I wanted to make a Team Fortress 2 cake but I couldn't figure out what object to make. Pyro? Sandvich (in other news, I got a Dalokohs bar yesterday!)? Natascha?

So, I stuck with Portal's black forest cake, even though none of us like fake cherry flavouring or maraschino cherries. My brother likes orange juice though, so there's orange juice in the cake and jelly. He also likes coconut, so the whole cake is covered in chocolate coconut ganache.

Unfortunately, he has not eaten the cake (and I don't think he will) because he had a bad day with bad news and dinner was ruined.

On the bright side, this means that the cake is now mine. Look at the lush back yard. It's been barely a week and the lawn needs mowing again.

The cake recipe is from here.

Changes I made:
1. I substituted 100 g flour with whole wheat flour, and 15 g with wheat germ. No one will notice!
2. Instead of 240 ml of milk, I used 120 ml milk + 120 ml orange (put in LAST--acidic, reacts with baking soda).
3. I used 1 tsp baking soda instead of 1/2 tsp.
4. Less sugar! ~250 g instead of 400 g.

I made three layers because I only have 17-cm diameter cake pans (6.69-inch, as opposed to 9-inch). Later, I realised that the Portal cake only has two layers!! Boo. I used all three layers in the end though. My cakes weren't flat, so I shaved off the cake tops until they were parallel to the bottom of the cake, meaning that each layer was thinner.

The first and only "black forest cake" I've ever had was on my 10th (or 11th?) birthday. We bought it from ParknShop, and although it was labelled as "black forest cake", it was actually a chocolate swiss roll with jelly and cream filling. I wanted to emulate that, so I made cherry orange jelly for the filling of the Portal cake. However, although the jelly set, it was extremely watery and had the consistency of thick jam. A lot of it oozed out so I ate it. I'll just pretend it's chocolate cake "infused" with cherry orange flavouring...

The chocolate ganache recipe is from here, although I changed it up a lot.

All you have to do is simmer the heavy cream and throw in all the chocolate, and then all the coconut.

100 ml heavy cream (but maybe fatty milk will suffice?)

150 g dark chocolate chips

150 g shredded coconut (sweetened...but you should use unsweetened)

You MUST wait for this to cool down as much as possible before you spread it on the cake or else it's just going to drip/fall off. As it was super sticky, I couldn't figure out how to ice the cake with it. It turns out that you can scoop some ganache onto the back of your giant spoon, and spread it UPWARDS onto the sides of the cake. After an hour or so, the ganache will be solid enough that when you poke it, only some oily substance gets onto your finger (as opposed to a glob of ganache).

This coconut ganache gives a great "Portal"-esque texture to the cake. Initially, I was going to make a zillion chocolate shavings to press onto the cake. I am EXTREMELY glad I didn't have to endure that tedious task.

The white icing is fat free yogurt + powdered sugar + coconut, in a ratio of 1:6:6. You only need a tiny bit. The red blobs, which are supposed to be maraschino cherries, are actually gum balls that we are never going to eat. We only had 7, so I cut one in half (to make two halves).

We don't have real candles so I used a peppermint stick thing taped to a paper flame that says "congratulations!" on it. I took a lot of pictures because this cake looks really pretty (and tastes good, according to me and my sister, who ate a lot of cake scraps and icing).

Jammin' Through the Sieve.

See what I did there?

I put jam through a sieve today.

(terrible pun.)

Because our berry plants don't have any berries this year (perhaps due to the fact that we neglect them), I couldn't complete my yearly berry-jam-making ritual. Okay, not ritual, but tradition. It's only been a two-year tradition, though. Since there are no berries, I decided to make grape jam. Actually, to be more specific and gourmet-sounding, I made organic garden-fresh-but-from-the-wild-part-of-the-garden spherical green grape jam with a hint of mint and lime.

The problem with grape jam is that it looks a bit like pickle juice and I lack the machinery to separate the seeds from the jam/pulp. Therefore, I now have four jars of chunky, perfect textured jam-with-seeds and one jar of thin sifted-jam-without-seeds.

