To try at home

You may have noticed (or assumed) that I am always looking for potential alternatives to chocolate. A new contender has lined up to be considered: condensed milk. Now maybe it's me being dense, but other than making toffee, I don't think I've ever really used or eaten it much. Until I came to SE Asia. They use it in almost everything: curries, pancakes, hot drinks, smoothies,... They may well use it as a face mask too, who knows. Western caffeine addicts have a bit of a hard time, as it's not always easy to get a cup of coffee without sweet milk. And any cooking that doesn't have sweet milk in it, will have a good helping of standard sugar in it anyway.

So, to have a wee flavour of SE Asia-style sweetness, here are a couple of easy recipes for you to apply your tin of (preferably non-Nestle) condensed milk to:

Sinh To (discovered in Vietnam)
'Sinh to' means fruit shake, but this recipe is more of a fruit salad:- chop a variety of different fruit into chunks, but NO citrus fruit or pineapple (suggestions: mango, apple, pear, lychee, kiwifruit, dragonfruit, melon, papaya)- put chunks in a tall glass- pour over a good slop of condensed milk, and a good slop of coconut milk (tinned is best)- arm yourself with a teaspoon - if you've got a fancy longhandled sundae spoon, even better - mush the fruit and milks together a wee bit (do NOT blend, just mush a bit) and eat, mushing to taste as you go along- if you can avail yourself of crushed ice, add this as you're mushing too

Rotee (discovered in Thailand, assuming the name's not referring to the effect on tooth enamel)
At the moment, I haven't yet learned quite how they make the batter for these pancakes - if I learn I'll update this. What this essentially comes down to is a thick pancake, drizzled with condensed milk and then sprinkled with caster sugar. Enjoy, and remember to brush your teeth afterwards!