Curry me to the end

              This week I decided to make another recipe by Gordon Ramsay. For my last meal I decided to make Chicken curry. I feel like this will really put a good conclusion to my blog project, because chicken curry is a rather hard dish to make when you have to make your own curry base. Curry was one of the most memorable meals I had with my brother during summer in Singapore, so making this dish and succeed on it holds a really importance purpose for me.

            The most important thing about curry is the curry base, because without a good curry base the curry will taste really blend. The curry base contains a lot of spices, including coriander, cumin, turmeric, onion, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, green chili, and garam masala. Garam masala is a warming spice mix, and it’s the main spice mix used in northern India. It contains black pepper, cardamom, bay leaf, chili, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel, mace and nut meg. This ingredient wasn’t sold in safe way so I used curry powder instead, because it contained most of the main ingredient and I bought bay leaf to use with it. A lot of the recipes use tomato paste to bring out the sweetness in the chicken curry and I know Japanese curry uses apple to bring the sweet curry flavor. However, in Gordon’s recipe he uses full tomatoes instead of the paste, I guess this gives the curry a more authentic feeling.

            Gordon really likes presenting his food authentic, simple, and fresh. He thinks that it doesn’t really need any unnecessary decoration when it’s presented like this. I think this is the one big difference I see in all his recipes. The first step of making this curry is to boil the tomatoes for 20 sec and peel the skins off. Later on roughly cut them and remove most of the seed out of the tomatoes. Heat up the frying pan, and fry the onions with some vegetable oil until it turns brown golden color. When the colors of the onion are turned, add all the spices, garlic, and ginger in and mix it for a couple minutes. This will be the curry base, and when the flavor of the spices starts to come out, add the tomatoes and water to boil it for 10 to 15 minutes. The last step is to throw the chicken in and boil it for 40 minutes and the curry is done. This has been my longest cooking session compared to all my other cooking session, but the time and effort put in this was worth it. I won’t say it was the best curry ever made, but a lot of people tried it and said it tasted really good and special. I guess for a first time it wasn’t that bad, and I know next time I will do better.

In conclusion, my last cooking session was a success, but I would like to also try other curry recipes in the future. Julia Childs once said, “I was 32 when I started cooking; up until now, I just ate.” I was just like her and I only started cooking just now. This really tells people that it’s never too late to learn something new. Life is all about challenges and that’s probably what makes life interesting, because we face different challenges each day. I learned a lot through this project and I hope I can continue to cook in the future and try out different things each time.

Reference:

1.     "Cooking quotes" Brainy quotes, 2012. Web. 31 May. 2013. Retrieved from: <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/cooking.html>.

"Chicken Curry Recipe by Gordon Ramsay" BBC Good Food, 2011. Web. 31 May. 2013. Retrieved from: <http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10988/ >.

Steak Night

           This week I decided to make steak by Gordon Ramsay. Steak is a classical dish and it can be used in many occasions. I spent a lot of time watching Gordon Ramsay’s television show this week, ranging from hells kitchen to the very early master chef. I feel vary confident about my steak, since I spent a lot of time watching his television show, if I fail I can just imagine him shouting at me, “the steak is f****** raw”. I went to the Safeway to buy the ingredients I needed to cook the steak. I bought two kinds of meat, filet mignon and new york strip, so I can test the taste and tenderness between these two meat. In one of Gordon’s video, he taught people how to judge the quality of the steak, and it’s by counting the tiny bits of fat on the steak. The more little strips of fat on the steak, the better the quality. I carefully searched through the pile of frozen cow carcasses, hoping I can dig up the best piece of meat I can find. After couple minutes of searching, I found the best quality of meat hidden underneath the freezer, and took it away before other people can steal it away from me. I also got rosemary, garlic, and chime to spice up my steak a little.

