#Burmese okra

[wildrungarden]

6/1/24 ~ planted Jing Orange & Burmese Okra!

[madamlaydebug]

Hibiscus is my kind of herb 🌺⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Hibiscus is highly medicinal and nutritive and easily prepared in a hundred different ways. It’s incredibly safe—it is a traditional food, after all. Both the immature leaves and calyces are edible.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The tart young leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, and they are a popular food in many tropical cuisines, especially southern Indian and Burmese. They are high in soluble fiber—like okra and oatmeal—and are helpful for supporting healthy intestinal flora and reducing excess cholesterol.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The flavor of the juicy calyx is often likened to rhubarb or cranberry. It can be eaten raw or cooked. Its sour flavor, coupled with its natural pectin content, readily lends itself to jams, pies, sauces, and chutneys. 

[pok-us]

March 26: Pok Pok Takeover —

MENU collaboration between Chefs Andy Ricker & Erling Wu-Bower Snack Thua Thawt Samun Phrai (herbal roasted spicy peanuts) First Northern Thai Naam Phrik Platter: Tam Khanun (jackfruit salad), Naam Phrik Num (green chile naam phrik), Naam Phrik Kha (galangal/chile dip) served with steamed vegetables (pumpkin, cabbage, okra, baby eggplant, yu choy), Sai Ua (Chiang Mai Pork Sausage) and pork cracklings Second Kaeng Hung Leh - burmese style pork belly curry Het Paa Naam Tok - forest mushroom salad with dry chile and lime Laap Plaa Meuang - minced fish laap with northern spices served with fresh herbs Sweets Khao Niaw Sangkhaya Thurian - sweet sticky rice with Pandan-Durian scented custard with salty coconut cream Reservations available from 5:00-8:45pm - $85 per guest for dinner (includes tax & gratuity) - beverages will be sold separately upon arrival

[jackandkatetravel]

Yangon, Myanmar

Arrived in Yangon after an early flight, so tired and dopey that I left my wallet on the seat when we got out. After phone calls back and forth from the hotel and a couple of tense, quiet hours at The Vibe Inn the driver returned wallet in-hand. While the room was being cleaned we were offered a traditional Burmese breakfast of Mohinga, a hot and sour noodle soup with meat and eggs. I can’t say I’d rush back for more, especially not for breakfast. Our room was finally ready, so we crashed upstairs and had a long nap before heading out.

We were based in Chinatown, which was a grid of hectic grubby market streets, rows of people perched on plastic stools chowing down on noodles and questionable meat. After Thailand it felt like a drop in cleanliness back to the levels of India, but the people had a much calmer tone and our presence seemed to go largely unnoticed. Everyone went about their business at a steady pace, and we spent a few hours mooching around and taking it all in, eyeing up our food options and getting used to the currency rates. We settled in a great little bar called Kosan on 19th street where a draught beer cost 48p. We got a little carried away by the cheap prices and staggered out a few hours later, exploring the streets around Sule Pagoda and City Hall.

I got up early the next day to take some photos around the markets - the city seems to be at its liveliest before 10am so it’s a fascinating time to just observe. A huge majority of the locals have severely stained red teeth from the betel nuts that they chew, a common habit across the country where these nuts are mixed with leaves and tobacco and inserted into the mouth to suck on. Loads of young street vendors are nestled behind little tables where they cut up the ingredients together and struggle to keep up with the high demand from customers. It supposedly gives you an energy buzz similar to snoo’s or paan, but you have to spit out the red liquid it produces and the streets are covered in it. At first glance it looks like blood, and then you come to realise.

Much of our day was spent at Yangon’s centrepiece, the Shwedogan Pagoda. One of the largest and oldest pagodas of its kind, it stands at a colossal 326 feet and is surrounded by a huge a complex of other equally grand temples. It was supposedly built around the 6th century to house relics of the four previous Buddhas, including eight strands of his hair. It’s an expensive entry fee (for Burma standards) and is swarming with tourists, but it’s also got an enchanting serenity about it. Buddhist monks roam around the grounds, lounging on the temple floors, and locals stop to pray at any of the numerous Buddha statues. There’s a lot more to see than just the Pagoda itself, and we spent a few hours exploring, sitting and people-watching. We took a route back through a nearby park, stopping for some Chinese food at a nameless little kitchen, and took a slow convoluted route back to our hostel. We ended up at Kosan bar for the second night running where we met Tom and Anisa, another couple from London with remarkably similar travel plans to us, and drank G&T’s together until they kicked us out, stopping on the way back for some BBQ’d okra at a street corner.

