The little things that make me happy (2)
1. Listening to Pheonix on grooveshark to relax after a busy morning of cramming reports into my head
2. Knowing that Spring is here and the sun shines a minute more each day
3. Waiting for the long weekend and looking forward to taking a break in Rosario, the first holiday since I started work again
4. Reading a mail from my friend asking me to be her bridesmaid, and even though I know I most probably can’t, it still made me smile
5. The Korean instant noodles waiting in the bag SY gave me, SOS help whenever I miss Asian food and want to be reminded of home sweet home
6. Receiving a lovely SMS from my aunt telling me she misses me, and hopes things are well
7. Biking down Libertador Avenue all the way to Retiro, seeing Buenos Aires in a different way
8. Chatting on skype with my best friends in the world, no matter how far away they are
9. Discount shopping, which gives me greater purchasing power
10. Picking up the phone to call my family, or a friend, and breaking into a smile when I hear their familiar voices and translated smiles
11. Thinking about CNY back home, eating homemade pineapple tarts brought by my mum
12. Cooking Chinese food– yes, it is actually therapeutic, and the smell of chicken rice steaming in the rick cooker almost makes me believe I am back in Singapore
13. Spanish classes with Veronica, one of the nicest and sincerest Argentines I have met since arriving 6 months ago
14. Arriving at work and having my morning chat with colleagues, before starting a relatively peaceful day
15. Reading reports on Singapore and feeling I know much more about my homeland now than ever before
16. Discussing holiday plans, and the arrival of a cousin’s birth
17. Writing, about anything in particular. It is my theraphy.
So many little things that make me happy. Life is good : )
Fried Tang Hoon…
On the spur of a moment (sorry actually after many moments of imagining eating fried tang hoon (rice glass noodles)), I finally got down to cooking it yesterday. Popped by the convenience store (also known as “Supermercado” here) after going to Abuela’s house and bought a couple of ingredients that were lacking but essential for the dish – carrots, spring onions, parsley.
Back at home, I got started on whipping up this long-awaited Chinese dish. I was needing something to satisfy my craving for Asian food. After soaking the dried tang hoon in hot water, I waited for them to soften and whiten. I beat up 3 eggs and added a flavouring of spices and salt. The carrots were sliced extremely thinly to complement the long glass noodles, as were the spring onions and large onions. I cut the mushrooms into small portions and viola! All my ingredients were ready, together with the absolutely important sesame oil, soya sauce and common vegetable oil.
Beginning the process of cooking, I first fried the 3 eggs to make a sort of omelette, which I later cut into small bright yellow pieces and set aside as garnishing for the dish. Next, I heated more oil and stir-fried the onions for a good 5 minutes to turn them into a nice caramelized golden brown. Throwing in the mushrooms, I let them cook for a while before adding in the carrots and the spring onions. Yum, the flavours were starting to tempt my nostrils… I then put the tang hoon into the wok, and stirred it well to mix it with the other ingredients before dousing it with soya sauce and a dash of sesame oil for the unmistakable Chinese flavour. Tasting the tang hoon, it was initially a little hard because I think the second batch did not soak long enough in the hot water. Not a problem though- just had to pour in some hot water and let the rice noodles absorb the water and become slightly softer and bouncier.
After about another 10 minutes of monitoring the flavour and texture of the dish, I decided it was time to turn off the fire. Scooping the noodles into a glass dish, they made a nice brown foundation, upon which I put the sliced omelettes and then sprinkled a dash of spring onions to give it a pretty tantalizing yellow and spring green top.
