HK60s in print…in person!
We recently took part in a thoroughly enjoyable interview for the free music paper London Tourdates, and the issue containing said interview has now hit the streets. If you’re unable to source a physical copy, then you can click on the image below to obtain the article in a more readable size, and learn (mainly) about our love of food and also a bit about our music. NB, we think our interviewer Helen may have been confused between the name of our new EP and the lovely passion fruit ice pearl drink that she was enjoying when we met!
Filed under: events, food, life and culture, live, music, {posted by Christopher} | 2 Comments
Tags: helen culley, interview, london tourdates
Grass jelly
Continuing on a food theme, I present today’s treat: grass jelly. It’s a jelly made from grass, in a tin.
For me, that special shade of green on the label evokes many happy childhood summers. The label also quite closely resembles some rare 1950s jazz LP sleeve, which obviously makes it a very cool dessert indeed.
The amusingly tin-shaped block of jelly is rinsed and cut into cubes. Traditionally, one eats grass jelly ice cold with warm sugar syrup but nowadays you can find it served in cafes with fancy stuff like evaporated milk, sago or fruit. I prefer to keep things old school.
The jelly has a kind of herbal savoury taste not unlike root beer or cola which is just sublime when mixed with the simplicity of the warm syrup – it’s quite addictive. Here’s to summer and stomach aches!
Filed under: food, life and culture, {posted by Mei Yau} | Leave a Comment
Tags: chinese food, dessert, grass jelly, jelly, packaging
Willow Pattern Tarts
You may remember that I made some egg custard tarts for our EP launch party a couple of weeks ago. Well, I baked up another batch today and thought I’d share the results.
For the party I used readymade all-butter puff pastry from the supermarket but today I made my own sweet shortcrust pastry, part-baking the cases before adding the custard. Having tried both, I’d say that the lightness of puff pastry works better, especially for bigger tarts – plus you can make funny improvised palmiers from the leftover bits of pastry.
The recipe I’m using as a base is for Portuguese Egg Tarts from the Asian food blog Rasa Malaysia. Although the traditional Portuguese pastel de nata differs from the Hong Kong egg tart somewhat in presentation, it can hardly be a coincidence that Hong Kong’s close neighbour Macau was once a colony of Portugal.
My tarts aren’t quite Portuguese or Hong Kong-style but they are definitely delicious!
Filed under: food, life and culture, {posted by Mei Yau} | 3 Comments
Tags: chinese food, egg custard tarts, hong kong, macau, pastel de nata, portugal
Indietracks Hot Picks!
Our anticipation of the forthcoming Indietracks festival grows with each passing day. I am sure you’re probably already familiar with the music of this year’s stellar headliners (Camera Obscura, Au Revoir Simone, Emmy The Great AND the legendary Teenage Fanclub!), so here are a few of my other picks for potential festival highlights:
Fitness Forever are an Italian outfit who seamlessly integrate elements of almost all the good music of the last forty-plus years into their energetic, yet sumptuous brand of perfect pop. That mainman Carlos shares his name with the coolest footballer ever doesn’t hurt either.
“Quando ho tempo” by Fitness Forever
Next up, Modular are a duo from Argentina whose music suggests that they share many of our influences. Their sound calls to mind such classic touchstones as Stereolab, The High Llamas, “Friends”-era Beach Boys and Jean-Jacques Perrey, all delivered with the sort of effortlessly laid-back cool that is probably only possible if you hail from Buenos Aires rather than Berkshire and East Anglia.
“Picnic en el arco iris” by Modular
Barcelona’s Cola Jet Set are a classic Elefant band, purveying the sort of hook-laden Continental cutie-pop for which the label has rightly become famous. The band even entered their wonderful song “El sueño de mi vida” in the competition to represent Spain at Eurovision 2008, and, if there was any justice in the world, we think they should have won.
“El sueño de mi vida” by Cola Jet Set
Last, but certainly not least, the globe-trotting Hong Kong pop duo The Marshmallow Kisses have achieved lots of success in their home country, but this will be their first ever live performance in the UK. Such is our love for this band that our very own Tim will in fact be helping them out on keyboards at Indietracks!
“Everyone Else Is Ahead, Far Ahead” by The Marshmallow Kisses
Of course, this list barely skims the surface of the multitude of musical treats to be enjoyed at this year’s festival, but hopefully it gives you a taster of some of the great stuff on offer. See you there!
Filed under: events, live, music, {posted by Christopher} | 1 Comment
Tags: barcelona, buenos aires, cola jet set, elefant, eurovision, fitness forever, hong kong, indietracks, italy, modular, the marshmallow kisses
Salted lemons
After having the amazing salted lemon Sprite at Cha Cha Moon a couple of months ago, I just had to preserve some lemons of my own to recreate the salty zing at home. It’s not a drink that I’ve come across before but using preserved fruit, like kumquats and lemons, in uncarbonated drinks is very common in Hong Kong.
Preserved lemons are essential in Moroccan cooking apparently – read more about them at Serious Eats – but we intend to use them for cooking steamed fish and the unbelievable Sprite.
My mother and I set about making our salted lemons using a combination of this North African recipe from The Independent and our own pickling know-how. Personally, I would be more inclined to follow the recipe with greater care and cover the lemons in more juice but, what can I say, my mother’s a maverick.
We chopped up about three large lemons and covered them with salt. Then we put the lemon pieces into a sterilised jar, sprinkling more salt over each lemon layer. When we got to the top of the jar, we pressed the lemons down firmly, poured on a bit more lemon juice and then closed it up. Now we wait for a month.
I’ll report back to let you know how it goes.
Filed under: food, life and culture, {posted by Mei Yau} | Leave a Comment
Tags: 7up, cha cha moon, chinese food, drinks, hong kong, lemonade, lemons, morocco, recipes, serious eats, sprite
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Willow Pattern Songs EP released 1 June 2009, available as a download and limited CD.