I also realised that I ought to measure everything using metric units because it just makes so much more sense. I did grow up with metric, but I only started cooking a lot when I moved to the U.S., so cooking measurements for me have been the whole cups-tbps-tsp thing instead of grams. Grams are better though, especially since I do have a food scale.

Ingredients for about 1.5 L of jam (5 jars)

12 cups/1560 g green grapes that are spherical and extremely sour (from the grape plant outside)

3 cups/540 g granulated sugar (or more. This one was on the sour side because I like sour jam)

7 mint candies

A few shakes of mint flakes

A spoonful of maltose (just because my mum happened to have some from cooking something; completely optional)

Some lime zest (pectin, optional)

Ingredients for a 300 ml jar of jam

310 g green grapes

110 g granulated sugar, or more, to taste

2 mint candies

Some mint flakes

Some lime zest

Method

1. The night before, stick everything in a pot. I didn't do this, but the osmosis should help reduce cooking time the next day.

2. Turn heat on high and stir. Don't be afraid of scorching any grapes.

3. 20 minutes later, there should be liquid at the bottom of the pot and the grapes should still be sort of hard, but some will be mushy. Keep stirring and wait for the water to boil. The grapes will turn from bright green to... olive-coloured.

4. Turn heat onto medium-low and let it simmer for about 2 hours, stirring every 10 minutes or so. All the grapes should be mushy now! The jam will look ugly. You can check the gooeyness of the jam by dropping some jam onto a plate, letting it cool, and seeing if it is the consistency you want. You can also adjust the sweetness at any point in the 2 hours.

5. If you really want to, sift jam into jar. I tried to do this for the first jar, but it didn't work because I don't have a sieve that everything except the seeds flow through. I also wanted the grape skins (basically, everything except for the seeds). I suppose this is the negative side of making grape jam with non-GMO grapes.

6. Wait for jar of jam to cool, then stick it in the fridge. I know you're supposed to do stuff with the jars with the water bath in order to sterilise the jars, but since we're sticking the jam in a fridge and consuming the jams (yeah... all 5 jars...) within a few months, I don't think that this is necessary. In addition, there is a lot of acid in this specific batch of jam. The grapes were really sour.

So now I know why you don't see green grape jam at the grocery store. It doesn't look that appetising. Seriously, though, this jam is way better than the store-bought flavourless and textureless jam!!

Candy Reviews

New candy samples to review! This begs the question of whether I should review candy that I've already tried in the past or not (because that brings up a ton (literally) of candy to review)...

Necco Mint Julep

This smelled like 100% toothpaste. It tasted nothing of the sort, though! It was very chewy and juicy (I know, strange diction, but it's the best adjective for it), and didn't have too strong a mint taste, so by the time I had finished consuming it, my mouth wasn't minty at all. I am most pleased with the juiciness.

Necco Banana Split

This one did not have any smells. It also only tasted mildly of banana, but at least it wasn't such an artificial banana flavour. Again, extremely juicy.

Goetze's Original Caramel Cream

Before I divulge into the ingredient/advertising aspect, I'd like to say that this tasted half amazing! The cream part tasted... cold (surprising), but wasn't so special. The caramel part, however, tasted like bread. It was textured nothing like bread, being super gooey and chewy, but it tasted just like bread! It was that not-sweet-blandy-breaddy-wholesome taste, so I enjoyed that very much. However, what gets to me is that Goetze's advertises itself as all original and using ingredients from way back when, and being healthyish for candy. Now, I'm pretty sure 60 or 70 years ago, HFCS and PHO were not used in candy! How is this "Original"? However, the ingredient "wheat flour" probably explains the delicious bready taste.

Goetze's Chocolate Caramel Cream

So, the chocolate flavour wasn't as great as the caramel one, since it was just a milder/maltier chocolate version of the bread-caramel flavoured one. I'm not sure whether I'm ever going to buy these again, because of the ingredients (a matter of principle, I guess), but I'm pretty sure I can emulate something like this in my kitchen...when I get home.

Brach's Jelly Nougat

The jelly was such a disappointment; you couldn't distinguish it from the nougat and it was basically hard chopped up jelly bean. The nougat was also sort of a disappointment because it tasted much too sweet, and not milky enough.

