Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Another Spun Sugar


Beberapa kali coba si spun sugar ini tapi masih aja belum menemukan hasil yang cocok seperti gambar di mbah google nah yang ini untuk yang sekian kali bikin dan hasilnya seperti ini. jadi pingin bikin lagi nih....

Project Organize - Seasoning Pantry

A mess isn't it? I have been wanting to tackle this mess of a seasoning pantry for a while. Since I am on spring break from work this week, I decided that today was the day. Yesterday we went to IKEA and I bought some pantry organizing items. Today I took everything out of the pantry and wrote down what I had. I also checked best if used by dates. Yikes, there were some pretty old ones in there, so they were thrown out. I bought a nice little shelf that gave me some extra room. Here is the result.

Ahh.... so much better!!

I love the white container I found at IKEA. I put all of my baking items in there, like baking soda, cornstarch, cooking sprays so when I need it, it is all in one spot.

I also found this nice glass containers for spices. I got 8, but only have 5 filled. I put the spices I used the most in these. You can also see the white shelf that I bought. It made a huge difference in what I am able to fit and be able to see and get to easily!

I also made this spread sheet on my computer. I listed all the items that I currently have and how many. This will make finding if I have a certain seasoning much quicker than looking through the pantry.

I also used another one of the white containers to put all of our teas and drink mixes in. I also purchased a 24 piece food storage system and got rid of all the plastic rubbermaid containers. Looking forward to using them!






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Things That Make Me Smile

Continuing my Lenten vow to bring a bit more joy into life...

The Monkees make me smile. Here's one of my favorite scenes from The Spy Who Came In From The Cool.

Afterwards, The Party Can Start Again, Right?

Greece and Portugal are at it again.
March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Portugal and Greece were downgraded by Standard & Poor’s, which said the European Union’s new bailout rules may mean that both nations eventually renege on their debt obligations.

S&P cut Portugal for the second time in a week to the lowest investment-grade rating of BBB-, three steps below Ireland. Greece’s rating fell two grades to BB-, three levels below investment grade.
Bankruptcy is what happens when you can't pay your creditors and people use words like "renege on their debt obligations." Insolvency is when you're spending more than you make. From the looks of things, Portugal is both bankrupt and insolvent. Writing off debts solves the bankruptcy problem, but they're still going to need to slash social services spending to deal with the insolvency issue.

All those protests against austerity bought nothing at all. Mathematics will always win in the end. Spending your morning lying in bed with an ice pack on your head and drinking Alka Seltzer is all well and good, but it doesn't mean you can pop open the Ron Rico rum in the afternoon.

Cheezburger of the Day

Three Cup Chicken 三杯鸡



I know I talked about growing your own herbs, but it's kind of funny because I really only started to learn about herbs after I moved to London.

In Singaporean food, there are a lot of spices involved, but not really herbs. Curry leaves, pandan leaves, banana leaves are used to impart fragrance, but they aren't really herbs are they? In Chinese food, especially, you don't really need anything besides coriander and spring onions. That said, they're used a lot, and go into everything from soups to stir-fries.

But once in a while, you do get the odd herb that's not one of the aforementioned two. Introducing... the Thai Basil!

It has a slight purple-ish tinge to its much tougher stalks.

It's kind of different from the sweet basil that's more commonly used here, because it has a strong anise-like scents that adds a very different dimension to dishes, and also, it holds us a lot better in cooked dishes, unlike sweet basil, which is best eaten raw I feel.

Thai Basil is an important part of Thai dishes (duh) but also in this less known Chinese chicken stirfry reminiscent of the more famous Kung Pow Chicken, called Three Cup Chicken. Three Cup because the original recipe called for 1 cup of each of these 3 Chinese pantry essentials: sesame oil, Chinese rice wine, and soy sauce.

But I guess it's a really small cup, (haha see Chinese tea cups) because you definitely do not need a cup of each. Or maybe because Half Cup Chicken just doesn't have the same ring to it. Nonetheless, what's more important is that you need to keep them in the same ratios, how easy is that to remember!

Three Cup Chicken 三杯鸡
serves 2
2 chicken legs (about 500g), deboned and chopped into small pieces
(it's important to keep them in small pieces, so they all get coated in the sauce, because they aren't marinated in seasonings like other chicken dishes e.g. sesame oil chicken 麻油鸡, and will turn out bland otherwise.)
6 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
6 thin slices of ginger
2 tbsp sesame oil (traditionally black sesame oil, which has an even stronger aroma)
2 tbsp Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing Hua Diao Jiu, do not replace with cheap cooking wine!)
2 tbsp soy sauce (naturally fermented and aged)
2 tbsp blackstrap molasses (or you can use brown/rock sugar, but I like using molasses when I cook with soy sauce)
handful of Thai basil leaves
3-4 dried red chillies

For velveting the chicken (optional)
1 egg white, beaten but not frothy
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine

Method
1. (optional) 20 min before you are ready to cook, marinate the chicken in the velveting mixture. 20 min later, parboil the chicken in simmering water till they turn white on the surface, but are not yet cooked. Drain and set aside.
(I'm in the midst of my Chinese stir-fry secrets experiments. You can try the baking soda /poaching in oil methods too and let me know! )
2. Heat work/pan on high heat and add the sesame oil.
3. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 2 minutes till fragrant.

yes they are left whole! If you haven't yet realised, this dish is not shy on flavour!

4. Add the dried chillies and chicken pieces and stir-fry for another few minutes.
Keep stirring or you'll burn your food! This whole dish is cooked on high heat, so the meat is nicely seared and caramelised!
5. Add the other sauce ingredients, and let it simmer, covered for another 4-5 min, till there's sticky and no longer wet.
6. Add the Thai basil leaves and then immediately remove from the heat. They will wilt in the residual heat.

This dish is traditionally cooked in a claypot, so you just serve it in the claypot. I don't have one the right size, so oh well, dish out and garnish with an extra sprig of fresh Thai basil and serve with rice.

This is great humble food, simple yet bursting with flavour. The sweet salty caramelised chicken has a sticky coating of sauce (it's a dry dish, you aren't supposed to be left with a pool of gravy), amped up with the kick from the ginger and whole garlic cloves and chillies, and perfumed with that anise scent from the Thai Basil, and one of my favourite smells in the world--sesame oil! If you can;t find Thai Basil, I guess you can use normal sweet basil, it will still be good, but it will not be Three Cup Chicken.