Had it for breakfast this morning – it was delicious – going extremely well with Lee Kum Kee chilli and garlic sauce. The most authentic and Chinese breakfast in long long time! : )
Comfort Chinese food
There are days where I crave comfort food, simple Chinese cooking that does not require alot of expensive nor complicated ingredients, just dishes that aren’t easily available here in Buenos Aires. Although thankfully, there are quite a few Chinese restaurants here and there, somewhere in a corner of a particular neighbourhood, but particularly so in Barrio Chino. Yet Chinatown is considerably far from Palermo, and you have to take the train (El Subte) linea D all the way to Juramiento, where it’s located, but from there I don’t know how to walk to Barrio Chino. There are buses which can take me all the way there from Plaza Italia, but I still haven’t gotten the head for directions to make my way there on my own with public transportation.
So what do I do on days that I can’t or am too lazy to go down to Barrio Chino? How do I curb the Chinese food craving? Well 2 options: Order delivery or cook. Till now, I have yet to try Chinese delivery. Debora tells me that Chinese delivery (Chau fan, Chau mien, Chop Suey etc) are pretty cheap and good, going for about 15 pesos for a rather large portion. Till now however, I am still skeptical. I have yet to have someone recommend me a good place for Chinese delivery, so until then, I have the only other option – cooking.
Last Thursday, I decided on a whimsical spur of the moment that I would cook fried rice – something more commonly known to Argentines and also a dish that is usually palatabe and easily conquered. I popped my magical plastic rice-cooker into the microwave and thankfully this time with just 10 minutes in the microwave, the 2 cups of rice (roughly 3 adult portions) came out just the way I wanted – not too sticky and just the right texture for cooking fried rice. I let the rice stand for about 2 hours (a trick I learnt from Faye when we stayed together in Mannheim) while I did my own stuff, and prepared the rest of the ingredients. I chopped roughly about 4 cloves of garlic into fine bits, then sliced 3 chicken sausages into little pink circles. After letting the wok heat up for a while, I sprinkled the garlic into the hot oil and watched with delight as they turned a golden caramel brown. Then I threw in the sausage circles and stir-fried them for a couple of seconds. With the life-saving chinese sauces by my side, I scooped the white rice and dumped it into the wok and after pouring oil in zig-zag motion over the rice, I started stirring the rice frantically, to get it evenly oiled. Next came the soya sauce and sesame oil, and using the wooden spoon I stirred the rice over and over, repeating a cycle of pouring more soya sauce and sesame oil, tasting a spoonful of rice and stirring it somemore. I also beat a couple of eggs and poured them over the rice, to give it a bit more oriental flavour. All in now!
Finally, when the rice had turned a nice satisfying brown, I served it up, and to my absolute surprise and delight, it was a great success! It might have been even better with spring onions and maybe diced chicken or shrimps, but still, it was well-received!
Now I can’t wait to cook the next Chinese dish – the only problem now is, what other easy to cook and nice-tasting dishes can I bring to the table? Hmm…
Home alone on a brilliant sunshine morning
What a beautiful day to just chill at home, at peace with my surroundings. There is an uninterrupted blue in the sky, illuminated by bright sunshine outside my window, and the slight breeze that passes through the small still gap in my window fills the room with fresh, crisp air.
I decided to treat myself to a nice warm homemade breakfast of scrambled eggs with stir-fried bacon, and started on my first time cooking breakfast here. What serenity it was to cook without being in a rush, without pressure and just enjoying the autonomy in the kitchen. A few minutes of cooking therapy and a plate of healthy yellow scrambled eggs and golden pink strips of pan fried ham later, I was in complete bliss.
What a delightful way to start the day, some alone time to pen my thoughts, and speak on the phone to one of my best friends in the world. I am happy.
My microwave rice-cooker wonder
Hola a todos! (Hello to all)
Yesterday I embarked on my first adventure to cook a Chinese meal for Juan’s family (with Susana’s help of course, and with the exception of Juan Carlos who was out having dinner with a friend). And….I am mighty pleased to say that the results were way better than I expected!
I started with the making rice – I can’t believe how easy it is to cook my almost favourite staple! Just wash and dry the rice, put it in the rice cooker with slightly more than the same amount of water, and then pop it into the microwave, and viola! Rice in less than 15 minutes! AMAZING LIFE SAVING DEVICE!
