Wednesday, May 30

Chicken Recipe: Chicken Curry


I am from Malaysia. Curry is one of the popular dishes. Almost everyone eats curry on weekly basis, if not daily. Anyways, I had a Malay neighbor while I was back in Malaysia. She always share the curry she cooked with us. The smell and rich aroma of curry is intoxicating. and now, I am alone in a foreign country, and this makes me miss Malaysian food more the ever. so, I look up some simple curry recipe on the internet, and I found out that the recipes requires many ingredients that are difficult to get in U.S. (or maybe I just don't know where to get it). I kinda modified the recipe, and it turned out pretty tasty. Although it is incomparable with the aunthentic ones, but the flavor of curry sort of cure my "foodsickness" temporary.

The ingredient is simple,, nothing too fancy or exotic. I admit that these herbs are essential for the strong and rich aroma that characterize a heavenly good curry, yet with a good quality curry powder, the result is still good.

now lets start;

you will need
curry powder for meat, preferably Indian curry powder.
Coconut milk, but this can be replaced by sour cream
1 onion. whatever type is fine, usually I just go with the cheapest one
potatoes
tomatoes
carrot
and of course, Chicken. *breast, tigh, drumstick. All are fine.

1. first, cut potatoes, tomatoes, carrot, and onion into small pieces
2. add oil into saucepan, stir it on medium heat until become brownish
3. put the chicken inside and stir.
4. while the chicken become white on the outside.(cooked on the outside but raw inside), add the curry powder and appropriate amount of water to dissolve it.
5.Add the potatoes,tomatoes, and carrot.
6. Add water until it covers all the ingredients
7. Add coconut milk or sour cream to thicken the curry
8. Add more curry powder if it appears "diluted"
9. Stir to mix well.
10.cover, and let it simmer on med-low heat for 40 minuetes, test chicken.
11. If curry run dry, add some water.
12. add salt and sugar for tasting.
13. Serve with rice.

how to sweeten sour oranges


I don't like sour oranges, Most of them usually end up in fridge. I came across this nice little tip that promise to reduce the sourness in oranges. The trick is to induce the production of juice in oranges so that the soury taste can be reduced through dilution before you actually eat them. Place the orange inside a container and shake it hard. The impact which the sour orange suffers will lead to production of juice inside, which will then reduce the sourness of the fruit.

I don't actually know if it works, but I guess the orange will become very watery or juicy. Not actually turning the orange from sour to sweet, but just reduce the level of sourness so it is bearable.

Friday, May 25

how to get the most out of pizza deal


As a college student, pizza is one of the essential survival food source. There's often pizza deal around the neightbourhood, and it become kinda hard to decide which one gives the best deal, until I came across this article on consumerist today.

It appears that the problem can be solved by using some simple geometry by calculating the total surface area of the pizza. Using the equation Area=pi*radius^2.

so for 2 medium 8inch pizza, the total area is 2 * pi* 4^2 = 32*pi inch square
for 1 large 12 inch pizza, the area is pi *6^2 = 36pi inch suqre
the difference : 36pi - 32pi = 4pi inch square , approximately 12 inch square , that is equivalent to an extra 4 inch pizza! ( if u wonder how i got it, that is square root of 4 for radius)

a nice trick if u cant make up your mind. :)
source

Thursday, May 24

how to soften rice using sake


There are times when I added not enough water while cooking rice ( I'm a cooking noob anyways :p) , the rice become hard and "raw". Raw rice is harder, smaller, and whiter than the properly cooked rice. A nice little tip to save myself from that situation is by adding some sake.
Use a chopstick or fork to make small holes on the rice, put a few drops of sake into it.
Contine to steam the rice for a while. The uncooked rice will become softer.

Please share your experience if you happened to find this tips useful.

how to cut a cake using dental floss

I saw this real nice trick on how to cut a cake easily thru Lifehacker.
If you haven't known lifehacker, lifehacker is a webblog that introduce useful tips that makes your *multi aspect* of life easier, from dealing with crayon drawing on wall to preventing spyware in your PC.


If you've ever had to slice a piece of cheesecake, you know it can be a bit messy. RealSimple has a way to get around this little problem - simple dental floss:
Use unwaxed, unflavored floss to slice any soft cheeses, layer cakes, or homemade cinnamon buns from a roll.
All you do is hold the floss tightly between two fingers and bear down with just a bit of pressure; the floss will slice cleanly through most any soft cake or pastry. — Wendy Boswell
Unexpected New Uses for Bathroom Items [RealSimple via DIYHappy]

visit:
http://www.lifehacker.com
http://www.realsimple.com