The spice of Life

Selection of Spices from Spice Voyages: Whole Mace, Gourmet Cloves and Black Pepper. All products from PT Agri Spice are HALAL certified.

 Clove essential oil, Nutmeg essential oil and Patchouli essential oil

Cinnamon Vanilla sugar, Clove Vanilla sugar and Vanilla sugar

 Selection of spice including unusual oblong Nutmeg and Long Pepper

Homemade Chai Tea mix


As I walked  towards the Spice Voyages booth at FHA2014, I heard some ladies calling out my name. In that instant, I was caught between utter surprise and moved by the gentle gesture of friendship expressed by the Spice ladies of PT Agri Spice Indonesia.

I first met these ladies at FHA 2010 when I first bought some of their Green Coffee from various parts of Indonesia. For those who really know coffee, Indonesia coffee is one of the best in the world. This is due to the unique set of God given conditions for growing great coffee, Grown at higher altitudes in rich, fertile volcanic soil in lush shady areas, is there anywhere else in the world where these conditions come together.

Indonesia is located at the Pacific ring of fire where the SEA tropical rain forest is twice as old as the Amazon rain forest. Having roasted the Green coffee from these Spice ladies, my personal opinion is that it is the best in the world, contrary to some marketeers who scoff at the quality of Indonesian coffee.

I usually buy my supply of Vanilla beans from these ladies and they were kind enough to give me some spices which I have put to good use by making Chai Tea,

Contact:
PT Agri Spice Indonesia
Klaten 57437 PO Box :221
Jawa Tengah Indonesia
(All products are HALAL certified)

Thanks!! Spice Ladies. Looking forward to seeing you again in FHA 2016

Pineapple tarts 2014

It is that time of the year again, where I indulge in my favorite Chinese New Year snack. Come to think of it, this is the only CNY snack that I love and cannot seem to get enough of. I never fail to sample that at every home I visited, especially if they were completely homemade. People usually make their own pastry but settle for commercially made filling. I find commercially made Pineapple filling  too chewy and cannot be compared to freshly prepared homemade filling.

For this year, I added some pork lard to the dough and I have to say, the pastry turned out quite well. In hindsight, I should have done some research into rendering lard first but even though I had not done the rendering correctly, I did get lard that was snow white. Correctly rendered lard is through wet rendering but I missed out on that. Fortunately for me, I started with the frozen fat which helped to lower the rendering temperature. The next time I do some lard rendering, I am going to find myself some leaf lard and do it the correct way.

Now, what should I do with the rest of that lard? Perhaps I should take a leaf(pun intended) from my cousin and do some char kway teow at home.