The Food Canon

Prawn briyani rice cooked on a paella pan. Why not.

White peppercorns, coriander roots and garlic

Claypot Chicken Rice meal

My version of egg pancake

Picanha beef

Jap Beef Bowl: onions, corn, beef and rice

As I do not normally cook some of the CNY dishes, it is good to take down cooking notes. If it helps you to know what I am doing, it may give you some some ideas.

Planning for a meal up in Petaling Jaya (PJ) can be a challenge, especially if it is a kitchen which I am less familiar with. We are already in communication and various foodstuff is being bought or prepared, whether from Singapore, Ipoh or PJ.

This is what is being prepared for Reunion and rest of CNY:

So, what are you cooking for this coming Chinese New Year's Reunion dinner?

This is a special dinner where everyone comes back "home" and the family catches up with one another. It is very special for the older folks - our grandpas and grandmas - as each CNY Reunion dinner continues a chain of tradition that stretches back as far as they can remember.

I know many families these days find it more convenient to eat outside but we all know that it is not the same. In the home, the littles ones can run around and scream their lungs out while the senior ones beam and smile, seated in their comfortable chairs. You do not need to rush through dinner to accommodate the "next seating." And home-cooked meals, lovingly made, are always delicious and warms the heart, don't you agree?

2014 has been another great year of cooking, loving what I do and learning to do it better while at it. It kept my family and guests happy. It helped me to make connections with my past, my relatives, other home cooks and food suppliers.

I continue to rediscover my Wong family roots and renewing connections with my relatives. They got to read about The Malay Mail feature on my late Mum. When I was in Ottawa during my Sabbatical, I reconnected with one of my uncles and we talked about my Mum's cooking and how much he misses some of her dishes. I have also bonded with some faithful suppliers who have become friends and from whom I have learned so much about our produce. I continue to receive feedback from those who have tried the recipes on the blog and are happy with the results. It is interesting how food and cooking bring people together.

Char-grilling foods is a great way of cooking.

As old as humanity, this must be one of the earliest forms of cooking. Burn some wood. Warm yourself up in the cold. And hang some meat over the fire.

My earlier experiences of BBQ are in my youth camping days. It was almost always chicken wings and sausages galore. In part it is because these are cheap. The wings were of course mostly "chow tar" (burnt) from the sugar or honey in the marinade. We did not know any better. Even then, grilled chicken wings always excite. Somehow.

I am learning to enjoy good veg these days. Cooked the right way, it is just delicious.

Nope, I should correct myself and say that good veg can be eaten au natural. If you want to be able to judge some veg not just by how it looks, have a little snack.

It is not possible to do this in a super mart (for reasons like your conscience, CCTV cameras, you may bump into a friend, God is watching...).  For this and some other reasons, I buy most of my veg from my favourite stalls in the wet market.

Poke your fingers in my eyes and I will open wide my jaws. 
Linen cloth, quills, paper, chicken, carrots - I am greedy and devour them all.
What am I?

Using the right kitchen tools can make your cooking experience easier and more pleasant.

A good chef's knife, a slim wooden stirrer, the right chopping board for the right task, a good strainer etc can make a big difference to your cooking efficiency. A good tool need not be expensive. It just needs to be well designed and fitting for the task.

My wife thinks I sound like a housewife pedalling cookware like those at shopping centers when I talk like this. This is not an advert post but in sharing this, I trust a tool tip like this can be of some help to home cooks.

You are back from work. It is dinner time.

It is bad enough if you are the diner. But you are suppose to be the cook.

You open your fridge. Nothing there. You did not have the time to do any marketing over the weekend.

"We will eat out tonight...", you promptly declared. You hear some moaning in the background. "Not another long dinner outing, Mummy."

Your girl has the PSLE coming.

This blog is suppose to inspire home cooks. Recently, I was reflecting on this and realized that there may well be home cooks who may be discouraged by how well others are cooking or by complicated recipes.

So, is cooking a natural talent or something which can be learnt? As with everything else, it will always be a bit of both. Unless you are really hopeless at this, every cook can improve, may it be their techniques or recipes.

Keeping a food blog has been enormously helpful in my journey of learning and discovery as a home cook. The discipline of blogging has helped me to improve on my dishes. Careful notation, taking note of the ratio and amount of ingredients, the motivation to learn and master new recipes all take on a new level of engagement when you know others are also reading and benefitting from these.

Responses from fans and interactions with other cooks, food suppliers and food bloggers have also been a wonderful learning and enriching experience. I am thankful for every new person I have met in the course of the year, every new acquaintance made.  

You cook regularly. And like me, you always want to improve on your dishes.

You appreciate good food and you want to serve others the same.

That is an attitude I have learnt from my late Mum. She always wanted to serve her best.

I am making my Mum's Penang Hokkien Mee twice this week and thus, inspired to say something more about it though I have blogged the recipe.

Her version never fails to please. In fact, most are "wow-ed" by it.

So, what is it that makes her Penang Prawn Mee special?