One thing I noticed when buying grocery today was how processed food are these days. When I was buying garlic, I had the option of choosing peeled garlic and normal garlic. The peeled garlic cost 4 dollars and normal garlic cost 1 dollar for 2. This really made me struggle for a while because this time it’s the battle between the stingy Asian and my inner laziness. However, the stingy Asian got beaten down again, and my inner laziness took over, so I bought the peeled garlic. This really showed me how processed food is a really big issue in America. Everything in the supermarket is already made for you, and all you have to do is to just put it all in one pan. It’s also some kind of sarcastic when the brand “organic” is selling organic food and promoting healthy living, but they are actually making people lazier by selling all these processed food and vegetable.

Cooking a steak if very fast and simple once you know how. There are three things to remember when cooking a steak. The first is the finger test, this is a technique to check the doneness of the meat by using your index finger pushing the fleshy area between the thumb and the base of the palm, remember that sensation and touch the steak. This is what rare steak should feel like. Gently touch your index finger to your thumb. The fleshy area should be a bit more resilient, and that should be what medium rare feels like. When you touch your middle finger to your thumb. This is what medium feels like. Well done is when you use your ring finger to touch your thumb. I found this technique really helpful, because every time when I check it I can just imagine Gordon Ramsay beside me shouting “its still raw”. The second thing to remember is flip the meet every minute so no side gets over cooked, and when your almost done cook the fat at the back of the strip so it gives a crispy layer of skin. If you remember these two techniques, cooking a steak would be a piece of cake. The last thing is to add butter and all the spices (garlic, thyme, and rosemary) after you flip it the second time. This gives the steak the flavor and a brown creamy flavor to it. After following all these simple steps, you can sit down and enjoy your steak.

Coming to the end of my blog project, I found a quote by Gordon Ramsay that really summarizes my cooking experience. He once said, “I don’t like looking back. I’m constantly looking forward. I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I’m too busy looking for the next cow.” I can really relate myself to this quote, because I started this cooking project to try something new and I wanted to become a better person than who I was before. The only way to do that is to always move forward and never look back just like Gordon Ramsay said.

Reference:

1.     "Gordon Ramsay qoutes" Brainy quotes, 2012. Web. 29 May. 2013. Retrieved from: 
<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/gordon_ramsay.html >.

2.     "How to cook steak Gordon Ramsay" Youtube, 2009. Web. 29 May. 2013. Retrieved from: 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtIiR7DBAqY >.

3.     “Finger Test” Simply Recipes, 2003. Web. 29 May. 2013. Retrieved from: <http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/the_finger_test_to_check_the_doneness_of_meat/>

Mother's day and Home

            Last week was Mother’s Day, so I decided to make shrimp fired rice. Since, the first chef ever appeared in my life was mom, and this dish was one of my first and favorite dish made by her. I remember as a child, I can always smell if she’s making shrimp fried rice, and I will just stare really hard into the kitchen table, wondering what sorcery my mom used to make it taste so extravagant. This time I want to make this dish for her, so when I go back to Taiwan, I can present this as my late Mother’s Day present. Also, a lot of my friends in other universities are already going back to Taiwan, so I made this dish to take some homesickness away.

            I still remember my mom taught me how to cook shrimp fried rice for my summer school project when I was in elementary school, and till this day I still have a general mental blue print in my mind on how to make this dish. This dish requires a few ingredients: Frozen Rice, small shrimp, eggs, and green onion. I was really worried when I was buying the green onion, because I was afraid it wouldn’t carry the rich flavor that Taiwan green onions have, and I feel like if I have to make a successful dish this is going to be really important. I decided to buy egg from our university’s grocery store, since it’s a cheaper and the eggs are freshly pick as well. I really wanted to make my own rice this time, but I still used microwave rice as a substitute because I couldn’t find a saucepan to cook the rice.

Cooking this time was really simple as well, so everything went out pretty smoothly. First, I need mix the frozen rice with egg yolk, so it will richen the flavor of the rice. In the mean time, slightly slice the back of the shrimps and put it into the beaten egg mixture, so this will make the shrimp cook faster and add flavor to the egg. When I was doing this I noticed how egg is such an important food in our lives. It provides us with all different kinds of protein and it adds this creamy, buttery, and cheesy taste to your dish. After all preparations are done, put the shrimp on the pan to fry for a couple minutes and then pour the beaten egg into the pan. Keep the fried egg moving around all times until the shrimps and the egg are medium well cooked, and add the rice into it. After about 5 to 7 minutes, the fried rice should be ready to serve.

