Superior rice porridge

Ah Fook might have made porridge by accident but not Mama LW. She cooked up a storm of superior dried scallop rice porridge when we held an early birthday party for HTK at her cosy place along Telok Kurau Road.

Her porridge was quite soupy. It took some four or five hours of slow cooking and much stirring to achieve that soupiness but the taste came from the dried scallops. She said wash them but no need to soak as the slow cooking would soften the scallops and bring out the taste. Also, there's no need to cook the rice in a special stock since the scallops would basically do the work of superior stock. She also threw in bits of left-over sharksfin to give the end result some texture and substance.

Still, I thought the porridge could be improved tremendously if she had added chopped scallions, sesame oil and some pepper before serving. The fish roll brought by EC and sprinkled into the porrdige didn't really do anything where I was concerned altho the others kept smacking their lips.

Indeed, the remaining fish roll that was split among us to take home tasted a lot better when I stirred it into the cooking rice. My queasiness at eating several months' old fish roll sitting in EC's fridge paid off when the stuff was cooked till it turned pale pink, from the orange soggy state it was in, after EC thawed it.

Ah Fook, one more scoop

This has to do with stretching available resources, in this case food, to meet the demand. As I believe it's a waste to stock for contingencies (an unexpected guest or worse, guests, being a prime one) I always look for ways to increase what I have. Chopped onions and some potato to fill out the meat for rissoles? Add some barley or beans to bulk out a thin soup?

Here is a comic story I heard when I was child about one woman's attempt to extend inadequate ingredients to meet a group of guests who suddenly turned up.

One day, the woman found after she had put the rice into the pot to cook, a friend from across the Causeway dropped in without prior notice. The friend said her husband and child would also be coming by soon, once they had finished doing their shopping. Perhaps some of her other kids too.

As was the custom, the hostess felt obliged to ask her guest and the rest of her family should they turn up, to stay for dinner. The invitation was promptly accepted and the harrassed woman rushed to her kitchen to see what she could rustle up. She struck on a plan. She told Ah Fook, her mentally slow helper, to remain in the kitchen and everytime she called his name after she had greeted an additional guest, it was her signal to him to add a scoop of water to her pot of cooking rice. That way, she hoped to have at least enough porride to go round.

Alas, she tripped and fell on her way to rejoin her guest. Ah Fook, Ah Fook, she cried, trying to get him to come from the kitcen to help her up, as her alarmed friend was all fingers and toes and too flustered!

But no sign of Ah Fook. Her friend joined in calling the slow-witted helper. Ah Fook remained stubbornly in the kitchen.

His enraged employer finally and painfully managed to get to her feet and limped into the kitchen to find out why Ah Fook refused to acknowledge the summons, screaming his name all the while.

She found him, looking confused but obediently adding yet another scoop of water to an already overflowing rice pot!

Discovery

I'm a haphazard cook, who believes cooking shouldn't be a chore but one of easy happen-chance. Anything more elaborate in my mind should be done by someone who charges for the privilege of cooking for me.

So, I was chuffed to discover quite by chance on the Net that someone across the ocean by the name of Michael Chu actually cooks with the precision of an engineer, with recipes that are detailed and well, for want of a better word, precise.

I've bookmarked the site on the right hand column of this blog, if nothing else then to use his recipes as a base and devise short-cuts for my convenience.

Making do

I'm a great believer in making do -- that is, don't fuss if you don't have all the ingredients you need for a particular recipe. A philosophy I eat and live by: hence when life hands me a lemon, I make lemonade; if it's an orange, I make orange juice and if it's grape, I make wine or vinegar. The choice is MINE.

This reminds me of a highly successful rice dish I made one day. I wanted to make salt fish rice. Mother said there's no salt fish in the flat. But there is chicken breast. OK, I said, let's make chicken breast rice then. She demurred. I suggested she checked with the kedai lady downstairs. She doesn't sell salt fish, my mother declared. Have you ever asked her? No? Well, ask her, OK. Mum did and found that the kedai woman did sell salt fish, but not of the kind needed to cook salt fish rice.

I persuaded her it didn't matter. Salt fish is salt fish. OK. So since, we had the chicken breast as well, I decided we might as well make chicken breast salt fish rice.

RECIPE
for two. For more, increase, proportionally.
Ingredients
Uncooked rice, washed and allow to dry.
100gm of salt fish, any kind will do. Wash and dry well. Slice thinly, if possible.
Half a chicken breast (more if you're feeling greedy), slice thinly as well, if possible.
A knob of ginger, doesn't matter if old or young. Cut into strips.
Sesame oil.