On their advice, and with a bit of research ourselves, we decided to spend our last day riding the ‘circle line’ train around Yangon. There were a few blog posts online about it from a couple of years back that described it as a good insight into local life - it���s essentially a big loop around the city on an old wooden-floored train, full of market sellers shifting their stock around and far off the radar of most travellers, so we judged it worth a punt. We arrived at Yangon Central Railway around midday to a platform FULL of tourists, all looking equally uneasy about where exactly they were going and what to do. The train arrived and it had clearly been modernised since the blog posts we’d looked at - the floors weren’t wooden, they were the same patterned laminate that you get in an old cross-county train in the UK. After 20 minutes of uninspiring scenery and a lack of available seats, we both looked at each other in a “when is it going to get good” kind of way. It didn’t really get any more interesting, so we decided to hop off at a random spot and explore, which turned out to be even more bland as we chose a station surrounded by main roads full of speeding traffic.

The train we got on the way back proved a little more interesting. It was quieter and the seats were lined along either side, more like a cargo carriage than one designed for passengers. Ladies would pass through with curious plates of food balanced on their heads, and a tourist with the most ridiculous laugh we have ever heard was mimicked by the cheeky young local boys, which provided everyone with some amusement. We were a bit bemused about why it was all so underwhelming. Myanmar is clearly changing really quickly, so it could just be that the advice was outdated and it’s no longer the great experience it was a few years ago. Or maybe India had been a more intense version of all of this. Either way we made some fun out of it, but not quite what we’d had in mind.

We got back to the hostel around 4, packed our things and made our way down to Rangoon Tea House for some dinner. It was highly recommended by everyone, and their Burmese/Indian fusion food was especially satisfying after a couple of days of sketchy barbecued street food. It was situated in the colonial area of Yangon that we’d seen little of - much more upmarket than Chinatown but the prices rise quickly too. We had to rush back to hostel in time for our taxi to the bus park, an hours drive up past the airport, to board our night bus to Bagan.

On a broader note about Myanmar, it’s definitely an interesting time for the country. After 60 years of military rule, Aung San Suu Kyi’s Democratic Party have finally achieved power (technically for the second time - she first won back in 1990 with an 81% landslide but the military ignored the result and put her under house arrest, which continued on and off for 20 years). She persevered, later winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and has led the NLD party to a victory that the military recognised in March last year. The country is rapidly coming up to speed with the modern world in terms of politics as well as infrastructure and tourism - some say too fast, but that remains to be seen.

Unfortunately it’s not all good news - much of the country is still in heavy conflict, and the freedom of the people and press to recognise it are somewhat restricted by the military, who still maintain a good deal of control over the country. Suu Kyi is currently under intense scrutiny for failing to recognise the plight of the Rohingya Muslim population, who are victim to a level of violence described as 'mass-scale ethnic cleansing'. As always, it’s complicated, but we hope to understand a bit more about it all as we make our way round the country and talk to some of its people, who are free to talk openly about such things for the first time in decades.

[vsplusonline]

Punchy flavours and quirky flourishes

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/punchy-flavours-and-quirky-flourishes/

Punchy flavours and quirky flourishes

The shiny red door is new, but slide it open and you step into the familiar light-filled interiors of Miss T. The upholstery remains shades of blue but the tables have been rearranged a bit and there’s a new terrazzo wall. Upstairs, a few black and white sketches of Mandarin women have been added.

When Miss T shut down a few months ago, the city lost an interesting mix of Vietnamese, Burmese, and Thai offerings, but the space has been resurrected as a Cantonese diner that opened over this past weekend. “We had to close post monsoon last year to take care of some maintenance issues. Miss T was not commercially at the place we expected 15 months after opening, so we decided to supplement the menu with some classic Chinese dishes for which we brought Chef Lee (Kent Lee, former Executive Chef at Hakkasan Mumbai) on board. When we did the first tasting of his food, we felt that his food deserved a larger platform of its own so we took the difficult decision to rebrand Miss T and revamp the menu entirely,” says Gauri Devidayal, co-owner of Mei 13 (,The Table and Magazine Street Kitchen). Joining Lee in the kitchen is dim sum master Chef Michael Pien and Xavier Tan overseeing the wok. Between the three of them, Mei 13 offers a large menu of beautifully presented Cantonese dishes with punchy flavours and quirky flourishes.

