I cook?

I spent the first two years of my university life without a kitchen that I would want to use on a daily basis. Sure we had a communal kitchen, but the fridge was just ghastly and it wasn’t that easy to buy fresh food to cook. So, I ate out a lot. Come to think of it, I don’t know how I did that.

Now that I’ve came over to UK for the last two years of university, I’ve had to cook way more. Well I cook with my other housemate, since we agree on food. There’s been ups and downs, periods where I’m so uninspired and do a lot of stir-fries like last year. There have also been quite a few experiments. This year has been better, we’re not as thrifty after staying here long enough to not mentally convert everything to Ringgit when doing groceries. We have also since discovered the joys of washed and ready to eat/cook spinach, great convenience. Tinned peeled plum tomatoes are another great convenience. One thing’s for sure, the oven is a good friend, the microwave oven even more so.

Just this week, I had a proper lunch created entirely in the microwave oven. See we have this rice cooker container that cooks rice in the microwave oven, nifty. Then I microwaved a frozen cod loin chunk on a small plate, 2.5 minutes the box said it needed, speedy. Then in a separate bowl, I microwaved some sesame oil, chopped garlic (I use chopped garlic from a jar) and soy sauce for a while, it gets really aromatic. Pour the nice sauce over the fish, leaving a bit in the bowl to microwave some lettuce in. Take the bowl out, shove the shrunken lettuce to a side, place the rice in the bowl, eat with the fish and the wonderful sauce. Ah a bit of white pepper, yes.

Anyway, I made this chicken dish after my housemate made something similar. It sounds really simple in theory, but it was really good. I used a chicken breast fillet and butterfly-ed it into two thin strips. Made a paste with cornflour, five spice powder, salt, dark soy sauce, and quite a bit of ground black pepper. I bought whole black pepper all the way from Sarawak, a whole bag of it. Some people import a lot of Milo, or junk food, I like my Sarawak pepper. Ok, so back to the chicken, you’ve got the sort of paste/sauce thing that I just dipped the chicken in. And then into the oven it went for about 20 minutes.

It doesn’t look like much, but it was well worth the effort. The chicken was tender, moist even, and the peppery saltiness with a bit of cinnamony sweetness was just… right. The eggplant was also oven-ed, but it didn’t need much, just some oil, salt and pepper. Now that was comfort food alright, with rice.

Ok, the food photo above really doesn’t cut it but well… I found another food photo from this random time around exam time after making a super speedy lunch and just thinking why not photograph it, so photograph it I did.

Something about this photo is just quite photogenic, if I may say so myself, though it isn’t glam at all. But for a speedy lunch this is quite a feat, covers all the basic food groups and isn’t too shabby. Whack some frozen corn with tuna from a tin and mayo, salt and pepper. Layer it on wholewheat bread, cheese on top, more black pepper. Then whack it under the grill. Serve with some greens, in this case I had spinach. Beats those cold sandwiches or pasta salads anytime. Crispy toast with corn and tuna mayo, with cheesy gooey goodness on top, comfort fast food alright. Though I wouldn’t eat this on a regular basis, not really a toast or sandwich kind of person.

I guess what I’m trying to say in this post is students shouldn’t have to eat miserably or go broke eating well. Simple ingredients with a bit of care can make a meal, and quite a decent one at that. =)

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