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| Nothing to do with a kitchen - but I would like to open this new post with my dinosaur doodle. |
Now we have moved in and slowly settled into our new home, it seems appropriate to raise the bar on my housewife credentials. It has been 8 weeks since I cooked last time (if you are interested, it was Hainan chicken and rice). Never thought I would say this but I have missed cooking using a kitchen properly. (Eating out can get a bit exhausting once you go over a month - you can only get so excited about staying next door to a Shake Shack).
Challenge for the week was all about the one-pot wonders. I have decided to 'survive' for the next 3 months (while we wait for our shipping container to arrive in New York) on one pot and one fry pan alone, plus our camping fry pan/small pot packed in our 'flying' luggage that came with us. I got an army of an iron grill, a wok, a casserole Dutch oven (my first Le Creuset from mum), a fully fledged paella pan, and a pot - joining Nelson and myself around Christmas so must practice extreme self control not filling up the kitchen already. Lets see what I can do with what I have!
Before I got to cook though, grocery shopping proved to be slightly challenging. On top of no longer knowing which aisle contains what goodies (I missed the days when I could shop in the Manly Coles blind-folded while greeting all the staff by their first names), I have to re-learn a whole heaps of food names.
Challenge for the week was all about the one-pot wonders. I have decided to 'survive' for the next 3 months (while we wait for our shipping container to arrive in New York) on one pot and one fry pan alone, plus our camping fry pan/small pot packed in our 'flying' luggage that came with us. I got an army of an iron grill, a wok, a casserole Dutch oven (my first Le Creuset from mum), a fully fledged paella pan, and a pot - joining Nelson and myself around Christmas so must practice extreme self control not filling up the kitchen already. Lets see what I can do with what I have!
Before I got to cook though, grocery shopping proved to be slightly challenging. On top of no longer knowing which aisle contains what goodies (I missed the days when I could shop in the Manly Coles blind-folded while greeting all the staff by their first names), I have to re-learn a whole heaps of food names.
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| Panic station at the local supermarket. |
I notice they seem to label the meat based on what they are best used for too. This doesn't help me though as I could not find a pack of beef that says 'Chinese Beef Noodle Soup'. I also realised ground meat means minced meat (and not meat from the ground, why can't they call it 'grounded' meat?). Shallot is called scallion here (it is not a species of the scallop family apparently - I saw 'scallion pancakes' in a few Chinese restaurant menus and thought they were suspicious seafood because they seem so cheap). As for my favourite herb - coriander, you get cilantro! And when people do use the term coriander, they are really talking about coriander seeds. I told Nelson - forget about having the culture shock at work, if you want the real deal, try grocery shopping!
My fist test 'subject' was the Chinese Beef Noodle Soup. (always start with something basic) Stir fry chopped onion, ginger, then chopped beef, add in soy sauce (I bought a bottle of organic Soy Sauce - sooo posh), sugar, and rice wine. Add in chopped tomatoes and carrots (they are very skinny - I wonder if that is normal) and stew for 2 hours. Viola - there you have it (all done in one pot! Noodles was cooked in the fry pan).
Verdict: The beef seemed dry and too lean - must research on which 'cut' to get next time. Soup was good!
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| At least bok choy is still called bok choy. |
Next up was seafood pasta! I was very excited about this dish after I saw the massive variety of seafood available at the Lobster Place in Chelsea Markets. Seafood (cockles from NZ, green mussels, prawns, massive scallops from Maine. And I 'met' Monkfish for the first time. Very mild taste but excellent texture) was fried with onion and cooked in chopped tomatoes with some dry white wine. Linguine was freshly made at Rana (also in Chelsea Markets) I was very tempted to try the lobsters - perhaps next time.
Verdict: Simple, good looking dish purely based on freshness of the seafood. Awesome as leftover.
Verdict: Perfect for eating-on-sofa while watching 30th Anniversary edition E.T. on Halloween night. Still made me cry like a little girl (the movie, not the Ragu).
After the somewhat successful dinner exercise I felt that I was up for a breakfast challenge: the face-sized pancake. This was also my first attempt at making pancakes from scratch (instead of using the mix/shake formula). I used the camping fry pan and glad to report that it is still good after years of abuse. :-)
Verdict: Nelson approved. Fluffy enough and not too sweet. It was a pain to wash everything afterwards though.
Now, the moment that is almost more exciting than Xmas: I received my spanking new Tatung rice cooker! This is the one household appliance that literally every Taiwanese kid grows up with. Any young person who leaves home, be it for backpacking, going overseas to study, getting married, moving for a new job - the one thing that mum always pack their suitcases with, is a Tatung rice cooker.
