It's Official-
I can cook!!! And fairly well too!
(btw, that's freshly butchered rabbit on the stove! hehehe)
Move over Jamie Oliver!
It's almost a month and i'm glad i've yet to repeat the many menus and self-fashioned receipes i've designed over the past weeks. Cooking is relaxing and takes my mind away from many things. It helps also that my flatmate is also an avid chef and we save heaps of money eating at home. Going to restaurants seems like a blatant wastage of cash now that i can quite decode and deconstruct what goes into each dish. I use a corner of the living room to lay out the produce since the fridge is too small. Arty on the sidelines. They keep well and look good, thanks to the atmospheric cold. Here are some decent & delicious dishes i've created and proud to call my own-
Grilled Tom Yam Fish, Braised Dutch Carrots with orange and herbs, Stir-fried brussel-sprouts with garlic, Boiled squid with oriental dip, Assam Pedas Squid, Steamed mussels with bay leaves and white wine, Beef and mushroom Pasta with light Shiraz, Grilled Artichokes with salt and pepper, Fennel drizzled and cooked in Olive oil, Blue Granadier with Pine nuts and coated with cheese and lemon rind, Grilled wings with vietnamese sour sauce, Boiled greens topped with quick-fry garlic and onions, Greek Salad, Unbeatable Teochew / Taiwanese porridge with feel-good broth and sweet potato accompanied by selected preseves and anchovies, Honey Wings, Winter-warmth Bak Kut Teh, Noon-rushed Pita with lamb and parsley, Ever-humble toasted Bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, Grilled marlin, Oriental Fish Stock with fresh parsley, Stewed rabbit in maltese casserole
My thanks to 04A02 for the class menus (classy yet sentimental prints! I know it was designed and conceived with alot of love), also to Gordon and Seok for that amazing, pompous but bright and colourful practical big book of menus by J Oliver, and to my mom & granny whom i battled over the rights to the kitchen only to inherit, and so subconsciously, their techniques, intuition and range of cooking styles. My own voice in these experiments is to use plenty of herbs (bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, basil and many more) and allow the natural flavour / juices of the dish to seep through or be preserved. Chinese cooking is famous for destroying all the nutrients stored in everything from tubers to meat. Looking at my background and mindset, it won't be too long before i adopt a fusion (yeah, it's an exhausted concept) to blend the meals.
Luncheons-tea-tunch-dinners-suppers all rolled into one. we save some for dinner and pack for lunch on the morrow. saving the hard-earned cash and devoting it to necessary buys like the exorbitant zapping fees and countless unmentionables that make life in the lion city cheeeaaper than one could ever imagine. i miss the wok...i miss sea-hum, hokkien mee, orh luak...$2.20 pjc canteen food...and 5ocents for a huge handful bunch of red chillis...