Dim sums galore

After trying the multi-cuisine route in its previous avatar, Mei 13 solely focuses on Mainland China for its inspiration. So there’s no sushi, ramen, and other staples often seen on pan-Asian menus around the city. Instead, you have dim sums (both steamed and fried), a range of appetisers, claypots, noodles, etc. The drinks menu is unchanged, so if you had a favourite at Miss T you can still find it at Mei 13. We began with the Mei 13 Duck Cigar, which is a signature offering of braised duck in a crunchy pastry roll served with sweet hoisin dipping sauce. In keeping with the Cantonese influence, the menu is slightly seafood heavy. The Prawn with Chia Seeds has a pleasing wasabi kick to it while the Kataifi Prawn Roll (from the fried dim sum menu) is deliciously crunchy. The dish is a play on the Greek kataifi or shredded phyllo pastry wrapped prawns, albeit with Asian flavours. Speaking of dim sums, the Red Chilli Poached Peking Dumplings were stellar, plump parcels of prawn in spicy chilli oil dressing. We also tried the moreish Crispy Prawn Dragon Balls, which were crunchy pastry stuffed with nori-wrapped prawns. From the vegetarian selection, the off-the-menu Chives Dumplings was competent enough but the Winter Mushroom Spring Roll was surprisingly insipid.

Comfort food

The mains menu is quite extensive and demands repeat visits. The vegetarian section has a couple of mock meat dishes like Mock Duck in Pepper Sauce and Jiang Bao Mock Chicken, as well as a generous vegetables menu with stir-fries and claypots – think Wok Tossed French Beans with Olives, Sautéed Snow Peas with Truffle Oil, and Stir Fried Broccoli Buds. Seafood lovers, go for the Deep Sea Butter Lobster while the Lamb Rack with Okra should satisfy the meat-eaters. The Egg Fried Race was comfort in a bowl, especially drizzled with one of the housemade sauces on the table. The dessert menu reprises Miss T favourites (like the Yuzu Tart with Black Sesame Ice Cream) with a couple of Cantonese additions such as Mango Pudding with Cream and Pandan Pannacotta with Passion Fruit.

Miss T will be missed, but Mei 13’s Cantonese menu has a soothing familiarity that will have you coming back for more.

Mei 13, 4 Mandlik Road, Apollo Bunder, Colaba; currently open only for dinner from 7 p.m. onwards.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

Register to The Hindu for free and get unlimited access for 30 days.

Subscription Benefits Include

Today’s Paper

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day’s newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Unlimited Access

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

Personalised recommendations

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

Faster pages

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

Dashboard

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

Briefing

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

Not convinced? Know why you should pay for news.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

Source link

[whatscookinitalian]

Tweeted

This Burmese egg and okra curry is delight to all egg curry lover and goes well with a bowl of rice. It has touch of spices and fish sauce, unique of Burmese cuisine. #recipe #eggcurry https://t.co/WUx1vMwdNO pic.twitter.com/pRza1jJh6P

— Swathi Iyer (@zestysouthindia) March 9, 2018

[wildrungarden]

5/4/24 ~ Why in the world am I starting seeds when I can’t even transplant everything I have?! Good question 😆

Some of these will be transplanted outside in the ground so its all good 🤗

Plus I haven’t even started all of my other vegetables yet!

⭐️In this tray:⭐️

1.) Black & Brown Boar Tomato (probably the only regular sized tomato I’ll be growing this year other than my 2 grafted ones from school).

2.) Dragon’s Egg Cucumber

3.) Tokiwa Tokyo Green Cucumber

4.) Agastache - Lavender Martini

5.) Burmese Okra

6.) Jing Orange Okra

7.) Lettuce Leaf Basil

8.) Nasturtium

[danalberard]

Top Five Soups in Buffalo

Beef Pho at Pho 99

Winter is fast approaching and there are few things more comforting on a cold, snowy Buffalo night than a bowl of hot soup. While you can get a great cup of Chicken Wing Soup at many local establishments, we want to guide you to some more unique offerings throughout Buffalo. These five soups are not only very different in terms of flavor and ingredients but also come from very different cuisines and cultures. Even better is that they are all under $10.

