The Food Canon

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.

I thought this sign gave the event a casual restaurant feel.

It was fun to serve almost 200 diners a plate of home-made Nasi Lemak at St James' Church last Wednesday evening. There was a nice home-restaurant atmosphere.

It is the largest group we have cooked for thus far. I am glad to observe that the team worked well together to ensure a wonderful dinner and evening for all. Earlier, we were expecting to cater to a crowd of 120-150. As it neared 200 the day before, we switched some plans to better cater for this increase.

This is a pictorial post and I will let the photos and captions speak for themselves. There are some food and party tips in the captions.

One of my favourite ways of eating prawns is the fried assam way.

The prawns are marinated in sugar, salt, dark sauce and assam paste (tamarind sauce). And then pan seared in a shallow layer of oil. The prawn is enjoyed with shells on. This way of cooking utilises the flavours in the shell to enhance the dish.

An Italian cook once said, "Every risotto is only one risotto." By that he meant that risotto is never the same twice.

When it comes to curries, echoing the Italian's words, "every curry is only one curry."

This is my approach to curry-making and it depends on what is available in the kitchen.

I cooked for another Nasi Lemak party recently.

A good Nasi Lemak is about getting the rice right along with a good sambal, fried anchovies (ikan bilis), roasted peanuts and sliced cucumbers.

I have blogged various posts on this and you can check them out here.

Of course this dish can be made more special for parties with additional dishes. For this particular party, I opted for fried chicken and dry seafood curry.

I love Hindi films. Surprising, eh?

I grew up as a kid singing Chal, Chal Mere Saathi oh Mere Haathi from the film Haathi Mere Saathi (Elephant my friend).

In those days, when you like a movie, you watch it many times. You pay 60 cents for the ticket and you laugh and cry again.

In recent years, I discovered The Three Idiots. My wife was sceptical about watching a Hindi film but she fell for the Idiot very quickly. It must be around 5-6 screenings now and each time, we laugh  and cry again. It is an entertaining and powerful movie, poking fun at our education systems. Rated highly in Rotten Tomatoes...