The One With The Herbal Chicken Soup

A good recipe for those who are tired of cooking too many dishes. One soup fits all. Eat with rice. *hmmm*

Recipe
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0.5 kg or 1kg of chicken parts (personally I like mid-wing chicken),
A can of button mushrooms
Herbal spices

Preparation
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Chop the washed chicken mid-wings into 2 portions. Pour chicken and mushroom together with the Herbal spices into boiling water. Boil it for at least half an hour. Done! *yummy*

The One With The Bakuteh and Assam Fish

Tonight's menu is Bakuteh and Assam Fish.

Bakuteh
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Recipe:
1 kg of pork ribs (good for 6-8 pax),
2 bulbs of garlic,
10-15 pieces of mushroom,
2 sachets of bakuteh spices (you can get it from your local supermarket).

Preparation:
Pork ribs - Thaw and wash your pork ribs. Boil it and throw away the access water.
Mushrooms - Wash and soak your mushrooms. When soft, cut away the stalk and cut into smaller bite-size.
Garlic - Peel your bulbs of garlic and wash them.

Cooking:
Put your boiled pork ribs, garlic and mushrooms into a big pot, together with the sachets of spices. Bring it to boil and then stew it for about 20-30 minutes. Serve it with sprinkles of white pepper and cut coriander to taste! *wala*

Assam Fish
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Recipe:
4-6 pieces of Batang Fish (good for 6-8 pax),
10-12 Ladies Finger,
1 Eggplant,
Pineapple (you can get the sweeted can version if you can't find any fresh ones)
3-4 Tomato,
Assam Paste (you can get the ready made ones from your local supermarket, or you can get assam seeds, chilli paste, fresh milk and coconut milk to make your own concoction).

Preparation:
Fish - Thaw and wash your fish, use a knife to scrape off access scales if any. Rub some salt onto the fish and leave it for a while.
Ladies Finger - Wash and cut into 3 inches long.
Eggplant - Wash and julienne them.
Pineapple - Cut into bite-size. If you're getting the canned ones, make sure you drain the sugar water and wash them. We don't want the all sugary taste later.
Tomato - Wash and cut into bite-size.
Assam Concoction - Mix a few assam seeds into some water. Squeeze the assam seeds to get all the soury flavour from the seeds. Then, mix the solution with 200ml of coconut milk, 100 ml of fresh milk and some chilli paste.

Cooking:
First, bring your Assam Paste/Concoction to boil. Stew the Ladies Fingers for a few minutes, followed by the Eggplant, tomato and pineapple. Finally, put in your Batang Fish and stew it for another 5-10 minutes. The Batang Fish only takes a short while to cook, so make sure you don't overcook it. Serve it whilte it's hot! *yummy*

Cook book (hey, it ryhmes!)

I'm doing a cook book. First cut, it's called Cooking Survival Kit. More like a Cooking 101. You know it's like a cheat-sheet. If you don't know how to cook, with this Survival Kit, you'll cook like a pro!

Project Household - Survival, The Apprentice and Maid Swap all rolled into one

2 weeks of blogging hiatus - long story. Presenting a new reality show - Project Household: Survival, The Apprentice and Maid Swap all rolled into one. This I gotta see, except, that I'm in it...

Our maid ran away. Nooo... we didn't ill-treat her. She just ran away, to her embassy - another long story. So, obviously this blog is not going to be about her, that ingrate! It's about an experience that makes it all worth-while.

Managing a household can be simple, but simple never meant easy. 'Expectations' and 'compromise' are too words that always pop out in my mind. 'Legacy' and 'innovations' are the other two. Coming from a Project Manager's background back in my IT days, this is one huge project that has to be managed. Traits of a Project Manager is needed in this project, just like any other project.

* Problem solving skills - how to operate the washing machine with the dry-spin mode.

* Communications skills - how to pacify and ensure that everything will be fine to Mommy.

* Resource management - which tasks is to allocate to who (3 cheers to big family!)

* Decision making skills - when to agree on better technology to help lighten the workload. eg. magic clean (sp?)

* Customer management - how to convince the changing of mindset of legacy systems to the new age systems. Mommy, being accustomed to her legacy ways of doing things, is our biggest customer. Other internal customers are my siblings who are easily convinced with lower expectations and great compromise.

* Time management - which task goes first, which task goes next.

I don't have to worry about budget and timeline. Budget has always been a non-issue. Timeline is, well, until the new maid (actually it should be the old maid - we're getting back Sannah, yay...) is here.

There are likes and dislikes. Call me crazy but I like ironing, which incidentally makes me 'indispensible' cos' no one in my family likes it. I dislike washing clothes, don't ask me why. I have no qualms with the rest of the work. In fact, I enjoy the satisfaction of the outcome of work. I can briefly divide the household activities into 5 areas.

The Kitchen Department: Includes tidying up the kitchen, washing the dishes, marketing for grocery, preparing and cooking dinner

The Clothes Department: Washing the clothes, hanging the clothes, ironing the clothes.

The Cleaning Department (Indoor): Sweeping, mopping and vacuuming.

The Cleaning Department (Outdoor): Sweeping, mopping and gardening.

The Miscellanous Department: Curtains, bedsheets, carpets, cars.

There's more insight into domestic activities than just pure mechanics. I'll blog about it hopefully in the next few days, if I have time.