Armchair Dining on DP

Sri Lankan Hoppers (Aappa) - Made out of rice flour and usually served with some spicy paste.

 

Hi @abdmjz and welcome to the thread! Your Hoppers look great! I assume that it is a breakfast dish or is that not correct? It is hard to find an egg-based dish that I do not like and I also do like spicy eggs on occasion. Thanks for the post and keep them coming. Would love to drool over some more cool Sri Lankan dishes!

 

I had this at a party yesterday. It's called the "Palabok"



It's basically a noodle/pasta dish in shrimp sauce. You can put toppings as per your liking. You can put cooked shrimp, fried tofu, toasted/fried garlic, smoked fish flakes and crushed chicharon. oh and sliced hard boiled eggs too.

Fancy restaurants have a lot of options for the toppings. They have squid, scallops, octupus, tuna flakes etc.

 

Hey!!! Thanks for the warm welcome... We mostly have them for dinner.. Sometimes we eat a sweeter version of this for breakfast. It's called "Pani Aappa"

 

Wow, that looks fantastic! The ingredients look wonderful. I would want to try the shrimp, squid and scallops versions first, but all of them sound great. What is crushed Chicaron?

 

This is what a chicharon is @jrbiz It is pork skin (there's a variety where the fat is attached to the skin) sun dried and then deep fried until its crispy. This alone can be a snack especially on house parties. Not heart friendly tho.

 

Ahh, we have something similar here in the U.S. called Fried Pork Rinds and are salted and served much like potato chips. But they are not shiny like yours, which makes yours more interesting. Perhaps it is because of the fat still being attached? Or is there some sort of coating involved?

 

They are not usually shiny really, it may just be the photo or perhaps because of the oil? Im not really sure. And yeah they are salted. I just googled the pork rinds and they look very similar with chicharon

 

Okay, it is time for me to come out of the closet and admit, for the first time in public, that I am one of a very small minority of people in the world. I love fruitcake! As we approach the holidays, it is one of the foods that I begin to look forward to. The past several years (up until last year) I had found what was almost the perfect fruitcake for me. By perfect, I mean that it is light cake (do not like the dark ones) and very few nuts but a lot of candied fruit. Shirley Jean's Fruitcake was close to perfect (except for the few nuts they threw in)



I found a picture purporting to be actual slices of Shirely Jean's fruitcake and they do look an awful like it, but I cannot confirm for sure, but it is really close in appearance:



Alas, Shirley Jean is not being offered locally any more and I could only find 4-lb. tins available online. A tad too large.

So, I today bought the following fruitcake as a sample that I will test during the Thanksgiving holiday (no diet then!) and decide if I move forward with it for the holidays:



So, Claxton Fruitcake is now in the running. From appearances, it may be the solution, but I will keep you all posted, of course.

 

Try this kare-kare, it's deliciouuuuuuuusssssss!!!

Floyd Arthur

 

Wow, it does look good. Am I mostly seeing pork parts in the dish? Is it a tomato-based stew? Would love to hear more about it!

 

England / UK representing. This tastes amazing! 100% must try if you adventure here.


El cottage pie

 

For Kare-Kare @jrbiz

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 150 mins
Total time: 2 hours 40 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 3 lbs oxtail (cut in 2 inch slices) you an also use tripe or beef slices
• 1 small banana flower bud (sliced)
• 1 bundle of pechay or bok choy
• 1 bundle of string beans (cut into 2 inch slices)
• 4 pcs eggplants (sliced)
• 1 cup ground peanuts
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup shrimp paste
• 34 Ounces water (about 1 Liter)
• ½ cup annatto seeds (soaked in a cup of water)
• ½ cup toasted ground rice
• 1 tbsp garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. In a large pot, bring the water to a boil
2. Put in the oxtail followed by the onions and simmer for 2.5 to 3 hrs or until tender (35 minutes if using a pressure cooker)
3. Once the meat is tender, add the ground peanuts, peanut butter, and coloring (water from the annatto seed mixture) and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes
4. Add the toasted ground rice and simmer for 5 minutes
5. On a separate pan, saute the garlic then add the banana flower, eggplant, and string beans and cook for 5 minutes
6. Transfer the cooked vegetables to the large pot (where the rest of the ingredients are)
7. Add salt and pepper to taste
8. Serve hot with shrimp paste. Enjoy!

 

We also have this dish here in the Philippines. It's called Kare Kare as well and I freaking love this!!

 

Great dish! Here in the U.S., we call it Shepherd's Pie. Great comfort food no matter what you call it. My wife has even made a low-carb version with replaces the mashed potatoes with mashed cauliflower. Not anywhere near as good, but passable if you are on a low-carb diet like I seem to be 90% of the time.

 

Ahh, so it was oxtail that I saw in the picture! Looks wonderful and I am intriqued by the banana flower bud ingredient, as well. Thanks and keep the dishes coming! I get so hungry when I read this thread.

 

Hmm. Does your fruit cake has some liquor in it? Our fruit cakes here have it. I love alcohol, but to me, they just really dont mix so well with the cake. That's why I really dont like this too much..

 

No, the "light" fruitcakes tend to not have alcohol in them, which is what I also prefer. It is usually the darker fruitcakes that have a sometimes strong dose of alcohol. I also do not like nuts in them, which is much harder to find. It's funny, I love all types of nuts; hard to find a type that I do not like. However, I do not like them in baked items like cakes, muffins, donuts, etc. So no alcohol or nuts for my fruitcake!

 

So, here in the U.S., this Thursday is our annual Thanksgiving holiday. It is one of my favorite because for the guys, it is about eating a lot of great food and watching football on TV while the gals eat a lot of great food and plot their shopping strategy for Black Friday which actually now begins at 6:00pm on Thanksgiving night. Anyway, one of the highlights of a traditional turkey dinner at Thanksgiving is the stuffing or dressing. In New England, the traditional stuffing is an oyster stuffing which can be quite good:



The above is a picture of an oyster cornbread stuffing which can be quite good. Cornbread is a great base for the stuffing as long as the preparer takes care to not let it get too dry. I like a moist stuffing. Of course, a dry stuffing can also have turkey gravy ladled over it, thereby becoming moist.

My only other caveat is that I do not like stuffings made with celery or any other crunchy ingredient (no nuts!) I like my stuffing soft and moist.

I also like stuffings made with other other breads (typically a white wheat bread) and have some great ones with sausage or hamburg instead of oysters. My mother made a white bread/hamburg/garlic stuffing that was simply the best that I have ever had.

 

Update: Claxton Fruitcake, while okay, is no Shirley Jean's Fruitcake, unfortunately. The search continues!