recipe written by the dumb and lazy (1)

alright! since we received our medical reports last month which were not so positive with the highlights on cholesterol levels, i tried to be a responsible partner and took up the task of whipping up some home cook goodness. Of course, the first few attempts failed miserably with some tasteless soups and salty veges. Nevertheless, i managed to pull together few proven and tested comfort food effortlessly. *Phew!* Though i'm still failing every time i try to cook something new. These are the dumb-prove recipes for the dumbiest dummy exactly like me, and i strongly recommend it to the gents who's soloing too. Here you go :

Sun's recipe 1 :

revitalising chicken porridge (serving 2)

Ingredients :

4 pc chicken drumsticks

4 - 5 cups of water

1/2 - 1 cup of rice

1/4 cup of shredded "pao sum" (optional)

pinch of salt

Tools :

Electric slow cooker, bowl, spoon & etc.

Method :

1. Rinse the rice with water couple times.

2. Put in 4 - 5 cups of water and the rinsed rice into the slow cooker.

3. This is important. Switch ON the eletricity of slow cooker. Turn the heat to "Fast".

4. Wash the chicken drumsticks, and de-skinned if you prefer.

5. Put in the drumsticks and pao sum.

6. Turn to "Slow" heat, if it started to simmer.

7. Go to sleep.

8. Wake up. The revitalising porridge is ready! Add pinch of salt to your liking.

Tips:

1. Use boiling water if you have little patience like me.

2. The amount of rice and water is totally up to you. A ratio of 1:8 will give you creamy & watery cantonese porridge. The ratio of 1:4 is more towards the baby food type. So anything between that, you're safe.

3. Cooking time is around 3 - 6 hours, depends on how long you want to sleep.

4. All ingredients including water should fill not more than 1/2 of the cooker.

5. Turn to "slow" heat so the ingredient won't overflow.

6. The pao sum can be brought from traditional chinese medicine hall.

Difficulty level : 0

If you have any problems with this, let me know. i'll be happy to share some thoughts.

convenient store.

The idea of 24-hour chain-store is brilliant. They sells anything you need in any hours, enough said. Though i hardly caters any 7-11 in KL except an occasional urge for a slurpies. We basically walked into a convenient store few times a day in Shanghai. So what the heck were we buying? Nothing for emergency use, but gallons of purified water to drink, and beers! There are too many Quik Stores in Shanghai! You'll come across a Quik store in almost every ten minutes walking distance. Here's my precious find : The Pudong packed Suntory Beers, ranging from RMB 3.20 for standard to RMB 5.60 for premium. They manufactured the Ching Tao beers and other soft drinks. While i didn't dare to try others, the Budweiser was also a good choice at RMB 5.60 for a huge bottle. And mind you, the Oolong tea in a 500 ml bottle is about RMB 2 to 3. So the beers are obviously better choice especially when you're thirsty and cold at the same time.

Other good finds are this "smart" soft drink, which i haven't felt any smarter after drinking the whole can by myself. *grin*. If snacking is your favourite, try some dried beef, spicy meat floss, or my strong recommendation, the de-shelled sweetened walnut. Crunchy and ready-to-eat at RMB 15 per pack of around 450g. All these can be found at the Jia Te Li store, across my room in Aomen Rd. But they close around 9:30 PM. And obviously you can't bargain here. It's not necessary.

If you take a cab, you'll probably see the signboard of 'imported cigarette' once in a while. This is not the advertisement board. Do bring your own supply of cigarette, if you're a smoker; that's if you don't want to spend money taking cabs to specialties shops, and pay extra to get your usual brand. One of the common preference by the local are this "si" brand, made and packed in Shanghai. Since i don't smoke directly, can someone tell me how would it taste?

S.O.S.

This space needs a facelift!

The past fortnight was my nightmare with the GruvAvénue feature in Bangkok Jazz Thai Bistro and few last minutes press releases. If you think that i wasn't really eating much or paying any attention to my food, you're totally wrong. Chances are, i experimented with my limited cooking sense and made some comfort food which i should write a separate chapter about, and survive on takeaways most of the times. Now stay tune for my picture closet clearance and 'dumbest dummy' comfort food preparation guide. Is it a manual? i shall leave it to your judgement.

tau foo farrrrr.... yum!

On Day 4, we made a detoured back to Nanjing Rd for my favourite yung her tou chiang. 6 things i love about their tau foo far are: 1. It's warm. 2. It's smooth. 3. They have two flavors : sweet or savoury. 4. The shop wasn't too crowded or noisy. 5. The shop is clean! 6. The staff are friendly. A rarity! 7. Picture of food is part of menu. 8. Price around RMB 4 - 6 per bowl. It's beyond comparison to any other warm desserts / drinks one could find within walking distance. A cuppa coffee or tea at any cafe is around RMB 45 - 60, and the taste, rather similar to charcoal.

finally...

something very delicious! On Day 3 in Shanghai i lost my appetite. We were woke up by a morning call from old friend, Ng. Supposed to meet him at McD in Xing Si Chie. Upon arriving we received another call. There're too many McDs, about 6 or more within the area. So he's confused. We waited, and called again, and waited. And finally we found each other! Phew!
Taking the tunnel exit at Xing Si Chie Mall and walking toward Nanjing Road. Nobody will miss the exit. It's too busy with too much pedestrians. I planned to eat from the first til the last stalls. And taa...daaa... (drum rolls, please). It's a dream too impossible to be fulfilled. The weather was as forever - cold. We're lured by a nice aroma in the air... it's nearby! A Ma-Lat steamboat in the left alley! Let's have a look! It turned out to be spicy soup steamboat like our local loklok stall. Recalling our bad experience of spicy soup last night, we gave it a pass. Next!