So, with the rice settled, we started cooking the dishes, starting with beef and onions – a nice sweetly-onion flavoured dish with diced bife de lomo. Second dish on the menu was chicken, cut into small pieces, sauteed with salt and soya sauce. But the best dish of all was the Kai Lan, which was first blanched in hot water (letting the stalks cook a little longer than then leaves) and then stir-fried together with a garnishing of garlic, onions and yummy sliced mushrooms, and the magic ingredient – oyster sauce!! That panda brand oyster-flavoured sauce did the trick I suppose – it was the most well received dish among the boys and Susana! And they even had 2 helpings of rice each – beyond my wildest imagination!
It was sort of a Argentine-Chinese cuisine mix – una mezcla de dos culturas! I still have some rice leftover – didnt realize that 3.5 cups of rice could feed up to 5-6 people! So i guess it’s going to be used for fried rice one of these days, and more Kai Lan! Am awfully pleased that the first batch of rice turned out better than expected – maybe slightly too sticky for their liking, but for me was perfect. I didnt realize how much I was missing rice until I ate it!
The only problem with Chinese cooking is that to create a whole meal, so much work is involved – cutting and peeling the onions & garlic – whose smells scare off everyone including vampires, and the amount of washing up that needs to be done after using all the many dishes! Regardless, now that the first experiment was quite a delight, I’m going to try to be more adventurous and try other Asian dishes. So amazing how the right ingredients certainly create a whole new culinary experience! Most importantly, Susana said, that when you cook, you cannot be afraid your dish isnt going to turn out well – you must have confidence with using the ingredients, stirring the dish cooking in the pot, and of course, sprinkle a large dash of love.
Alright, am going to eat something for breakfast in a bit – just wanted to jot this down before I busy myself with a bunch other other thing, and to bring back news from the Latam continent! Hasta luego!!
Excursion to the Asian Supermarket in Barrio Chino!
Today I did a couple of things, spending most of the day with Susana.
In the morning, we went to get my insurance settled; in less than 15 minutes the process was completed and we were out of OSDE. We hit Manchini in Alto Palermo to source for a birthday present for Juan carlos.
The highlight was in the afternoon however – we went to Chinatown to buy a couple of chinese ingredients, and walking around those 3 blocks with Chinese lettering on the shopfront windows, and seeing Asian faces, I felt half at home and half foreignor. Yet what a delight it was to walk into an Asian supermarket teeming with sacks of rice, noodles, soya sauces, chilli pastes, Lee Kum Kee condiments, and instant noodles! You can’t imagine the delight that blanketed me as my eyes opened in excitement upon taking in the wonder of realizing that yes, at least these items were still available, though I was thousands of miles and seven seas away from home. Yet, I was lost. Having not been domesticated while living in Singapore – I can only cook to survive, not to please tastebuds – I was at a lost of what to buy for whipping up some Chinese dishes to impress Juan’s family.
Susana and I ended up getting rice, oyster sauce, chilli paste, kai lan, mushrooms that was about it. It’s incredible how ingredients confound me more than a store full of clothes. I saw vegetables and foodstuffs like Want Want biscuits which I grew up eating; but looking at them now, I wouldn’t die if I didnt get to eat them. It was quite embarrasing to admit that I didnt really know how to cook and hence couldn’t really offer advice regarding which was Thai Basil or how best to cook a particular vegetable.
I was however quite surprised at the number of Argentines who were shopping at the Asian supermarket! I certainly didnt expect to see quite so many there, nor did I realize the huge interest they had in Asian cuisine. It was quite a pleasure to witness it.
Now that I’m living away from my family and will have to cook for myself soon, I better go research on Asian recipes. It’s really quite embarrassing that I can’t cook, and worse of all, have to admit it. at least with western food I can say that I am Chinese and can’t cook western. But what excuse do I have for Chinese cuisine!
Oh dear oh dear!
