Cooking Tips: 09/11/08

Thursday, September 11, 2008

What would you feel when you happily announced to your close friends, (who happen to overstayed in your house everyday (I mean everyday), using your electricity, watching your astro, drinking your water, using your toilet, smoke in your house, everyday, everyweek, every month for at least 5 hours a day) that you feels like cooking food for berbuka puasa (because that same friends asked you to cook for berbuka puasa a night before the day you announced to your friends who happens to make at least RM5000 a month) and then your friend just keep quiet and did not respond to your announcement.

Then you clear your throat and announce back your intention, and this time you said you would like some contribution.

And then your friends who makes at least RM5000 a month (two of them, both lecturers mind you) both look at you and then look at each other and one of them took out his wallet, waves a RM10 notes and said, “oke! Ni RM10 share 2 orang”

Well it does not happen to me, it happen to someone else who suddenly exploded.

Ramadhan really is a month of many ordeals.

But it does not end there.

Want more stories, call me.

Women Urged not to drink while pregnant .

grits

September 11

Chef Sean Brock of McCrady’s in Charleston, S.C., is in town, and he visited my office. To overgeneralize, he used to be big into the molecular gastronomy, but now his focus is on using local and natural things.
He’s also breeding some pigs and raising rare varieties of vegetables in the interest of preserving their seeds as well as eating them.
Among those vegetables is Jimmy Red corn. Also known as James Island Red, Sean says it was nearly extinct, but he has raised a fair amount of it now, preserving some for seed, but cooking some, too.
He wanted to make grits, but he didn’t have a mill to grind his Jimmy Red.
Now, Sean says the key to making good grits is to have a cold mill, because if you heat the corn you damage the flavor and even run the risk of scorching it.
Sean didn’t have a mill, but he did have a tank of liquid nitrogen. Anyone who has played with nitrogen knows that things frozen to that low a temperature become brittle. So he froze the corn, pulsed it quickly in a high-powered blender and sifted it, separating the corn meal from the hominy. The latter he used to make grits.
Genius.

October

September 11

October is both National Pizza Month and Celiac Awareness Month.
That’s all I have to say about that.

Shish kabob and uncultivated rice with roquefort sauce

Hi!

I recently received this kind of lightsabers made of meat... it is called Shis kabob(it sounds like a Jedi warrior or something...) or meat in a stick, as you wish my lord...

- Pinchos morunos y arroz salvaje con salsa Roquefort (Shish kabob and uncultivated rice with roquefort sauce):

It is accompained with "uncultivated" rice (yes I know about snob single cooks but they are part of this blog too, sigh) and a small amount of Roquefort Sauce (I hope it is Roquefort sauce because it could be a lot of things if we thought about single and loneliness...)...

Who's the sender? His name is Angel and he is about to get his Technical Computer College Degree... Congratulations! (he'll follow my advice of not wearing trousers in the last test)

Maybe now you will be able to buy some legal rice and not take it from uncultivated fields... forever...

Thanks Angel!

AANI (Sindhi Besan Ki Bhaji)

Ingredients:

For the Aanis:

Gram Flour/ Besan......1 cup

Poppy Seeds..................1 tbsp
Turmeric Powder.........1/4 tsp
Coriander Powder........1 tsp
Red Chilli Powder.........3/4 tsp
Soda................................a pinch
Garam Masala...............1/2 tsp

Cumin powder .............. 1tsp.

Coriander powder ........1 tsp.
Oil....................................2 tbsp
Salt to taste

For the curry:
Onions.......... 3 (chopped finely)
Tomatoes..... 1 big (chopped)
Salt to taste
Turmeric Powder.....1/4 tsp
Coriander Powder.....1/2 tsp
Red Chilli Powder.....1/4 tsp
Green Chillies............2
Garam Masala...........1/2 tsp
Coriander leaves.......a handful

Method:
Preparing the Aanis:

1. Mix all the above mentioned ingredients for aanis in a bowl, including oil. Now add some water and mix into a dough. ( add with a spoon so that you dont add too much to make it sticky)As you mix the dough, it starts becoming hard and sticks to the bowl.

2. Spread 2 to 3 drops of oil on a flat surface. Put the dough on it and roll it into a cylinder. Flatten it with your palm and cut rectangles out of it.

3.Heat water in a pan and add 1/2 tsp turmeric powder. Add the aanis into it and boil them for 5 minutes. Remove & strain them. Let them dry.

4. Heat oil & fry the boiled aanis for 3 to 4 minutes.

Preparing the curry:
1. Heat 3 to 4 tbsp oil. Add the onions, green chillies, salt, turmeric powder,red chilli powder, coriander powder, tomatoes. Mix & cook on low flame till tomatoes become tender.
2.Now add garam masala, the fried aanis and sprinke a little water over the aanis to cook on low flame for 5-7 minutes.Turn them carefully once. Garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve with rotis.