Mum literally packed my first Tatung rice cooker in my suitcase when I went to Sydney 16 years ago, which was green and a rare species, as it comes with an Australian plug and was 240v friendly. These are hard to find and if you have one, you hold onto it like an heirloom piece. However all our electronic appliances had to go into storage when we moved to the States (damn you 110v!) and I couldn't bring my trusted green-faced friend with me - I had an emotional moment packing it into the cupboard box. Do not despair though, as every cloud has its silver lining! This means I get to 'choose' my own Tatung in a colour that I desire! (I heard they come in pink nowadays hahaha)
It was not as easy as I thought trying to decide on the colour and size though. After going through all the fancy colours I have decided to settle with the stainless steel one (I am a mature adult after all) - however, should I get the 4, 6 person capacity, or 10, or 20? It seems excessive even to get the 6 persons as it is supposed to just feed the two of us and I was also concerned about precious kitchen bench real estate in a New York apartment.
Well of course, when in doubt, talk to mum. Mum convinced me to get the 10 capacity as it is more versatile and means I can stew a large pot of soup in winter time (Yay I will never go hungry ever again).
With the rice cooker in residence it means now I can try out varieties of the rice dishes. Included in my experiment was the Omu-rice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omurice It was a fun dish to make! Unfortunately because I had to use the camping fry pan - the omelette was just too small to wrap the rice properly (I shall call this the Omu-overflow-rice - talking about innovation!). Wait till our paella pan arrives I shall make the biggest omelette ever.
Will continue with my food experiment and report back later! You never know I might even try baking at some point. Nelson is really loving the fresh home-made food - well lets enjoy it while we can shall we? :-)
Verdict: Nelson approved. Fluffy enough and not too sweet. It was a pain to wash everything afterwards though.
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| Do not judge a pancake by its face |
Now, the moment that is almost more exciting than Xmas: I received my spanking new Tatung rice cooker! This is the one household appliance that literally every Taiwanese kid grows up with. Any young person who leaves home, be it for backpacking, going overseas to study, getting married, moving for a new job - the one thing that mum always pack their suitcases with, is a Tatung rice cooker.
Mum literally packed my first Tatung rice cooker in my suitcase when I went to Sydney 16 years ago, which was green and a rare species, as it comes with an Australian plug and was 240v friendly. These are hard to find and if you have one, you hold onto it like an heirloom piece. However all our electronic appliances had to go into storage when we moved to the States (damn you 110v!) and I couldn't bring my trusted green-faced friend with me - I had an emotional moment packing it into the cupboard box. Do not despair though, as every cloud has its silver lining! This means I get to 'choose' my own Tatung in a colour that I desire! (I heard they come in pink nowadays hahaha)
It was not as easy as I thought trying to decide on the colour and size though. After going through all the fancy colours I have decided to settle with the stainless steel one (I am a mature adult after all) - however, should I get the 4, 6 person capacity, or 10, or 20? It seems excessive even to get the 6 persons as it is supposed to just feed the two of us and I was also concerned about precious kitchen bench real estate in a New York apartment.
Well of course, when in doubt, talk to mum. Mum convinced me to get the 10 capacity as it is more versatile and means I can stew a large pot of soup in winter time (Yay I will never go hungry ever again).
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| The shiny Tatung Rice Cooker seems to fit in well with my Le Creuset and camping fry pan. One big happy family! |
With the rice cooker in residence it means now I can try out varieties of the rice dishes. Included in my experiment was the Omu-rice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omurice It was a fun dish to make! Unfortunately because I had to use the camping fry pan - the omelette was just too small to wrap the rice properly (I shall call this the Omu-overflow-rice - talking about innovation!). Wait till our paella pan arrives I shall make the biggest omelette ever.
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| Failed at the attempt to draw a love heart with the ketchup. |
Will continue with my food experiment and report back later! You never know I might even try baking at some point. Nelson is really loving the fresh home-made food - well lets enjoy it while we can shall we? :-)
Week 5 Highlights:
- Visited the American Museum of Natural History: Spent hours just looking at rock samples, live butterflies, and had fun exploring all the dinosaur rooms. I have never seen a dino skeleton before and somehow had been putting them in the same bucket as unicorns. When I was surrounded by all these massive skeletons though, they feel more real than ever. Must go back to visit again!
- Visited the American Museum of Natural History: Spent hours just looking at rock samples, live butterflies, and had fun exploring all the dinosaur rooms. I have never seen a dino skeleton before and somehow had been putting them in the same bucket as unicorns. When I was surrounded by all these massive skeletons though, they feel more real than ever. Must go back to visit again!
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| Hello Rexy! |
- My first Halloween: It is even more full on than I expected! Everywhere I went the shops and windows and homes were elaborately decorated. Originally I was very excited and planned to deck out our new home with all the Halloween junk I could lay my hands on. However by the time Halloween was really approaching I was so exhausted from all the stuff I had to buy for the new apartment that the last thing I wanted to do was to go to a shop and buy more stuff.
So Nelson and I celebrated our first Halloween by checking out the Village Halloween parade (reminds me of the Sydney Mardi Gras actually) on 6th Ave and then went home to watch E.T. (the movie). I was expecting the parties to go wild and people staying up dancing in their costumes all night but everyone seemed to have either gone home or gone to bed around mid-night and our street went back to being pretty quiet. This is indeed a very civilised place. :-)
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