Cooking or Assembling?

Teh:

We haven't had one of these random musing posts for a long time so i thought i should write one =)

Cooking or Assembling?

Of late, whenever i eat out, i feel like my food on the plate has been assembled rather than cooked. Do you get that feeling sometimes? Whether its fishball noodles, economic veg rice, char kway teow, fish and chips or whatever you are having, did the food feel tasteless? Like no thought was put into the preparation or cooking process. It's an assembly of ingredients and sauces. Even the food my mum cooks sometimes taste like an assembly (don't say i said that)! I know she is very busy and doesn't always have time to cook. I appreciate her tremendous effort in putting dinner on the table every night. Mummy is the BEST! Oops, i digressed.

Yes, back to cooking. I love cooking. I love the whole thought process of it and the actual event itself. I enjoy thinking about what i'm craving for, what new recipes to try, how i can tweak things i already know how to make, how to make it taste and look better. I feel excited just thinking about going to the supermarket to pick the fresh ingredients and be surrounded by endless possibilities! (Do you know why fresh ingredients taste better?  That's another story for another time) I think one of the BEST part of cooking is imagining how people's faces look like when they finally taste the food. "WOW SOoooo GOOD!" "How did you do this?" "When are you cooking this again?" Who isn't a sucker for compliments for the food they cooked? He/she is a liar ;)

Guess what i'm cooking tomorrow? Glutinous rice. You may be thinking it is such an easy dish. Initially i thought so too. Until i start thinking about how to make the dish better! I must fry my own peanuts because those bought outside just don't taste as good as freshly fried peanuts. I must fry my own shallots. Same reason as the peanuts. I suck at peeling shallots. It's going to be time consuming. I wish i had a microwave oven at home. They make speedy fried shallots. Almost effortless! But i don't so its back to the wok. I also must make my cai por! Because my family loves my cai por. I love my cai por on the glutinous rice. Cai por needs to be soaked and cooked. In order to serve it in time for lunch tomorrow, i have to start cooking it tonight and throw it into the slow cooker. It'll taste heavenly by tomorrow. Glutinous rice needs to be soaked overnight before i steam it in the morning. What else? We can't just be having glutinous rice right? So i made popiah filled with mango and nata de coco. I prepared those before hand on Sunday. Frozen and ready to be deep-fried tomorrow. I'm also toying with the idea of preparing a mixed vegetable dish. But i haven't had time to get the vegetables yet. Should i put garnish on the rice? Spring onion? Red cut chilli? So many decisions to make and things to do, just for the perfect dish! Or of course you can just buy cooked glutinous rice outside for $2 for the easy way out. Your pick.

So whats the big occasion tomorrow? My little nephew is coming to my house for lunch!