Brach's Neapolitan Coconut Sundae

Chewy, with a distinct not-really-coconut flavour. No chocolate/vanilla/straberry flavours, though :(

MS's Grad Party - Desserts!

Okay I lied. I WILL talk about MS's grad party, because it was truly the one with the most ethnically diverse foods [well. Apart from mine :P, but mine doesn't count]. This month, June, has been the most prodigal month of my life. No kidding. All that EXCESS food ["XS" as my chem teacher used to write, while we balanced out equations]... all that variety...

This is LEGIT Americana. Eat and party. Oh, and run away from exercise.

This is the stuff I've been missin' out since 2006, though I don't really know if I would've wanted partying to interfere with schoolwork. Maybe it was just better that I used to be antisocial, because by being antisocial, I would get all my work done.

But now that HS is over, I can party all I want!! This morning, JM came over for breakfast, I went for a super-long walk with MZ, JM and my bro and I went to the weight room... and it was all real chill, just hanging out and letting time slide by, without a sense of anxiety and procrastination.

Okay, so the dessert at MS's party was really sweet! She is Philippino, so there was a ton of ethnic food, which I love. Oh, there was a whole roasted pig... as a side note. MP commented on the irony that I found it enticing, but I basically blog about anything that interests me, food-wise... so here it is!

Glutinous rice pudding, with some brown sugar topping that was the reason the pudding tasted good. [I like corner and side pieces].

Mango trifle. It. Was. The. Best. Thing. There. Layers of mango and cream, patched up with sponge cake and crushed sweet biscuit pieces, and a crunchy top...

Pieces of trifle, with watermelon and the rice pudding.

I think that this was sweet grass jelly drink, with colourful tapioca balls inside. I am not sure, though.

Plantain wrapped in sweet pastry. It actually tasted like sweet potato pastry, for a second, but then I saw the seeds and the yellow filling. Oh, and the texture was not sweet potatoey. Plantains are awesome!

Eggplant parm; glutinous rice flour sweet bun, with a piece of processed cheese [It was sticky and nice until I got to the cheese]; soft taro pudding, coconut rice pudding - second favourite dessert there; some mini rice cake [see below] that I didn't like as much; upside down flan spongecake.

Another rice pudding, above which is the mini rice cake that I didn't really fancy.

Sponge cake! With flan on top! I love flan, in general, and the fact that this cake is absolutely beautifully shaped truly helped me to more helpings of it...

Plate of everything. The one in the bottom left is the coconut rice pudding, and I took the corner piece, with the crusty top and sides. I think that I love corner pieces because it has the widest range of textures.

Fruit Jelly Candy

Back in 4th or 5th grade on the bus home from school, I saw a girl [who was in 1st or 2nd grade] eating a huge, [fakely] heart-shaped piece of candy. It was either red or green, I don't recall, but it looked a lot like jelly. It wasn't jelly though, because it wasn't falling to piece when she was holding. I figured that it was some kind of firm jelly candy that I definitely had never seen/tried before in my life.

Unfortunately, it took over half a decade for me to finally consume this jelly substance, which isn't even the exact same thing since it isn't fakely-heart-shaped. My mum bought a pack of strawberry/lemon/orange/green flavoured jelly gobs - I can't tell what the "green" flavour is, especially since the wrapper is blue. Can "green apple" flavouring have a sky-blue coloured wrapper?
The wrappers are gorgeous, by the way.

My mum threw away the bag it was in [typical] so I have no idea what these are called since I didn't check, but I did read the ingredients before hand. There was sugar, vegetable oil, gelatine, flavour and colour, apple juice.. I know this is the wrong order. I know that gelatine is basically boiled animal bones and joints and leftover pieces, but I still consume it once in a while in Centrum, this, and marshmallows. If I can find vegan marshmallows somewhere I think I will reverse this habit. [No, the ones that are $7 at Wholefoods does not count. I kinda despise Wholefoods.] But anyway. I disliked the fake pink ones, loved the blue and yellow ones, and I'm okay with the orange ones, since there is a gigantic whiff of orange flavouring. The green one was simply decaydent... mystery flavour anyone?
They were extremely chewy, sticky, sweet and long lasting if you didn't chew it [but who wouldn't?] They made me feel like a 6 year-old...