Egg Fried Rice

Few weeks/months ago my housemate asked me to cook him a traditional chinese fried rice. Fried rice is one of my favourite dish. It is so versatile that you can put virtually anything inside. Left over cooked meat, vegetables, seafood... sky is the limit.

This is the egg fried rice that I learnt from IronChef TV show. Here are the ingredients:

Then, mix the just cooked rice with the beaten egg like this:

Prepare a hot wok, some oil and let the picture tells the rest:

The stir frying part will be the most tedious part of all. Once the fried rice is dry enough (eventually all the beaten eggs will be cooked), pour a bit of chinese rice wine for extra omph. Stir fry for a while and add in the green peas.


Here is how it looked like when it is done:


Atif, if you are reading this, this was the fried rice you ate few weeks/months ago :)

Thai Spicy Pork

Due to busy workload, I haven't been eating properly. Ready-made pizza, maggie mee, takeaway food and beers have been my diet for the past one week (no complaint with the beer though). The crappy food has driven me crazy, and the only thing that will help is cooking a good decent meal to please my stomach. Here is my take on Thai cuilinary - spicy pork.

Here are the ingredients:

• Fresh basil leaves and its stems (bai horapah ใบโหระพา)


• Chili (prik kee noo พริกขี้หนู )


• Garlic (gratium กระเทียม)


• Tumeric (kah min ขมิ้น)


• Few pinches of salt (gluea เกลือ)


• Pork ( mu หมู)


• Fish sauce (nam pla น้ำปล่า)

You can put more basil into the dish. I used less because I do not want to kill my precious basil plant.

Sliced the pork chop ~ 3mm. Finely chop the garlic, basil and chili. Add in the salt and fish sauce. Mix them together:


Ready a hot wok with oil. Stir fry all the stuffs in it. It should be fried till they are slightly crispy from the outside.

Once it is cooked, serve it with rice:


อร่อยมากๆ (a-roi mak mak)!

Note:
- less tumeric will be better as its smell is too strong that it overpowers the basil's fragrant. Alternatively, you can put in more basil leaves.
- I called it Thai dish as it smells and tastes like thai cooking :)

Honey Mint Lamb

It's amazing how excited you can get anticipating those special moments in your life. Your first Micro Genius when you do well in exams, the first trip to a theme park and for me... Transformers on the big screen. Big ass robots in all their glory... what could you ask for more?

You just have to celebrate moments like these. How else to celebrate than to eat? Live to eat I say. The only problem was, what was for dinner?

So, while shopping for ingredients, I came across one of those pre-marinated meat that came in a vacumm sealed bag and the idea "conveniently" came. The Coles Honey Mint Lamb^TM served with mashed potato and sauteed mushrooms would be perfect.

Lamb
Ingredients

1. Lamb (obviously)
2. Fresh mint
3. Honey
4. Rosemary
5. Salt and pepper
6. Olive oil
7. Lime

Marinade

1. Mince the fresh mint until really fine. You can use more mint if you prefer a stronger mint taste.

2. Mix all the ingredients together in a separate bowl (makes mixing easier). I'm being vague about how much of each ingredients you should use. Generally, the amount of each ingredient decreases in the order they appear in the list above. Adjust to your taste.
3. The additional ingredients you see in the picture were just an afterthought.

4. Pour the marinade all over the lamb and put it aside for an hour or so.

Method

1. For optimum cooking, use prime lamb. But since I'm a miser, I got the lamb from the Special (cheap and not so fresh produce) section of my local supermarket.
2. Arrange the marinated lamb on a tray and place them inside an oven which has been preheated to about 200 degrees celcius.
3. Leave it for about 5 minutes and turn the lamb over before leaving them for another 3 or so minutes. There's no science to this. Just don't let it cook for too long or the meat won't be as juicy.
   

Mashed Potatoes (adapted from Planet Food)
Ingredients

1. Potatoes (obviously)
2. Fresh parsley
3. Butter
4. Cream or milk
5. Olive oil
6. Salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel, clean and boil the potatoes. When tender and soft, mash them into a pulp.

2. Mince the fresh parsley until really fine. Add the olive oil to the minced parsley and mix them well.

3. Heat butter and milk together until everything is nice and creamy.
   
4. Add the cream into the mashed potato and stir. Add a little salt and pepper too.
5. Finally, fold in the minced parsley. Mix well.

Sauteed Mushroom
Ingredients

1. Fresh mushrooms (obviously)
2. Olive oil
3. Mixed herbs
4. Salt and pepper

Method

1. Clean and slice mushrooms into thin slices.

2. Pan fry them in olive oil. Adjust the heat accordingly.
3. Season generously with mixed herbs, salt and pepper.

All done. I was so excited with dinner that I couldn't even keep my hands steady while taking this shot. Sorry. Dinner was great and so was Transformers. Worth watching. I have a knack for stating the obvious, don't I?

As a side note, my neighbours from China had this misguided idea that if you put a raw egg inside a glass of beer, the alcohol level would be high enough to cook it. Suffice to say, it didn't work. I had to down it... in hot chocolate instead. There was a hint of beer in the hot chocolate.

New Found Hobby

Sorry for not posting as frequently as I should. These few days, the workload is just crazy - my team lead is off to get married, left with tons of unfinished business behind...*rant*

Anyway, I picked up a new hobby last week: growing plant. This is my basil plant, which is very nice for pasta sauce and thai cooking:


Some bones to keep my plant healthy and strong :)


I hope it will survive for the next few months to come..