I didn’t really meet any technical problems this time, but the one thing that bothers me was the rice. I really want to try making my own rice next time, because microwave rice just isn’t good enough. I am a picky person with rice; I like my rice to be perfect. Good rice contains two major components, its not too soft not too hard, and you can taste each single rice apart. Microwavable rice is good, but it’s not good for cooking and you can’t taste the rice apart from each other.

I really enjoyed making this dish today. My friends and family really liked the shrimp fried rice I made, and I’m really excited to make some of the dish that I made here to my mom when I go back. After finishing the dish, it really brought a lot of the homesickness I had away, and it reminded me of how life used to be so simple. As a kid, I always wanted to grow up, but growing up isn’t that fun. I always tell a lot of my younger friends to cherish the time they have now, because you will miss those days when you get older.

Asian and Rice

            This week I decided to make a Katsu Don (Pork cutlet over rice) from an article a read in my English class.  The article was Turning Japanese by Heidi Julavits, she talked about she found it hard to adjust to Japanese food, and when she was in Japan she always craved for sweets. However, after she left Japan, she craved for a bowl of katsu don. I felt like I can relate myself to the author when she was in Japan. I have lived in Taiwan for almost all my life, and coming to the states was a big change for me. I studied in an international high school, so I adjusted myself quickly to the culture. There was only one thing I couldn’t adjust myself to, which was the lack of Asian food in my body and soul.

Ever since I came here, I’ve been eating a lot of western food like hamburger, but in deep down, I was never satisfied with the food. I wanted rice! To me, rice is like fuel for my body, every day when I missed my daily supply of rice, I felt like no energy to do anything productive for the whole day. Don’t get yourself confused I’m not talking about Thai rice; I was talking about legit Japanese rice. There were only 3 ways to get that on campus, buy them from super market in university, go to an Asian supermarket, or drive to an Asian restaurant to get it. All of them were either sold out or I wasn’t able to buy it because the lack of transportation.

This time cooking was easier than last time, I felt like it’s either I’m starting to get the hang of it or maybe its because my Asian heritage inside me knew how to cook good Asian food. One thing I noticed in todays cooking was the difference between butter and vegetable oil. Last time, I used a lot of butter for my cooking and I ended up smelling really oily, like I haven’t taken a shower for days. This time I used vegetable oil to deep fry the pork cutlet and it smelled way better than butter. I don’t know if it’s because of the different chemical bonding between the two types of oil, but a shout out to Julia Childs or her fans “Butter is good in a lot of cooking, but you smell bad afterwards.”

Although, I said today was easier than before, I didn’t say it was perfect and that nothing had gone wrong. The pork cutlet was a little bit thick, the instruction said it should be ¼ inch thick, but because I lacked a hammering tool. I had to use my fist to punch it, which wasn’t really effective. However, it did release a lot of piled up mid term stress inside me. Every time I punched the pork, an image showed up in my mind that I punched the teacher for every hard or confusing question he or she gave. It felt so good. Also, I didn’t have sauce pan for cooking rice, so I ended up going to the super market and bought microwave rice. It wasn’t that bad, but I haven’t tried cooking my own rice so I can’t tell. Next time, I will definitely try cooking my own rice.

In conclusion, everything turned out pretty good. My friends really liked the katsu don I made, and I even got a lot of likes and comments on Facebook for it. Nothing beats the feeling when you get recognized for what your doing. After finishing the dish, I felt happy deep down, because cooking is really fun. You get recognized, you learn something new, and you release a lot of stress as a university student. I always used gaming to release my stress, but I think cooking is a more effective way than gaming. This is the end of my blog for today, Andrew out.

Reference:

1.     Julia Childs and Simone Beck. (1970). The Art of Mastering French Cooking, New York.

2.     Heidi Julavits. (2009). Turning Japanese, New York.

The Beginning of Something New

During high school, I started baking, because I really liked this girl that loves cooking and baking. I thought that by doing this I could approach her, but it didn’t turn out well in the end. However, after watching the movie Julie & Julia, I felt like cooking was something more than just doing it for the girl or boy you like; Cooking should be something that you do it for yourself and something that brings a change in life, no matter if it’s for a healthy life style, building relationships, and new experiences. So here I am, with a cookbook on my right and a spatula on my left, ready to have my first official cooking session.

