top chef

arrested development left me on the cusp of age 29 without having learned to cook. thus, i took the opportunity this sabbatical in Kuala Lumpur has provided to finally face my culinary fears. kailangan din eh. i'm from ang bandang shirley, and food is important to all of us.

armed with a photocopy of a nora daza cookbook, stock knowledge from all those food network shows on basic techniques, and almost zero knowledge about how to work my friend's stove, i decided to learn to cook one dish at a time.

 

first dish ever cooked: pork sinigang (tom yumerntz)

this is my favorite dish ever, and i was quite overwhelmed that it was the first one i pulled off -- and very deliciously, if i do say so myself. what made this particularly challenging was the lack of a sinigang mix in KL (no way am i going to even try figuring out how a tamarind "works" haha) and kangkong as well. i improvised by using tom yam mix and just okra and sitaw. the sauce was a bit thick with the many tomatoes i used, but still very yummy. my OFW friend was very pleased with this reminder of home.

second dish: pork with tomatoes and rosemary

 

i had to work with the available ingredients at home as well as consider what techniques were accessible to my limited understanding of how to handle food. i found this recipe on one of those food channel websites, only the original called for capers, which i replaced with olives. it turned out ok, though presentation left much to be desired. my friend said it tasted like a foreign version of adobo. hmmm. the jury is still out on whether that's a good thing or not.

 

third dish: chinese asado

 

this almost became a failed experiment because i still wasn't used to guesstimating proportions. i followed a recipe that called for a kilo of pork, and then only realized that i only had about 350g of meat when the entire thing was happily simmering away. i had to throw away most of the sauce (which tasted really good, though, because i used maple syrup in the absence of brown sugar) and the meat was still very black -- but really tender and tasty! it was one of those dishes that went well with a LOT of rice.

 

fourth attempt: bacon and sunnyside up eggs

 

so you'd think this'd be a no brainer. wrong! hahaha i realized that making sunnyside up eggs entailed more than just dumping them in the pan and hoping the yolks won't break. i broke my egg (which is fine, since i actually prefer them scrambled) so i tried my best to do the other one without breaking it. i succeeded, but then realized that i didn't have enough oil to cook the yolk on top of the white. lest i give my friend e. coli, i just sort of folded the white over the yolk and flipped the entire thing to cook it.

fifth "meal": goatherd's delight (or heidi wants to lose weight)

 

because i'd rather not cook if it's just for myself, i usually prepare something dummy-friendly for lunch. in an attempt to be healthy, i put together a green salad with a simple vinaigrette, white bread and cheddar cheese (nothing fancy), and an apple and two cookies to cap it off. it's kind of what i imagined peter the goatherd in heidi would eat in the mountains for lunch. haha, nothing like a little child's play to spice up a tamaderntz meal.

sixth meal: malaysian pansit

JOKE LANG hehehe. hindi ko kayang magluto ng ganito, no. this is what we had when we went to an island getaway last weekend. it tasted good: like pansit, but with more exotic spices and seafood. but it was the only yummy local thing we ate during that outing.


(real) sixth dish: beef with broccoli




awww, the pic is blurred :( even if it's really simple, i'm proud of this one because i got the proportions and flavor right, plus i added a dash of orange juice to take the edge off the saltiness a little. next time, i'll make this with less beef and more broccoli.


yay, so i can cook now. that's all.

love,
selena