DINNER TIME!!!

anivyl Posted in food，
28 May 2010
0

yet another shot

Mains: Prosciutto wrapped broccolini, steamed shiitake with oyster sauce, potato gems, chicken nugget in dino shapes (because I can!)
Soup: spiced lamb soup (Winter, need more ginger-lised soups! Funnily enough, it turned out a little like kambing soup, one of my favourite mutton soups from singapore)
Rice topped with random furikake, given by the seller of this bento set

okie so, I waited 3 weeks for this bento box but, ya know, looking at these pictures? it was damn worth it <3

Here’s a look at how everything looks altogether :)

tonight's dinner overview

Life!

anivyl Posted in Friends, food，
24 April 2010
0

Playground 2

Things to be glad about in the intervening weeks:
FRIENDS

yes, friends hahaha! Amazingly, despite my usual shitty sense of communication with friends, I still have plenty of those. I am glad :)

THE ABILITY TO COOK FOOD!

I know some of you have been watching my twitter slowly being flooded with some form of food or another. Most of which are of my own doing ^_^ I can only say, practice makes everything better!

I have been busy

Mostly with learning alot of things, hobbies to keep the mind busy, friends to keep everything else busier. I am happy, and that’s also quite important I guess. One of the most interesting thing I did was to run up to Sydney to surprise a friend – someone I haven’t really met before really. It was a good trip, and our online personas are as crazy as our offline personas, if not more :) When I first went up though, the intention to was to drive her lonliness away. Nevertheless, our love for food kind of went a little overboard ^_^v I am still feeling the ramifications of that weekend!

The other interesting thing that has happened is… me playing alot less games. oh yes, I am still playing facebook games. those are not as life intensive as WoW or Lineage 2 ever was though – about 20 minutes a day, if that. instead, I have thrown myself into learning a whole bunch of things. sewing, cooking, reading – it’s incredibly hilarious and breath taking at times.

What should I attribute all that to? frankly, I don’t know. I think, firstly, it started with me working where I am working, and meeting the people that I did. Then, there was my kindle and the chancing upon the Kindleboards which led to a whole bunch of other things I can’t even describe.

The whole whirlstorm of cooking was further kicked up a notch when I bought my new rice cooker while in Sydney for the visit!

Tiger JAH-A10A - 5.5 cups

I was intending to get one of those nice Zojirushi Rice Cookers mentioned on the Kindleboards, or even something else I could have gotten cheaper from Singapore. the Problem that dad mentioned was warranty. What if something happens, what if this and that. Plus the socket issue… I decided that yeah, I should just get a rice cooker locally.

I haven’t regretted the decision one bit. Tiger is a competitor to Zojirushi in Japan anyways, and they can’t possibly be that much different.

The point is, the rice is cooked PERFECT EVERY SINGLE TIME. there’s nothing much I need to do, as per rice cookers. wash, fill it up with water up to the indicated lines… wait. Infact, the rice is sssoooo good, I just make sushi rice everyday because it’s just so perfect and makes it easier to… vinegar up. :)

which just makes me want to cook everything else to go with the rice ^_^ so far, it’s been good… really good. ok, enough food talk. <3

It’s all in the curry

anivyl Posted in food，
28 March 2010
0

the curry paste...Cooking curry chicken

Curry chicken und Rice: The final product

I cannot begin to express my obssession with curries to you. I think it all started when I was young, I had all varieties of curry. If I had to live on curry, I would and I could. I have had all imaginable sorts of curries a person could possibly try. From vegetarian, to beef, to chicken, to fish. Of all my favourites, the plain nondescript chicken curry still stands out the most.

I spent a good part of my secondary school life huddling in the corner table near this auntie’s store, constantly ordering the same curry chicken rice with extra chilli on it. there were few days that I have ever wavered from it… albeit when she moved on, I think I almost teared.

This curry paste recipe is slightly modified from that of epicurious’s. I really only used the recipe for it’s way of making the rempah. This is what you need to know:

* 10 dried guajillo or New Mexico chiles (about 2 1/2 ounces total), wiped clean, stemmed, and seeded (i used fresh chillis with half of it being bird’s eyes)
* 2 tablespoons whole coriander seeds
* 4 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
* 2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
* 1 (1-inch) cinnamon stick
* 1/4 cup whole macadamia nuts (8 to 10 nuts)
* 8 shallots, coarsely chopped (about 1 1/4 cups) (I probably made more than that actually)
* 4 1/2 teaspoons ginger, minced (from about 1 1/2-inch knob) (you can also used those pre-minced ones…)
* 8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
* 2 tablespoons ground turmeric

the items in bold are to be “roasted” together on the pan before grinding together with everything else. THAT’S IT!

yeah I know, it looked like a damn intimidating list of spices to know and handle. honestly, it’s because of that that I have put off learning how to make my own curry paste for eons. The thing is, I have often remembered pounding those damn chillis and nuts around chinese new year’s. So, I thought, well, if I can help mum partially make them, it can’t possibly be hard. I mean, she’s not a great cook by any measure mind you.

and that’s part of the reason why I bought the blender – to firmly entrench making curry pastes for the rest of my life HAHAHAHA!

the result looks and tastes good (if i remember to buy coconut milk as well). the costs of the spices was about $40 altogether, but they were in big batches and therefore I can still make at least another 2-3 bottles worth before I have to top up on some of them.

next up, trying to make it more like what I have tasted from everyone’s mothers hahaha (adding galangal, throwing in lemongrass, etc)

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