Ever since I graduated from college with seventy-two-point-two-five percent marks, I've been watching these cookery shows in this TV channel I really like. I had to attend the traditionally-unheard-of bank coaching classes for three months from July to October for three hours a day for five days a week, but I always got home just in time to catch my favorite-est cookery shows. I loved these shows so much that the best part of attending these coaching classes (after the fast that I was one of the best scorers in my batch) was coming home and settling down to watch the cookery shows with some food of my own. I've always loved cookery shows, right from when I was a kid, though it remains a sad fact that I can't cook to save my life (poor Husband).
There was this one particular show that was hosted by a dumpy-looking professional cook who sometimes told very lame jokes but gave some very handy tips regarding cooking and made some bad-ass food that looked great and used a lot of herbs and pepper and butter and cheese and chicken - my kind of food, to be exact. And the way he presented the stuff that he made was enough to make anyone's mouth water. The way he cut onions and tomatoes and parsley and thyme and coriander and bell peppers and cottage cheese and what not made me want to be a cook, too. I really wanted to try out every single item that he made, but unfortunately, his cooking was very expensive; jalapenos, paprika and most herbs were exotic treasures in my part of the world; butter was abundant, but the same couldn't be said for the very many varieties of cheese that he used - mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan, buffalo mozzarella and a lot more (only cottage cheese was readily available); fruits like kiwi and dragon fruit were the stuff of legends; and extra-virgin olive oil, though not unavailable and is extraordinarily healthy, was a luxury most of us couldn't afford. So after a few episodes, I was forced to conclude that I would never be able to recreate most of what my favorite professional cook enchanted me almost every single day with. But I didn't give up yet - I logged into the channel's website, and jotted down what I regarded as the easiest recipes.
One of those "easy" recipes was the vegetable chopsuey, a Chinese dish. All I would need was some bell peppers, cornflour, soy sauce, vegetable noodles, oil, water and salt. But it was my first venture with cornflour and I didn't really know what I was doing. Mom had already told me, as I took over the kitchen one night, not to ask her for any help. I sniffed that I wouldn't need any, and got down to me chopsuey. I followed all the instructions down to the last ingredient, and finally, it was time to mix the vegetables with the cornflour and soy sauce. I did everything very carefully and artistically, and poured the whole thing to the bunch of noodles that was stubbornly sticking together despite all the oil that I'd poured in while boiling them. I was actually enjoying doing all the mixing and shifting, until the noodles and veggie mix started to stick together and was turning a murky, dirty brown in color. Refusing to be thwarted, I attacked the noodle blob with even more vigor than before, only to find that my efforts were futile. I spent fifteen more sweaty minutes trying to untangle the noodles from the veggies and make them into something vaguely resembling the images of chopsuey that I had in mind, all thanks to Google's image search, and managed to scrape the surface of that vague image of the original, sexy chopsuey. I took out some paper plates and slapped the sticky, gooey mass onto them for Mom and me. The former, who was ignoring me until now and had her eyes glued to the television set, clambered out of our raggedy bean bag and eyed the noodle-y thing with apprehension, but didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes wide as Mom poked a spoon into the mix , withdrew some of it and stuck it in her mouth and chewed.
"Well...?" I managed.
She nodded slowly with a frown creasing her face. Did that mean it was good? It looked like this, for God's sake:
"It's not bad," Mom said. "It just needs some salt."
"So it's edible?"
Mom shrugged, helping herself to a lot of ketchup.
Emboldened by Mom's bravery and the fact that she'd had quite a few spoonfuls of this icky stuff that I'd made and was still standing (actually she was sitting on one of our rickety, decade-old chairs), I stabbed my share of the thing with my spoon and stuck it into my mouth.