Methodology
Heat a pan or pot. Some people would insist on a kwali or a frying pan, but I use whatever comes in handy, which is usually a Corningware dish. Put in sesame oil and ginger. Fry till ginger is giving out ginger fragrance. Add salt fish and chicken. Continue stirring and then add rice. This process should take no more than 10 minutes.
Transfer everything to the electric rice cooker. (That's what I do, but you have the option of keeping everything in the pan, pot or whatever you're using to do the stir frying in). Add some water or better still some stock or some left over white wine that's no longer good for drinking. Cook till rice is soft and all the ingredients are well blended. Serve!

Simply delicious, cheap n quick

I was channel surfing the other night when I came across You Jin, a well-known Taiwanese writer, talking about her poverty stricken childhood when her mother had nothing better to feed her children than eggs and rice.

Then she gave the recipe which was so undemanding that even a kitchen novice could score a triple A.

I tested it out and swear that it took less than 3 minutes to prepare and another 15 minutes or so to cook, unattended. And my fussy mother even conceded the result was delicious and nutritious.

Recipe (Enough for two -- adjust accordingly for more diners)

Half a cup of uncooked rice, wash, put into rice cooker with water and a little butter and begin cooking. Break two eggs into a bowl and whip gently, adding pepper, and a pinch of salt. When rice is at the stage where its surface has minature craters, pour the beaten egg over them and cover, leaving the cooking to complete.

Optional
Sprinkle some sesame oil over the egg on the rice. I also sprinkled some sesame seeds and hawthorn berries I happened to have before closing the cooker lid for the process to complete.

Oo-lah teaching my sister how to cook a blog...

Kitchen tips

When washing veggies, especially if they are to be eaten raw, always add a tea-spoon of salt to the water. That will loosen any dirt or worse from the veggies.

Always add a small sprinkle of salt to a sweet dish and a small sprinkle of sugar to a savoury dish. This will bring out the underlying flavours better.

To get fluffy cooked rice, add a nob of butter or some oil (preferably olive or one of the better nut oils) into the rice water before cooking.

If clothes have been splashed or speckled with oil (while cooking), don't rush to soak or wash immediately, as that will ensure the stains remain embedded in the textile forever. Instead, liberally dust powder (ordinary talc will do very well) over the stains and leave for an hour or as long as you like. Then shake off the powder and wash as normal. Stains will be gone.

Never stock up your kitchen with stuff or food that might come in handy. Remember, you're not a supermarket or a restaurant. Not even a hawker stall. Make do, make do and make do. That way, you will save on space, money and wastage.

Cooking 101

I learned to make great boiled cabbage, carrots. Especially when I get to use the pressure cooker at the Jansens.

Everything could be boiled to pulp within minutes. But careful. Be4 you unscrew the pressure button, you make sure you've run cold water over the whole pot, or else there would be a nasty explosion and all your cabbage and other stuff could be on the kitchen ceiling and floor!

The Brits are great at using time-saving devices. They don't balk at canned stuff or ready-to-cook meat or fish. I'm always amazed how they can rustle up a meal within an hour of getting home from work, get change and be supremely good hosts when the guests arrive.

Fully-equipped kitchens and

....well stocked larders can turn even those whose thumbs are bonded together into a Cordon Bleu cook. And it was in one such kitchen with one such larder that I found myself that fateful summer when I wasn't even 21.

At Lord n Lady Masham's home in a small village near Swinton, in Yorkshire, the kicten and larder are every celebrity cook's dream. From oven to kitchen sink, to the sheer spaciousness and plentiful of light (natural and artificial), it was something out of House and Home.

The cooking utensils, pots, pans, knives, crockery, cutlery and glasses: it was like Aladdin's cave after a make-over by Martha Stewart.

If the equipment was something to die for, then what was available by way of ingredients was definitely something to live for, and a long life at that.

Every ingredient that would make a qualified cook's dream come true was available, in the larder or in the freezer. My dear, industrial freezer, not some little compartment tucked into a family sized refrigerator.

I had learned some basic cooking after two years with the Jansens at 108 Burdon Lane. Fried egg, fried bread, bacon etc. Meat patties or what the world now calls hamburgers, although actually a hamburger isn't made of ham or burger. It should be made with minced beef but I digress.

Raison d'etre

People make tons of money cooking for those who think they can't cook. But believe me, cooking is a breeze. A stroll in the park.

When I left Singapore for England in January 19XX, I couldn't boil water, let alone an egg. Two summers later, I was cooking for a living, albeit temporarily, in the household of a real-lfe lord and lady.

Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner were all under my single-handed charge. Perhaps everyone was kind but I don't think anyone would be so kind as to eat the meals I dished out for all of six weeks, if they were inedible.

Armed with this cooking experience, I know I can -- and indeed I have -- make a good meal out of all the ingredients which life throws at me. For this blog however, I'll stick strictly to stuff that can be eaten or drunk. And show that well, if you've a certificate that says you can cook, good for you. If not, you can cook just as well.
I'll show you how. And bon apetite!