Visual Inspiration: Inside Asia

This book is in my list to buy. I saw it in a bookstore and had to go through nearly every page (there are many to go through) of gorgeous pictures of Asian interiors, from temples to gardens to private homes. Here’s a photo from a Balinese interior:

It's hard to put down the book with pictures this good

The name of the book is Inside Asia, published by Taschen, and can be bought at Amazon. Happy dreaming!

Recipe: Kaya jam

Previously I have suggested enjoying your teh tarik with kaya jam on toast. Kaya is an exceedingly rich and sweet spread made out of coconut milk and eggs.

Kaya on toast makes for a lovely afternoon snack. Enjoy with tea.

Despite its popularity in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, kaya can be difficult to find in the West. If you want to try your hand at making some, About.com has a great recipe with step-by-step illustrations. Go ahead and try it! It is not difficult. Warning: due to its ingredients, kaya is understandably unsuitable for people with high colesterol levels. Please consume in moderation.

Save on lunch: pack a tiffin box

Tiffin is a Indian word of English origin and it means essentially a light meal or a snack. Tiffin boxes, which consist of several tiered food containers, have been used as lunch boxes for decades in India, Malaysia and Singapore.

Traditional tiffin boxes in Mumbai, India

With the economic downturn, more and more people have been turning to packed lunches as a way of shaving some dollars off the daily budget and having an healthier meal in the process. Tiffin boxes are better than most lunch boxes because they let you pack several different foods at a time, solid or liquid, so you can have a full meal, rather than just a sandwich. Tiffin boxes were originally made of steel, but nowadays you can find them in a wide range of styles and materials.  For example, Habitat sells a very attractive, multicolored 4-tiered tiffin box in melamine. Get cooking!

Hong Kong style: G.O.D.

G.O.D., which stands for Goods of Desire, is a Hong Kong lifestyle brand with an international following. Their three stores in the territory sell all sorts of modern and quirky furninshings and housewares. But G.O.D is mostly known for its original designs, rooted in Chinese tradition and Honk Kong icons, such as a mouse that looks like a Chinese teacup,  a series of housewares based on the double harmony symbol and clothes, shoes, and bags with a Hong Kong mailbox pattern. Even though sometimes they tread very close to kitschy territory, the results are always stylish.

A good example of G.O.D.'s fusion of traditional and modern

Aside from three stores in Hong Kong, you can find some of their products at Anthropology in Singapore, Unica Home, and of course the G.O.D. website.

Tenugui: Japanese hand towels

They are no match for a terry cloth towel, but they are definitely much more decorative and versatile. You can use them in the kitchen, in the guest bathroom, or even as headband. They are so pretty you can just frame them and hang them on the wall!

From minimalist to cute, there's surely a tenugui for you. This one is from WuHao.

Apartment Therapy raved about them, and you can find them at Kinokuniya stores, or online at Jun Gifts or WuHao.

The wonders of the electric tea kettle

In Singapore, it was more common owning an electric kettle than a coffee maker. I quickly learned to love it, as it boiled water faster than the microwave with the added bonus that since you did not have to microwave your mug or cup, you could touch the handle getting burned. I would never, ever, go back to a stovetop kettle or the microwave for making tea. The other plus is that you can use it to boil water fast for a multitude of uses, like cooking pasta. As soon as I returned to the West, I bought an electric kettle and I’ve been using daily (or even more often than that) without a problem.

An electric kettle is the fastest and most reliable way of boiling water for tea

My kettle is a Krups and I have had it for about one and a half years. When picking an electric kettle, make sure it has a window with graded measuring to check the amount if water. It also allows you to verify that you water is indeed boiling, though you don’t have to worry about it since most kettles will automatically shut down once the water boils. Enjoy your tea-making!

NYC shopping: like a Chinese bazaar

Alright, it’s not exactly Chinese prices, but it is definitely easier to navigate and you don’t have to worry about not being good at bargaining, since the prices are all set.

Pearl River Market is a large store on New York’s Broadway, located at the convergence of Soho with Chinatown. It has two big floors of items from China and surrounding countries, from colorful lanterns and cheongsams (Chinese dresses) to bamboo steamers and woks. They also carry a wide range of tea and of course Chinese furnishings, including these handsome and highly versatile stools:

Chinese Garden Stools at Pearl River Market

For many more attractive, fun, and useful items from China, check out Pearl River’s Website. If you have shopped there in person or online, let me know your thoughts.

Wall Art: Live like an Emperor

Gate Detail at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Photo by JP

… or at least decorate like one. At Zenspired Home I found this awesome wall art whose lion and rivets take me back to the gates of the Forbidden City in Beijing. This piece is available also in a golden color and in different sizes. Check out the rest of the site for more Chinese-inspired accessories and furnishings.

Hand-Pulled Tea

You can’t really talk about the Asian lifestyle without mentioning tea. In Singapore and Malaysia, everybody is a big fan of a special type of milk tea: Teh Tarik, which means hand-pulled tea in Bahasa Malaysia. Teh Tarik is a very strong, delicious, highly addictive tea made with condensed milk that can be drunk hot or iced.

Preferably, it should be made with black powdered tea, but I have asked at a Malaysian restaurant in New York City and they said they made it just with black tea bags. It tasted as delicious as always. If you are planning on using tea bags, I recommend you pick English Afternoon Tea or Irish Breakfast Tea, which tend to have a stronger flavor.

Frothy Teh Tarik

Make sure to brew it for a really long time, and use less water than you would normally, so it doesn’t get too watery when you add the milk. Some people use just condensed milk, whereas I prefer the version with two parts of condensed milk to one part of evaporated milk. How much milk you use depends on how much tea you have made, but in the end, the resulting color should be close to the picture’s.

The final step is pulling the milk. This is the step that adds the most flavor and gives the beverage its frothy character. Pour the tea a few times between two containers. The higher you can pour it from, the better. Take a look at an expert in action, but feel free to start from smaller distances to reduce spillage.

The last step is enjoying your tea, hot or on ice, accompanied by a slice of toast. If you have kaya paste (coconut jam) handy, go with that, but sugar and butter or simply peanut butter work almost as well.

If you try making it, let me know what you think.