The Household COO

I learned how to cook Chicken Rice today.  My MIL taught me.  Well, she did tell me how it was done sometime back but I can never remember how things are done if I don’t do it myself.  Today I got the chance, albeit with a big helping hand from my MIL.  She’ll be testing me next week on what I learned when I get to do it all on my own - yikes!

So here’s the recipe that I’ve recorded so I don’t forget how it’s done… (the quantities are estimates since my MIL doesn’t really measure things out - she usually goes by “feel” which obviously doesn’t work well for a methods person like me, so I’ve tried as much as possible to quantify things).

Ingredients:

Rice
4 cups white rice
2 tbsp concentrated chicken stock
750ml water
Sliced ginger for flavour

Chicken
3 tbsp Cooking oil
1 whole chicken, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 pieces of ginger equivalent to the amount of garlic, minced
1 tbsp caramelised dark soy sauce*
1/2 tsp pepper*
1 tsp sugar*
1 tsp salt*
Chinese cooking wine for flavouring*

Method:

1. In a saucepan, bring water to boil with two slices of ginger.  Add concentrated chicken stock.  Add rice.

2. Heat cooking oil in a wok. Brown garlic and ginger until crisp. Remove from oil.

3. Stir fry chicken in the wok with the remaining oil until cooked.  Add seasoning ingredients (*).

4. Add chicken to rice once the water has dried up a little.  Close lid and continue simmering for about 10 minutes or until you can smell something.  Turn off the flame and leave for 15 minutes.  Check to see if rice is cooked.

Sorry I don’t have a picture.  I completely forgot.

An alternative to this is to cook the rice in a rice cooker.

Personally, when I get tested on this again next week, I’m going to use the rice cooker.  What can I say?  I was born using a rice cooker.  I don’t know how to cook rice without one. 

Author’s note:  Dang, I forgot I had already blogged about this recipe in a much older post…

Recently my MIL asked me if I could cook and I answered, “Well, that depends on your definition of cooking and your level of expectations.” 

I used to think that if I can make something I can eat, it means I can cook.  Until I realised that what I can eat and what others may deem palatable may not quite fit into the same category.  And then I thought about it again and realised that I can cook.  If my hubby, one of the fussiest eaters I have ever met can tell me that my Ginger and Spring Onion Beef is one of the best he’s ever tasted, then I’ve got to have some merit as a cook, don’t I?

In fact, anyone that can follow a recipe can definitely cook and I can definitely follow a recipe.  So why do I go out of my way to give everyone the impression that I can’t cook?  Or at least, why do I think I can’t cook?

Well today, I finally realised why…  It isn’t that I can’t cook.  It is that I am like a child in the kitchen.  I can’t stop myself from experimenting.  If I just stuck to the tried and tested ways, there’s never any problem.  It is when I decide to get creative that things begin to fall apart.

I don’t know what it is that possesses me when I am in the kitchen.  I get all these crazy ideas of mixing things together thinking it’s going to turn out okay but it almost never does.  Like today, I tried to incorporate Gavin’s rice cereal into my bolognaise sauce because I thought it was such a waste that he doesn’t eat his rice cereal any more. 

So how did it turn out?  Well, let’s just say that the sauce was salvageable, but I would never make it like this again - ever.  I’ll also be eating bolognaise for lunch for the next couple of days.  It would have been the next week if I hadn’t convinced the maid to try some for lunch.  Poor girl… I’ve made her a victim of my mad science.

Sigh… Why do my fingers get so itchy in the kitchen?  Why?  Why?  WHY??

I baked my first loaf of sweet potato bread for Gavin yesterday night.  After a day’s worth of preparation, proofing and baking, the loaf came out of the oven a little over-charred and somewhat crusty.  I wasn’t able to cut it because I had to wait until it cooled so I still don’t know whether it’s edible.

Here’s my request for today - please let it be edible.  And please let Gavin enjoy eating it.

