garlic hands

was invited to shiri's place to cook a singaporean meal with her for her family.. i was complaining about being not able to cook and having to eat out at restaurants all the time! so she suggested taking me to shop for asian stuff at this asian grocery in carmel market and cooking at her place one weekend! she'll ask some family and friends along so that i can poison them as well! haha :D

the first dish that came to my mind was chicken rice! haha typical right? one of the all time dishes to cook when i'm overseas! she suggested shrimps for one of the dishes.. i think the idea was inspired by a conversaion i had with yaniv about the things jewish people cannot eat, one of them being shrimps. shiri joined in the discussion and commented that she din like shrimps, thought they were creepy (oh i'm so reminded of morgan chan and his FEAR for shrimps!!!) and din taste exceptionally good.. i rebutted that it's probably cos israelis don't cook good shrimps since they dun eat much of that.. hehe not sure if that's true anot lah! so i thought of cooking the tomato onion garlic ginger shrimp my mama makes.. we needed another meat dish and char siew came to mind! :) i've not tried this one before, but after researching the recipes, i decided that it was doable! and finally for the "vegetable" dish, i suggested rojak!

the morning started early cos we had to be at the market before the crowd comes in.. but turns out we were still pretty late! the first stop was an asian shop! it looked pretty run-down from the outside.. i wouldnt know that it's an asian store if not for shiri who decided that all stores with red walls are asian.. there was a white (and dirty) lantern hanging outside the shop.. am i right to say that it's not very auspicious to hang white lanterns? haha if that's true, then that's another myth busted! anw, i was very thrilled (shrieking in joy and all) to find all kinds of familiar sauces and seasonings there! they had oyster, hoisin, 5 spices, chilli garlic sauce, BELACHAN, TAMARIND, KECAP MANIS! quite amazing leh the selection! and even more amazing that it's been almost 1.5 years since i first arrived in israel and only now i find out about its existence!

we happily shopped for the sauces needed for the dishes and left for the main market! first thing that caught my eye was CHERRIES! piles and piles of red cute cherries! :) muahaha! i love cherries! :) mountains of cherries! i could eat cherries all day! okay enough about cherries! we headed for the bigger asian store - east and west! and guess what we found there! hainanese chicken rice paste and char siew sauce by asian gourmet, product of singapore! we should have come here first man, then we wouldnt have needed to buy the stuff for marinating the char siew! haha i got a packet of the chicken rice paste cos i scared the rice not tasty enough.. decided we'll be adventurous and try making our own charsiew without help and mostly because we already bought all the seasoning needed for the marinate lah haha!

continued shopping in the market, bought all the necessary ingredients for the dishes we were making.. except mabbe for the rojak.. they din have what we needed! e.g. pineapple ($20 for a puny one!), mang-guang, youtiao, mango... so we substituted with apples, kiwi, peppers!! haha so un-rojak! but got the spirit lah! rojak mah, anyhow mix lah!

went back to shiri's apartment to store the stuff and marinate the pork.. shiri had to go for dance, so i did the marinating on my own.. i totally didn't follow the portions of seasoning needed, just anyhow dump and throw like how i usually cook, go by gut feel! haha it smelled like smthing i would have whipped up for dinner leh, given that i just throw all the sauces in as i please, so was a little worried that it will turn out un-charsiew! but they oso dunno wat it's supposed to taste like right?! heh..

walked back to my hotel after that, and on the way back, i stopped by a shopping mall, where i impulse-bought a bag!! now i'm slightly regretting the purchase! 2nd thing i bought on impulse in the last week! :( jiaying.. control control!!

was at shiri's house again at about 6pm! started with boiling water for the chicken and preparing the charsiew.. the instructions said to fry the pork first.. was very nervous when the pork was cooking in the pan cos the smell and colour of the pork did not look right!... but still continued even though gut tells me smthing is wrong.. i convinced myself that after putting it in the oven and roasting it for a bit, it will be okay... the recipe told us to roast the pork for 30minutes, and in last 10minutes we were supposed to broil it.. at 20minutes, i opened the oven to check it and it's chow-tar! wah! i saw shiri's face, and it was not a very happy expression! 1st dish and we failed already! what will we eat for dinner man? i din give up all hope yet cos the chow-tarness looked right, so i sliced a small piece open.. and wah it actually looked like char siew leh!! :) and it also tastes like it! :D shiri tried some too and she liked it! by dinner she was loving it! pronouncing it to be the most successful dish of the day! yay! that was a boost in morale!

shall skip the other cooking parts and go straight to dinner.. the chicken rice turned out so-so.. i can nver master good chicken rice! so many years of practice and still so horrible! the reaction for the rojak sauce was "interesting", "special".. haha in other words, they din really like it, but i must say that it tasted similar to rojak sauce, not that my cooking was bad! and shrimp was quite a hit! we used canned tomato pasta sauce by mistake, so i added soy sauce, chilli sauce, kecap manis to make it taste less pasta-ish.. and it turned out pretty well! though it was nothing like i intended it to be! and the charsiew! top favourite dish! muahaha! took some pics, but it's in shiri's camera, dunno if the fotos will turn out nice! :)

we had cherries and strawberries for dessert, with ben and jerry's ice-cream! was stuffed stuffed stuffed man! super full! cannot eat anymore le! but i had a great time! and i din just waste another weekend away sleeping in the hotel or watching videos all day..! now i have garlic hands cos shiri din have a chooper for me to rub my hands on to get rid of the smell! :)

ok abrupt ending. cos i want to sleep le! haha shall continue again when i wake, or not! :)