ayonecan-cook

A biryani requires saffron. A spice I hardly use but had the pleasure of using when I made this.  In using saffron i realized that crushing the saffron threads to a powder before soaking them in some hot water is a must if you want the intense crimson liquid to bloom to its fullest and to speckle the rice as if it had caught bits and pieces of golden sunlight here and there making the biryani rice quite attractive.  The second time I made biryani I had not crushed the saffron to a powder and all I got was a yellow hue that made the biryani rice look as if i had cooked the rice in tumeric tinted water. Which is ok if I was making tumeric rice of course....but not if it was a biryani.  Ghee or clarified butter adds so much flavour as well giving it the distinctive biryani taste. This too I had discovered when I had omitted using ghee the second time around. Now I know why rules are meant to be broken. It convinces you that they shouldn't be. Unlike the true India...

                                                                 Mom, dad, my brother and I at age 10 I pretty much grew up with little memory of comfort food. As a child I don't remember food being used as a means to appease, to cajole or to numb. But if I close my eyes and think hard enough, the nearest thing to comfort food would probably be a thick, dark and sweet soy sauce . The Indonesian kind. And that was not even a dish. It was a condiment.  Nevertheless that is what brings me back to my childhood, the foodie way. Mom mixed it into white rice with filleted fried fish. I savoured every grain of rice and the pieces of fish that clung to it.  That and Wood'...

I am not a foodie in the holiest sense of the word. I never knew foodie, the word, or the people, were nouns or a religion until I started this blog. When I meet friends I would rather talk about life, it's joys, it's pains, dissect it, chew it, get hysterical and finally try to digest it without getting constipated.  But one day when I was bored enough I looked it up. And this is how a foodie is described on slashfood.com ..... A foodie is someone who has an ardent and refined interest in food.....to be a foodie is not only to like food, but to be interested in it... ..... ......Generally, you have to know what you like, why you like it, recognize why some foods are better than others....... It's those first thirteen and last eight words that disturb me. Refined? Nor do I know why some food tastes better than others. All I know is that  it tastes darn gooder .  Apart from the fact that What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell is a wonderful book about creeping into th...

I really did not want to let go. My life would be empty, meaningless and totally without aim. I came home, alone, an empty bag in hand and a feeling of listlessness accompanied me as I went about my tasks today. Cooking, baking and eating just wouldn't be the same anymore. My heart desires, my head has the plans but now the body does not cooperate. I stared out the Hyundai at passing cars and dumb buildings and wondered how long it would take before I were whole again, before I feel complete so that life could get clicking again. So that it goes back to it's delightful disarray and funny frustrations. A week they say before they'd call and tell me what went wrong. A week? That's eternity. And then perhaps another week to make it right. Oh god. That's unthinkable. Unacceptable. Un...un...undesirable. Oh s hoot . What a strange thing. I had bought some yellow chrysanthemums today. I had thought it would brighten things up even more. You know...sunshine yellow....funny...

  Ahhhh so that's how they do it. They pipe the fluffy mixture through long tubes and cut its tubular shape into equal pieces. I have always wondered how they do it.  And now I need to brush my teeth. And gargle my throat out. With salted water. That was exceedingly sweet. Not the marshmallow itself but from the tons of icing sugar I used to coat it with. To prevent it from sticking to everything it came into contact with ~ fingers, knife, mini paper cases, table, tongue, throat and teeth. These, my friends, are not to be made in some crazy hot, humid, tropical peninsula that starts with the letter M, that sits right smack on the equator. If anyone around here has been wholly successful in making marshmallows... that had set perfectly,  that did not shimmer with wetness as it set,  that did not require a crazy coating of icing sugar,  that did not cling and stretch as you pulled your fingers away from it,  that you could 'lift' out,   I would like...

Sometimes, like a Mr. Bingley, I can be 'an unmitigated and comprehensive ass'.  I should not have been put off by Nigella's recipes and think poorly of them simply because I had read a few bad reviews. I should have tried and given at least one of her recipes a chance. Well finally I did. Because when I saw the beautiful Nigella throwing one of her sensually composed smiles over this on tv I didn't think there could be anything remotely wrong about whizzed malt chocolate, expresso, ice cold milk and frozen banana chunks in a tumbler.  This is the first Nigella recipe I have ever tried. Poured into an elegant, statuesque, glass tumbler it makes me feel like lifting it high in sacredness, pacing my steps cautiously, falling onto one knee and paying homage to Nigella, The Domestic Goddess. With the hope of being domestically knighted of course. Divinity in a Daiso tumbler. A domestic goddess indeedee. The recipe ~ wholly adapted from Nigella Lawson 1 peeled banana, cut in...

I defied myself and cooked a chicken breast. I marinated it overnight to let the flavours in and to moisten it. Then I smeared it with the basting paste. Then I seared it in an iron hot pan to keep  the juices in. Then I roasted it in the oven just to let it cook through without it turning dry. Then I broiled it to get it charred in places . Success.   It came out as moist, as tender and as delicious as a baby's bottom. I was as pleased as punch. Like a new mommy of her newborn babe.  Chicken breasts aren't bad after all. It's all in the handling. Like children. Some love, some trust and lots of patience and you will be rewarded with more than you bargained for. If only I had known I would have had more chicken breasts. It takes resolve and desire. And a blog. As they say ...... better late than never. And stubbornness is stupid. The recipe ~ I had searched through many ayam percik (a very popular Malaysian chicken roast) recipes and found many ways in which to prepare ...