This is the recipe from my SIL: 

Sweet Potato Loaf

Starter
170g sweet potato (medium sized potato)
120g unbleached flour
130g water at room temp
10g sugar
1/4 teaspoon dried yeast

1. Bake potato whole until tender. Cool and mash it. Measure out 130g and set aside.
2. Combine with flour, water, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl. Whisk until very smooth and to incorporate air for about 2 minutes (it should appear like a thick batter).
3. Cover and allow to ferment for 2 hours at room temperature.

Flour Mixture
180g unbleached flour
20g skim milk powder
3/4 teaspoon dried yeast
20g soft butter
130g reserved mashed potato
1 teaspoon salt

1. In a mixer bowl, add dry ingredients (everything except potato and butter) to the starter mixture and with the dough hook attachment, mix at low speed for 1 minute.
2. Add butter and mashed potato and mix at medium speed for 7-10 minutes. Remove the dough, lightly grease the mixing bowl and place the dough back in it to allow it to double in size.  This takes 90-120 minutes.
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surgace and gently press to form a rectangle. Try to maintain as many air bubbles as possible. Fold the dough over from all four sides into a tight package and set it back in the container.
4. Allow the dough to rise for another 90-120 minutes or until doubled in size.
5. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a loaf.
6. Place it in a lightly greased loaf pan and cover it with a large container or loosely with cling wrap.
7. Allow to rise until centre is about 1 inch above the sides of the pan. This will take 90-120 minutes. If the dough is pressed with a fingertip, the depression should very slowly fill in.
8. 1 hour prior to baking, preheat oven to 200C.
9. Bake the bread for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 190C and continue to bake for another 20-25 minutes. Turn the pan around halfway through baking to ensure even colouring.

Darn… after reading through the recipe again, I think I realised what I did wrong.  I missed the fourth proof and I didn’t let the bread rise to about 1 inch above the sides of the pan…  tsk tsk tsk.  That’s what I get for not reading the instructions properly…  Anyway, my request still stands.

This is what I get for asking a Le Cordon Bleu chef for a “Mushroom Soup” recipe…

Me: Have you got a recipe for “Mushroom Soup”? I mean the “Cream of Mushroom” type…

HL: Sure…

(She launches into the details about how to a terrific Mushroom soup. After a while, I can tell that this is a lot more complicated than I had anticipated, so I interjected.)

Me: Er… got anything simpler? That sounds quite long.

HL: *pauses* Okay. Get a can of Campbell’s and add half a cup of milk.

I think I’m going to have to be really inspired (read: desperate) to try her recipe. So I started asking around for a simpler recipe when KH told me AN had a Mushroom Soup recipe. I thought, “Great! I’m sure this one’s a lot easier to follow.”

This is the recipe I received from AN:

• Chop/Mince/Blend mushrooms to the size that you are comfortable with…i.e. some like paste, some like them to be recognisable as chopped up mushrooms
• Whack the garlic around so that the skin comes off easier and you can brown it in the butter/marg
• Add the mushrooms (stir around a bit till it softens)
• Add Milk and Cream to taste, thickness. Light cream will not make it so Jelak
• Add 1 to 2 cubes of chicken stock to give it a little of flavour if you like
• Stir till simmer…
• Taste test (add more milk, or cream if too liquid)
• Add ground pepper to taste

NOTE: You shouldn’t have to add any salt, the chicken stock should do the trick.

I haven’t quite figured out how much is “1 x” yet so I haven’t been very successful making mushroom soup.

Check this out - Cuisine Musings. This is my SIL’s new blog. There’s only one entry there right now, but do stay tuned for more delicious recipes and pictures that will make your mouth dribble over your keyboard.

All I can say is, I’m so glad she’s back from the land down under. I just love being the taste tester!

Here’s a little bit of background about the chef who authors Cuisine Musings:

A Cordon Bleu chef, she’s worked in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant at Crown Entertainment Center in Melbourne. She also won the Mark Thierry award and was personally mentored by the three star Michelin chef for a month in France.

So bookmark her blog. Even if you’re not a chef, the pictures will be worth it!