My first thought was that it tasted a lot like the wheat powder that Mom used to make chapatis with, except that this particular wheat powder had a lot of yellow and red bell peppers cooked in soy sauce, onions and garlic. But even the copious amounts of soy sauce that I had added to my cornflour-veggie mix couldn't make the thing taste even remotely salty. So I took after Mom and upturned the bottle of ketchup and found that the blob tasted slightly better, but it wasn't how I'd imagined. I persisted until I was done with about half of my helping, and that's when I had enough. Pushing my plate away and scraping my chair back, I declared that I'd had enough and that Mom (who was gobbling up her second helping of the noodles on the bean bag) could do whatever she wanted with the rest of the blob.
I washed out my mouth to rid myself of the wheat-ish taste that was prickling my tongue, and went online, where Husband was waiting for the results of my very first Chinese dish. I showed him what it looked like, and told him what it tasted like, and all he said was "Hmm." It was then that I decided that I'd experiment with native dishes before venturing into unknown waters.
A few weeks after the chopsuey disaster, I unearthed a recipe for the chicken-pepper fry from the Internet, and tried it out, with very little help from Mom, and I was surprised and pleased when it turned out to taste pretty good. It was just a little bit more lemone-y than I would've liked, but it still tasted great. Maybe Mom still remembered the chopsuey, but she didn't have much of the chicken, but at least Husband said it looked good, and I earned praise from my meanie-sensible-bully brother for actually having stepped inside the kitchen and made edible stuff.
After the success of my chicken-pepper fry (it turned out to be more like a curry-dish, actually, but never mind), I relaxed and stayed away from the kitchen, thinking that I'd earned it. But then came Husband's announcement that he was taking me to him, and that I'd better learn to cook some serious stuff. Most of the stuff that he wanted were ordinary, everyday dishes that were lip-smacking, finger-licking good (go die, KFC, I can manipulate the English language in any sensible way that I want) if made properly, and I knew the theory to making them. So once again, I began stalking the dumpy professional cook and found a few veggie recipes that weren't too hard. Most of them involved a lot of cottage cheese, and since I had nothing against it, I jotted down most of the easy dishes that the website had to offer, only to discover that Husband didn't-frigging-like cottage cheese. Bummer.
I lost my cooking-fighting spirit after that and concentrated on drooling over the dumpy cook's recipes - the ones that didn't involve any cornflour. Unfortunately, most Chinese dishes used it in plenty, and I closed the case.
All I can say is, poor Husband.
There was this one particular show that was hosted by a dumpy-looking professional cook who sometimes told very lame jokes but gave some very handy tips regarding cooking and made some bad-ass food that looked great and used a lot of herbs and pepper and butter and cheese and chicken - my kind of food, to be exact. And the way he presented the stuff that he made was enough to make anyone's mouth water. The way he cut onions and tomatoes and parsley and thyme and coriander and bell peppers and cottage cheese and what not made me want to be a cook, too. I really wanted to try out every single item that he made, but unfortunately, his cooking was very expensive; jalapenos, paprika and most herbs were exotic treasures in my part of the world; butter was abundant, but the same couldn't be said for the very many varieties of cheese that he used - mozzarella, cheddar, Parmesan, buffalo mozzarella and a lot more (only cottage cheese was readily available); fruits like kiwi and dragon fruit were the stuff of legends; and extra-virgin olive oil, though not unavailable and is extraordinarily healthy, was a luxury most of us couldn't afford. So after a few episodes, I was forced to conclude that I would never be able to recreate most of what my favorite professional cook enchanted me almost every single day with. But I didn't give up yet - I logged into the channel's website, and jotted down what I regarded as the easiest recipes.