I am new to cooking, and I have a long way to go, so I chose something simple to make for my first blog post from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I decided to make parmesan chicken with roasted asparagus and brown lemon sauce. At first, I wanted to make Beef Bourguignon, but because I couldn't get wine and there are like a thousand steps in making Beef Bourguignon, I felt like it was too hard for a newbie like me. A lot of twists and turns came up in this cooking journey. The first one I met was when I was shopping for materials; every time when I want to choose something to buy there was this fight in my head between little Missy (my English teacher) and the picky Asian going against each other. My English teacher promotes healthy and organic eating life style, and organic foods are always much more expensive than the other ones on the shelf. However, when I see something over priced the stingy Asian comes out and whispers to me to go with the cheaper choice. Despite all the struggles I was going through, little Missy still stood out victorious, and it cost a great wound of 80 dollars to my wallet. After shopping, I can hear the stingy Asian shouting in my head“damn you, Missy! I will win next time.”

I always thought cooking and baking were pretty similar, and the hardest parts were always buying the ingredients. However, after today, I learned that I have never been so wrong in my life. Cooking is fucking hard! Women make cooking look like a piece of cake, but after my cooking session my respect for my mom and every women cooking in kitchen has just grown so much. My mom doesn't cook that much, but I am still going to call her tomorrow and say,“thank you, Mom, for every meal you cooked.”

Cooking requires exceptional multitasking skills. First, I had to dip the chicken in flour, battered egg yolk, and wrap it up with cheese and breadcrumbs. In the meantime, pre heat the pan and the oven. After I finished frying my two pieces of chicken, I put the seasoned asparagus into the oven and roasted it for 10 to 12 minutes, and then I had to put the other two pieces of chicken in the frying pan for 3 minutes. Later, I had to warm up the butter to make the brown sauce. I learned that cooking requires a lot of concentration and patience all the time, and yawning, blinking, or even taking deep breaths can ruin everything. I messed up after my last two pieces of chicken because I wasn't patient enough I flipped the chicken too many times, which made it under cooked. I had to fry it again, and this made the crispy coating of cheese and breadcrumbs burnt. The second twist I encountered, I had to remake my brown sauce, because the book instructed to use “lemon juice” but I used lemon extract instead. The sauce came out tasting like dog urine (for the reader's information, no, I have never tried dog urine before. I can only make a safe assumption that the foulness of this mixture could be compared to such excrement) there was no flavor but super sour and this oily taste. Ughhhh. I changed to lemon juice and everything turned out way better it was a bit sour, but after a couple seconds later a sweet after taste comes out.

Time goes by quickly when you're cooking, but when you are done you can finally sit down, relax and enjoy your meal. Alden and I tried the meal, both hoping that it won't cause any stomach problems after we eat it. I slowly took my first bite of chicken, and I can only say it was not bad for a first timer. Alden said it tasted like chicken bake from Costco. I felt like it was a compliment, even though I hoped he would say it was a masterpiece, but I can live with chicken bake for now. However, happy moments never last long, when you realize the mess you made in the kitchen. But a man has to do what a man has to do, so I picked my exhausted body up and started cleaning up the kitchen.

Cooking has been an unbelievable experience for me today I feel as if life has showed me something new. One of my best friends told me that college life is all about new experiences and challenges, like falling in love, expanding your hobbies, and meeting new people. Up until now I couldn't really relate myself to these words, but after today, I feel like I learned something new today, and I'm slowly changing myself by taking risks on doing new stuff. Lastly, to all of the guys out there who are reading this: Be grateful to people that care about you, especially your mom, wife or girlfriend. Every day she has her own problems to deal with, but she still puts the effort and time in to cook a hot meal on the table for us. I guess giving her a hug and say thank you wouldn't be too hard for us compared to all that she’s done for us. This is all for me today, Andrew signing out.