Beef Pho from Pho 99

We are lucky in Buffalo is that we have a wide variety of Asian cuisine to choose from. Thai, Burmese, Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants can be found from Hamburg to Lockport. One of our favorite meals at any time of the year, but especially in the winter months, is a giant bowl of Pho at Pho 99 (also called Fast Food 99). Pho is a classic Vietnamese noodle soup made primarily from a beef or chicken broth (but can also be made vegetarian). Beef pho, the most popular, is generally made by simmering bones, various cuts of beef, oxtail, ginger, onion and a whole dictionary of spices. It is usually served with rare pieces of beef on top that are cooked by the hot broth. Add some bean spouts, basil, sriracha sauce and hoisin and you are good to go. As with most Vietnamese restaurants, Pho 99 has huge servings that can easily be shared between two people but it’s so good, you may find yourself finishing a whole bowl by yourself.

Sato Ramen from Sato

Ramen, a Japanese noodle soup, is one of my favorite dishes ever, which is saying a lot coming from a food blogger. I used to have to travel to Toronto to get my fix, which isn’t the ideal situation. Luckily for me (and you), in January of 2014, Buffalo saw the opening of Sato on Elmwood Avenue. While their menu is filled with delicious Japanese inspired dishes, it’s their ramen that has excited the Buffalo food scene over the past year. With a homemade tonkotsu (pork) and torigara (chicken) broth made by Chef Satomi Smith, their ramen is rich and full flavor with slices of pork, bamboo, spouts and pickled ginger to top it off. The noodles are chewy and always cooked fresh. While my wife sticks to the traditional ramen, I find myself getting the miso ramen, made with a stock that’s been infused with, you guessed it, miso. A slight but delicious twist that always has me slurping the last drops out of my bowl.

Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo from Shango

Shango, located on Main St. new UB South, has been a staple in Buffalo’s dining scene for over nine years. With a menu inspired by the cuisine of New Orleans, Chef Jim Guarino and Sous Chef DJ Cook offer soulful comfort food in a stylish and hip setting. Their gumbo is easily one of their most well-known dishes, and for good reason. The roux (or base of the gumbo) is dark, thick, smoky and incredibly rich. Each bite is overflowing with pieces of chicken, house-made sausage, okra and rice. It is a must order at any time (even brunch) and has been known or cure the common cold (or says my wife). Grab yourself some shrimp and grits while your there. You can thank me later.

Pasta Fagioli at Santasiero’s

Seasonal Soup Offering at Buffalo Proper

Buffalo Proper is easily regarded as one of the best restaurants in Buffalo right now. The menu is full of locally sourced, seasonal and from-scratch dishes that are equal parts unique, simple and full of flavor. The place is famous around foodie circles for their impressive ability to create incredibly delicious soups that bring customers back weekly. Like most of the menu, the soup at Buffalo Proper changes seasonally based on what is being offered from local farmers. Summer brought us a corn soup and the fall menu has a carrot soup that will blow any other vegetable soup you’ve ever had out of the water. Winter will no doubt bring another new soup that we are eagerly awaiting and is sure to rival its predecessors.

Pasta Fagioli at Santasiero’s

Pasta fagioli, meaning simply, “pasta and beans” is an old fashioned meatless Italian soup with Venetian origins. At Santasiero’s, pasta fagioli (or as they and my Italian wife call it, Pasta Fasoola), is their specialty. It’s fairly simple and usually made with a small pasta, beans (usually cannellini), onion, garlic, spices and tomato. Simple, but hearty and delicious. They even offer a slight twist on the dish with the addition of lentils or peas, but we always stick to the original. It’s affordable, consistent and a perfect start to a classic Italian meal. For over 90 years Santasiero’s has been pumping out affordable Italian dishes in their small house-like restaurant on Niagara Street. They must be doing something right because their customers are some of the most loyal in the city.

The post Top Five Soups in Buffalo appeared first on Visit Buffalo Niagara.

from Blog – Visit Buffalo Niagara http://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/2017/01/top-five-soups-in-buffalo/