I am learning to enjoy good veg these days. Cooked the right way, it is just delicious.
Nope, I should correct myself and say that good veg can be eaten au natural. If you want to be able to judge some veg not just by how it looks, have a little snack.
It is not possible to do this in a super mart (for reasons like your conscience, CCTV cameras, you may bump into a friend, God is watching...). For this and some other reasons, I buy most of my veg from my favourite stalls in the wet market.
What is in a name, you may ask? Haven't you noticed how restaurant dishes are named?
Name it right, and you can increase the price or make your menu sound more attractive.
Kalamansi instead of just lime.
Arugula instead of rocket.
Pullet instead of Spring chicken
And yeah, Spring chicken instead of frog meat
Onsen eggs instead of soft-boiled eggs
And the list goes on.
This is a short post to inspire you with some ideas for your daily dinners.
If, like me, you can only cook after you are back from work, learning to cook quick dinners is not an option. And tonight's was cooked in about 40 minutes.
The corn went into the microwave, high for 5 minutes. Added some salt and butter. Shake. Ready.
The boneless chicken chicken breast was Sous Vide-d for 28 minutes at 63C. Pan seared. Then some salt and drizzled with lime.
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| Fried Sea Bass - Thai
style. Perhaps I won't call this a 101 dish but to Thais, fried fish with some condiments is a basic dish. |
There is something special about the family gathering around the dining table. I feel that a home is less than one if the kitchen and dining table is not used regularly. At least I grew up in one where the home centered around them.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, I started learning to cook soon after I started working as I always wanted to recreate some of the dishes I grew up with. When the kids came, my Mum came down from PJ to stay with us. It became less necessary for me to be in the kitchen. Mum was providing the daily spread. We could look forward to returning home to dinner everyday. Sometimes I will call her to ask what's for dinner. She will always say a phrase in Cantonese which rhymes. "I won't let you know and will let your heart keep wondering."
After my Mum passed away, for a while, we were quite at a lost as to our daily meals. We tried "tingkat" home delivery meals. They sent dinner in these stacked containers. You have to eat whatever is delivered to you. The food was often bland and rather tasteless. After two weeks of trying to appreciate these meals, one evening, we just could not carry on. Not even after we have said grace! I told my wife to cancel the arrangements.
That was when I made a new resolution to resume home cooking.
You have eaten this dish before, haven't you? Maybe you have even cooked them.
It does belong to the CF&G category.
I am not sure I need to do a tabled recipe for this one. I will go with the more traditional format.
Countless recipes to make it with but a few techniques to get it right
Fried rice paradise, Nasi goreng very nice
That’s a speciality, 99 varieties...
You may have heard of this famous song by Dick Lee. Dare to hum the tune and it will be stuck in your head for the next 24 hours. (Ok. too late...there you go.)
Indeed we do live in a fried rice paradise in Southeast Asia. Thai, Malay, Indonesian, Indian or Chinese, this dish has been "wokked" out in every variety. There are probably more than 99: there are countless varieties actually when you think of what households will do with their dinner leftovers.
Cheap, Fast & Good?
An ex-lawyer friend of mine once lamented on how her clients expect work to be done quickly, cheaply and well.
Her view is that you can only have a combination of two, but not all three.
Cheap and fast, but not good.
Good and fast, but not cheap.
Good and cheap? Oh well, possible, but cannot be fast, bro.
You just can't have all three.
A simple, but a rather enlightening thought for me as I reflect on how this principle can be applied to other areas of life as well.