One of those "easy" recipes was the vegetable chopsuey, a Chinese dish. All I would need was some bell peppers, cornflour, soy sauce, vegetable noodles, oil, water and salt. But it was my first venture with cornflour and I didn't really know what I was doing. Mom had already told me, as I took over the kitchen one night, not to ask her for any help. I sniffed that I wouldn't need any, and got down to me chopsuey. I followed all the instructions down to the last ingredient, and finally, it was time to mix the vegetables with the cornflour and soy sauce. I did everything very carefully and artistically, and poured the whole thing to the bunch of noodles that was stubbornly sticking together despite all the oil that I'd poured in while boiling them. I was actually enjoying doing all the mixing and shifting, until the noodles and veggie mix started to stick together and was turning a murky, dirty brown in color. Refusing to be thwarted, I attacked the noodle blob with even more vigor than before, only to find that my efforts were futile. I spent fifteen more sweaty minutes trying to untangle the noodles from the veggies and make them into something vaguely resembling the images of chopsuey that I had in mind, all thanks to Google's image search, and managed to scrape the surface of that vague image of the original, sexy chopsuey. I took out some paper plates and slapped the sticky, gooey mass onto them for Mom and me. The former, who was ignoring me until now and had her eyes glued to the television set, clambered out of our raggedy bean bag and eyed the noodle-y thing with apprehension, but didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes wide as Mom poked a spoon into the mix , withdrew some of it and stuck it in her mouth and chewed.
"Well...?" I managed.
She nodded slowly with a frown creasing her face. Did that mean it was good? It looked like this, for God's sake:
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"It's not bad," Mom said. "It just needs some salt."
"So it's edible?"
Mom shrugged, helping herself to a lot of ketchup.
Emboldened by Mom's bravery and the fact that she'd had quite a few spoonfuls of this icky stuff that I'd made and was still standing (actually she was sitting on one of our rickety, decade-old chairs), I stabbed my share of the thing with my spoon and stuck it into my mouth.
My first thought was that it tasted a lot like the wheat powder that Mom used to make chapatis with, except that this particular wheat powder had a lot of yellow and red bell peppers cooked in soy sauce, onions and garlic. But even the copious amounts of soy sauce that I had added to my cornflour-veggie mix couldn't make the thing taste even remotely salty. So I took after Mom and upturned the bottle of ketchup and found that the blob tasted slightly better, but it wasn't how I'd imagined. I persisted until I was done with about half of my helping, and that's when I had enough. Pushing my plate away and scraping my chair back, I declared that I'd had enough and that Mom (who was gobbling up her second helping of the noodles on the bean bag) could do whatever she wanted with the rest of the blob.
I washed out my mouth to rid myself of the wheat-ish taste that was prickling my tongue, and went online, where Husband was waiting for the results of my very first Chinese dish. I showed him what it looked like, and told him what it tasted like, and all he said was "Hmm." It was then that I decided that I'd experiment with native dishes before venturing into unknown waters.
A few weeks after the chopsuey disaster, I unearthed a recipe for the chicken-pepper fry from the Internet, and tried it out, with very little help from Mom, and I was surprised and pleased when it turned out to taste pretty good. It was just a little bit more lemone-y than I would've liked, but it still tasted great. Maybe Mom still remembered the chopsuey, but she didn't have much of the chicken, but at least Husband said it looked good, and I earned praise from my meanie-sensible-bully brother for actually having stepped inside the kitchen and made edible stuff.
After the success of my chicken-pepper fry (it turned out to be more like a curry-dish, actually, but never mind), I relaxed and stayed away from the kitchen, thinking that I'd earned it. But then came Husband's announcement that he was taking me to him, and that I'd better learn to cook some serious stuff. Most of the stuff that he wanted were ordinary, everyday dishes that were lip-smacking, finger-licking good (go die, KFC, I can manipulate the English language in any sensible way that I want) if made properly, and I knew the theory to making them. So once again, I began stalking the dumpy professional cook and found a few veggie recipes that weren't too hard. Most of them involved a lot of cottage cheese, and since I had nothing against it, I jotted down most of the easy dishes that the website had to offer, only to discover that Husband didn't-frigging-like cottage cheese. Bummer.
I lost my cooking-fighting spirit after that and concentrated on drooling over the dumpy cook's recipes - the ones that didn't involve any cornflour. Unfortunately, most Chinese dishes used it in plenty, and I closed the case.
All I can say is, poor Husband.
bwahaha...that was one hilarious post...*poor hubby of yours* :P
ReplyDeleteVeg Chopsuey does taste yuck whoever makes them. Why don't your try simpler chicken dishes that he likes...say chilly chicken or noodles/pasta with chicken?? They are comparatively easier.