Foodie

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sweet and bitter almond with Kat Paeng



There are two forms of the plant, one (often with white flowers) producing sweet almonds, and the other (often with pink flowers) producing bitter almonds. The kernel of the former contains a fixed oil and emulsion. Bitter almond (Pak Hung) should not be confused with "sweet almond." Sweet almond seeds do not contain amygdalin and can be eaten, whereas bitter almonds can be toxic. The poisonous hydrocyanic acid contained in bitter almonds breaks down when heated, so the poison is unlikely to accumulate when used in any cooked dish. It is unwise to eat raw bitter almonds. Serious almond poisoning is rare in adults, but children may die after eating just a few bitter almonds.

China sweet almond (Lum Hung) is tested, it's physical item and chemical essential are same as American almond. Just their appearance shapes are different.
This sweet soup is recommended to relieve a bad cough.

Ingredients:

a handful of sweet almonds (Lum Hung)
10 pieces of bitter almonds (Pak Hung)
1 piece Kat Paeng
1 tiny piece of rock sugar
500 ml water

Method:
Pound the almonds slightly
Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring it to the boil.
Lower the heat and simmer until the kat paeng is soft.
Discard the kat paeng and take the drink with the almonds warm.


Serves

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is kat paeng? I don't think I am familiar with it.

Unknown said...

cindy

tangerine is called 'kat' in cantonese. in this case, it is called 'kat paeng' cos it has been dried into a form like a cookie - paeng in cantonese.

you can get this from the chinese medicinal shop and as the store keeper to pound the almonds for you. Tell him you would like to make this soup and he will know how much sweet and bitter almonds to administer. remember, do not eat the bitter almonds raw.

Gina Choong said...

Hi Lily

you have been tagged for 7 random facts about yourself.

by the way, the way about the almonds I learnt was sweet almonds are often more than bitter almonds. So a guide I learnt was often 20g sweet, 10g bitter.

Unknown said...

gina

thanks for the tip, it is good to know the ratio.

i am sorry to disappoint you and am very sorry that i cannot accept your tag as there are too many coming and i have to make a decision and have refused others. So sorry!!!!!!!!!

Gina Choong said...

hi Lily, don't worry about the tag thingy. I just follow blindly based on the rules it provided. You don't have to follow if you don't have time. I just have too many things I wanna write to update the blog but just no time. so I ended up writing the tag. lazy me again!

Unknown said...

gina

thanks for being so considerate. you do not have time to post cos you are busy with work and that is more important. me, busy with kay pohing.

-^_^. said...

I was looking for the lam bak hung (lum pak hung?) and I stumbled on your site. I was wondering if you knew about a loong wong dai hung? (dragon king big almond?). I have lam hung and was wondering if this other hung could be substituted for the pak hung? Or if not, what can it be used for? It's quite large compared to lum and pak hung.

-^_^. said...

btw. I am TOTALLY loving your site. Thanks for making dishes so accessible to us ABCs. I look forward to trying some!

Unknown said...

-^_^.


i am sorry i have not cooked with dragon king almond, perhaps i had but not know the name.

since dragon king almond is from beijing, which is north and that is the only similarity cos it is a sweet almond and pak hung is bitter.

Anonymous said...

Great story you got here. I'd like to read a bit more about this matter. Thanx for sharing that material.
Sexy Lady
English escort

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...