Xiau Long Pau, anyone? ...ok! Let's try this shanghai delicacy. There's also the Xie Wang Dang Pau, which means crab roe soup in dumpling casing at the top of the menu signboard. Should be good lar... i murmured to myself. Ng was delighted with his pork and mushroom noodles, while my century egg porridge was averagely fluffy and warm.
Now each one of us was given a small plate with shredded ginger and a dash of black vinegar. What was this going to do with my pau? About a good ten minutes, a plumb fella shown up with a steam-filled-hot bamboo container. He put on a plastic glove. This puzzled us more! Opened the container, and took out the globe-like pau with great tender care! and put it on our respective small plate. The pau casings were of membrane-thin skin like those used for har kau! How to eat this? with your mouth lar, idiot! Said the two hungry guys going with me. *bite* The soup flown out and mixed with the ginger and vinegar, igniting a wonderful smell. Rather similar to shark fin soup, but so much stronger. We ended the meal, slurping like happy puppies!
What a lovely day!

huo kuo!

Huo Kuo means pan in fire, or in our malaysian terms "steamboat". This was fantastic! The Nan Hua Huo Kuo is a restaurant chain. This one nearby had two floors, with ventilation windows on their roof. We waited for 10 minutes for our table. Not bad at all.

Here's the utensils: bowl, sieve, chopsticks, plates and spoons! There're spicy sauces, chinese sauces, and asian chinese sauces. i ordered the latter and found out it's a horrible imitation of our malaysian sate sauce. How bad could the rest be?

First, choose a soup base. Without hesitation, we took the signature soup. A duo of spicy soup, and 'fish soup with pickled vege". As frequently heard on my astro channel 11, travel with a big heart and a sense of wonder, or something like that. The spicy soup turned out to be too hot and tasteless. But the Fish soup knocked us out. i ate all the fish fillet like a miao. The other servings of meat were large. The best part was both the pork and beef were paper thinly slice, and hence, once you put them in the boiling soup, it's cooked within seconds!

It's not so cheap as we over ordered. But definitely way much cheaper than our local COCA restaurants. Consider the best steamboat i had, with little msg. Once more, i surrendered.

The best is yet to come!

don't play the fool with mee!

After nearly one month's hiatus, i'm gonna bring you some common stuff people eats on the streets of shanghai. First of all, it's not recommendable to eat food that cooks on a push carts. Both the front officers and taxi drivers screamed, "Cannot! Not hygenic. Later you'll get diarrhae!" Though the mutton sates and baby squids sates were very tempting. So where can we all eat? Any restaurants! Luckily there's few around the place we stay. Hmmm ... since i did my homework and studied the mandarin, that should be enough for me to avoid body language or appeared like an idiot! First night, my leg wasn't getting used to the walking, thus we went to the restaurant next to our motel. A nice restaurant with traditional chinese motif decor... pricing, moderate. The menu was rather long, and giving me headache. So i ordered according to the pricing : stir fried celery, and braised beef. When the dishes were served. We're surprised! For the vegie, there's of course, celery, and...nothing more. No condiments, no garnish. It's the simplest thing i'd ever tried in my entire life. The braised beef was unique in a sense i couldn't describe the taste or figure out the seasoning, and mind me, the taste was good! And servers were, not rude, but fierce!
Day 2, i woke up very hungry. Blame it to the weather! We walked around 100m parameter and found a 24 hours chinese eatery. No fancy decor. Just plastic tables and chairs, and dirty floor. But it seemed like a place where they had operated for decades. So according to my limited logic, the food should be reasonably good! The menu was very very long. And again, my headache started. There's more than twenty types of noodles, left alone the rice variety! And by looking at the menu one never have any idea how would the food taste. Ok, there's description of it whether it's chicken, pork, beef, duck or whatever the meat it was. How it's cook? Don't ask me!

We ordered, and at the same time kept our fingers crossed. After 10 minutes, two bowls of piping hot noodles were put on our table. The one with stir fried beef and a lot of celery was for me, whereas vince ordered mee (malaysian pronunciation of noodles) with pork. And he got deep fried pork ribs. The bowls were huge. but wait a minute, where's the spoon? We asked the staff who couldn't be bother. And great! There's no spoon! After struggling with the mee for an hour, i surrendered.