Gai mei bao is my favorite baked bun. There, I said it. I love a good pineapple bun as much as the next person, but I’m in the minority that enjoys a buttery, coconut-heavy cocktail bun a little more. Cocktail buns originally were created as a way for bakers to salvage day-old buns. The stale buns were ground into crumbs, then mixed with sugar and shredded coconut as a filling for fresh dough (like a“cocktail” of bakery leftovers). Nowadays, bakers make the filling fresh.
Indian cheese, known as paneer or chenna, is a delicacy that all Indians- particularly northerners-love. Its use in the preparation of savory dishes is limited, but the few dishes created with it are absolute masterpieces. The most popular, without doubt, is Matar Paneer--moist pieces of sautéed cheese with sweet green peas wrapped in a luscious red sauce bursting with the fragrance of spices and fresh coriander leaves. Matar Paneer, a classic North Indian dish, is popular with vegetarians and nonvegetarians alike. The flavor and texture of the paneer are of prime importance here. The cheese should be sweet and fresh-smelling; it should feel firm to the touch but not hard; it should be moist but not wet; and finally, its texture should be close and compact, not porous. (If the paneer is dry and too solid, the cheese pieces will taste hard and rubbery, and the sauce will not penetrate the paneer, leaving it with a bland taste. If the paneer is too wet and loose-textured, it will not hold its shape, but will fall apart while it is being fried, disintegrating into the oil.)
Sweet biscuits and gravy sounds like a gimmick, right? Well, there’s documentation of this dish being made as far back as the 1700s. It’s a fascinating example of how migration along the Appalachian trading route helped establish Indigenous Mexican influence on Southern cuisine.
Thickened in the traditional French way, warm, spicy, and faintly bitter Mexican chocolate ganache forms the “gravy” for raw-sugar-crusted biscuits. It’s great with any biscuit recipe really, though. The relationship of sugared biscuits to plain ones is very similar to that of pâte sucrée (sweet pastry crust) to pâte brisée (savory pie dough).
My grandfather loved this slightly sweet porridge for breakfast but used one stick of cinnamon instead of the Chinese five spice because the five spice was too spicy for his delicate palate. If you don’t have dried cherries, I’m sorry. You can use raisins or dates instead. I like big, juicy California flame raisins and/or Medjool dates if you can get them. I sometimes gild the lily by sprinkling a handful of chopped almonds all over the top.
There is no incorrect way to layer falooda, the milky, traditionally rose-flavored dessert beloved in India, Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia. Everyone has their own preference on how to stack the components—but agree that falooda is always best built in a tall glass. This dessert stars bouncy cubes of rose jelly suspended in rose syrup–sweetened milk over layers of tender corn vermicelli and chewy chia seeds. A crowning scoop of vanilla ice cream adds a creamy finish. With its beguiling mix of textures, the Royal Falooda belongs to a category of colorful, cooling desserts that appear throughout Asia which are hard to label but extremely easy to eat.
Homemade sweetened condensed milk traditionally requires ultra-low heat and up to 6 hours of constant stirring, but with a splash of heavy cream added to prevent scorching, I can crank up the heat and be done in 45 minutes. The result is thicker, creamier, and more luscious than anything from a can, with a rich dairy flavor and subtle notes of caramel. If you like chai tea, be sure to try the cinnamon-spiced variation.
Baked goods do something peculiar when boiled with milk: they dissolve and become stretchy and elastic. Throw the mixture into a blender, and this strange concoction becomes velvety and thick, like pudding. I first encountered this magic trick at a restaurant full of them, called Alinea. There, a pudding made by boiling brioche and cream was served with raspberries for an elegant “toast-and-jam” bite. Since then, I’ve applied the same principle to just about every other kind of bakery treat I can get my hands on—like gingerbread or devil’s food cake. Most recently, I’ve been reducing glazed donuts to a velvety pudding to flavor ice cream.
When it came time for Dan, my main squeeze, to celebrate his mother’s birthday, he made it clear that she wasn’t a cake person. Lucky for me, Holli is an ice cream person, and a popcorn lover as well, so I set myself to the task of making a buttered popcorn ice cream for her birthday. This was my first chance to make an impression on her, and I was determined it be a delicious one.
1. In a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, slowly heat the milk to 180°F. Turn the burner down as low as possible, and “hold” the milk at this temperature (it may climb a bit, which is fine) for 5 minutes. Remove from the stove.
Best served warm with clotted cream and jam.