Saturday, January 28, 2006
CNY Dinner in Sweden
Mum has always refused my entry into the kitchen. Her reason is always that I will mess up the kitchen and she will be the one who will be clearing up the mess. And for this, I never cooked a a proper meal for my family. But inside me, I knew that I can cook a decent meal. Not that I am a culinary prodigy; after years of observing my mum cooking and a keen interest for instructional culinary TV programmes, I have picked up a few kitchen tips and some recipes. Ok, today is the chance! The NUS-exchange gang had planned for a renuion dinner and I volunteered to cook. I felt that the people were skeptical of my ability. Originally, I thought there are only going to be 7 of us, well, maybe plus the SMU pple (Junyi, Kaixin and Charlotte) which comes up to 10. In the end, the SMU pple went to Amsterdam but another 7 people popped up at the last minute. It's not that they were not welcomed, but at least tell me in advance. I have bought all the ingredients for 10 pple and another 4 guests would make the food quantity insufficient. In the end, Don and Alec had to buy frozen pizza to make-up the food quantity. Rice was difficult to cook with a pot on the stove for such a large group. A tip I picked up from today's experience: if the rice extended over 3/4 of the pot, you have to mix the rice half-way during cooking. If not, the bottom will be super charred while the top layer will remain uncooked.
I knew that I must not disappoint my friends, so preparation started early. The first thing on my mind was to select the dishes for the dinner. I noticed that the food we have had in Sweden are pretty bland: primarily bread and vegetable salads. The food which my friends and I enjoyed are kebab; we ate them most of the time. Therefore, one of the principles that guided my dishes is: all must contain some meat to add flavor. No need a lot; just a bit to add flavor. The meat dishes must have variety, and one of them must be "Chinese". Char Siew came to my mind. It's easy to cook, flavorful, "Chinese" and adds pork to the dinner. Tenderloin was the choice of meatcut since it is rather lean with just the right amount of fat. I know that most people don't like fatty Char Siew.
The next dish was fried chicken wing. We got a packet of prawn-paste fried chicken from Lydia so chicken wing was naturally on the dining table. Besides, I think most of us want to reminiscene the taste of Singapore food; Grace was especially keen though. She always mention prawn-paste chicken in Cantonese. The instant mix was sufficient only for 500g of chicken; which is about 6 wings. Normally, frozen wings come in 1kg so I topped up another 1kg and prepared fried chicken wings. Marination was done mum-style.
The final meat was beef. This was especially tricky. I know what is the meatcut that I must get: the round. But how to say in Swedish to the butcher? I made a trip to Saluhallen, which is like a food-court cum market. They have a meat stall, a sea-food stall; some kebab fast-food and thai food. The junior butcher who served me don't know English well, I was lucky that a senior butcher understood the meatcut that I needed. I told him that I need the beef for roasting.
The vegetable dish was brocoli. We were lazy most of the time here and either steam or boil them. But one of the better way is to fry them with other vegetables, meat and sauces. So I combined brocoli with carrot, red pepper, mushroom, seasoned pork and shrimps to give a very colorful and flavorful dish.
The soup came next. I needed something which has lots of ingredients and are edible after boiling. Carrot-radish-corn soup came to mind. The sweetness of this combination will complement the salty nature of the fried/roasted meats. This soup started boiling at 10 am and lasted till 6 pm. Super sweet and very soft carrots and radish. Delicious!
The fried furong egg was the last dish to come to mind. The meats I bought are bursting the budget and I needed something cheap: eggs. And one of the easiest way to make egg delicious is to fry it with lots of other stuff. Since I had prawns and Char Siew, I capitalized on the present ingredients and come up with furong eggs. The remaining ingredients were cheap to buy: spring onion, onion and mushroom.
And that's it: the CNY dinner in Sweden. The guests enjoyed the meal tremedously, seeing all the food being cleared down the stomach is the best sight a cook wants.. The sense of satisfaction was over-whelming and the whole day of hard work was worth the effort.
The rest of the night was spent in my room with the NUS gang. Jerald, Janice and Grace planned for their London trip next Thursday. I introduced my family to the gang with a photo. Also celebrated Jerald's Bdae with an ice-cream cake. Super sugary lah; barely tasted the ice-cream. Then, we played Dai3 Di2 till 1 am ( I was a little tired to concentrate on the last few games).
# posted by William : 11:53 PM