I have discovered what my biggest failing as a chef is… My need to experiment. I often grow weary of making the same things over and over again and after a while, I get the urge to try something new. As the hubby has just discovered, he is the unfortunate victim of my experiments…

So I took the trouble to learn a new recipe from my MIL yesterday - one of the hubby’s favourites, apparently. So here’s the recipe:

Chicken Rice

Ingredients:
2 pieces Chicken Maryland
6 pieces black mushrooms (softened)
1 Tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp corn flour
6 slices ginger
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 c rice
Water (enough for boiling rice)
1 Tbsp concentrated chicken stock
1 tsp black soy sauce
1/2 tsp pepper

Method:
1. Debone 2 pieces of chicken maryland and marinate with oyster sauce, sesame oil and corn flour.
2. In a pot, boil water with ginger.
3. In a wok, heat up some oil and brown the minced garlic and ginger. Remove garlic and ginger from oil and place into a bowl.
4. Stirfry marinated Chicken Maryland in the oil used to brown the garlic and ginger.
5. Add in chicken stock, soy sauce and pepper.
6. Add in mushrooms.
7. When chicken is cooked, removed from the wok, leaving behind the sauce.
8. Stirfry the rice in the chicken sauce remaining in the wok.
9. Add fried rice into boiling ginger water, stirring every so often. Once the water is starting to dry up, add the chicken and browned garlic/ginger.
10. Cover the pot, reduce heat and continue cooking for another five minutes.
11. Mix well and serve.

I also made a simple dish of stir-fried carrots and broccoli. I apologise for the lack of photos since I’m usually done just as the hubby walks through the door so I forget to snap the photos before we tuck into dinner. Besides, it’s nothing amazing, although I still feel somewhat proud of this mini cooking achievement for a self-professed non-chef.

Ingredients:

2 carrots, sliced into short strips
1 head of broccoli
1 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp abalone sauce (I used Maggi’s)*
1 Tbsp light soy sauce*
1/2 tsp sugar*
Dash of pepper*
100 ml water*
1 tsp cornflour*

Method:

1. Nuke the veggies in the microwave for a couple of minutes (if you prefer them to be soft, otherwise, omit this step)
2. Heat some oil in a wok and lightly brown the garlic.
3. Add in the veggies.
4. Add in the seasoning ingredients*.
5. Stir until the sauce thickens.
6. Serve.

Something I cooked on Friday night, modifying a recipe I saw on Healthy Chinese Recipes… The hubby liked the flavour so I thought perhaps I ought to pop down the recipe here so I don’t forget it.

Ingredients:

250g Lean Beef, sliced
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce*
1 Tbsp Black Pepper Sauce (Lee Kum Kee’s is good)*
1 tsp Sugar*
Dash of Pepper*
1/2 tsp Sesame Oil*
100ml Water mixed with 1 tsp Cornflour

Method:

1. Marinate the beef pieces in the seasoning ingredients*
2. Heat a little oil in a frying pan or wok.
3. Brown the garlic.
4. Add in beef pieces and seasoning.
5. When the beef is cooked, add the cornflour mixture.
6. Stir until the sauce is thick, then remove from heat.
7. Serve.

Last Saturday night was JV’s birthday and his wife PL prepared a feast! One of the items she had was Beef Rendang and man it was great! I’m not really a curry person but I do like my Beef Rendang, especially since Gavin’s been residing in my tummy. Probably the only thing about this Beef Rendang that I couldn’t handle was the chilli padi that was added to it but it was sure as heck WAY better than the Beef Rendang I made for my relatives some time back.

The previous Beef Rendang I made was from a packet sauce called “Brahim’s”, so I suppose what was I really expecting to achieve? Although I’m fairly certain my mother has cheated a few times with this packet sauce and I remember it tasting better. I wonder what her secret trick was to make it taste more like the real mccoy? My mother is full of little secrets on how to make a packet sauce not taste like a packet sauce and one of these days I’m going to have to figure out how she does it…

For the time being, I think I’ll stick to a proper recipe and do things the long way. I asked PL for the Beef Rendang recipe which she got from her colleague and posted it up - here. Definitely something to try cooking before I pop…