The Food Canon

Every cuisine has their signature rice dishes.

I like them all: Claypot Chicken Rice, Paella, Risotto, Nasi Goreng and so on. The great thing about all the dishes is that the focus, for once, is not on the meat but the rice.

But no rice dish excites my taste buds like Nasi Briyani, especially when it is cooked using Basmati Rice. I have made it from time to time. Indian in origin, there are many types of Nasi Briyani, including versions which are more popular with Malays.

I have worked at a Nasi Briyani recipe for my home dinners using the claypot, simplifying it over a few tries to the point where it can be a regular dinner feature. Tasting good is one thing, but it must be easy to make. In this recipe, the only crockery you use is the pot. You cook in it and serve it at the table. It takes a while longer and involves more steps & ingredients than the Claypot Chicken Rice recipe but it is still practical for the usual daily dinners. From start to finish, it will not take you more than 45 minutes to prepare and cook this.

This versions is more akin to the Indian version of Dum Briyani, where the meat is cooked in the rice. You can use the same method for fish. If you prefer, you can cook the rice and chicken separately and it will taste good too.

Chicken Rendang (wet variety)

Rendang is a dry type of curry, which my Mum cooked often. I have many memories of eating her  Beef Rendang (check her recipe here) and Chicken Rendang.

According to tradition, it is an Indonesian dish. As the meat is cooked for a long time ("merandang") till the curry is dried out, it can keep for a long time. This explains why the recipe was popular during pre-refrigeration times. There are two types of Rendang, the dry and wet variety. The dry one can keep very well, even in room temperature. In fact, dry beef rendang is almost like dry beef jerky.

I have started a "Christmas" category for recipes that are suited for the season.

If you have cooked long enough, like me, you will realise that side dishes need effort and time to prepare well. Sometimes veg dishes can be harder to get right compared to the meat ones and demand more cooking attention.

I have a few favourite veg recipes which I like because they are easy to do and delicious. For these recipes I turned to my cookbooks.

Editorial: This post was first written a year ago but it has been revised and reposted.

With Christmas round the corner, you may want to start thinking about some dishes you may want to cook.

I am not partial to roast turkey as those we have here are cooked from frozen ones. But I love roast chicken and I think it is a great fit for any home Christmas meal. I have been experimenting with the best way to come up with a tasty roast chicken and sauce which is a convenient by-product of the roasting process.

In the Origins of Gravy theory set forth by Walter Matthau in the film of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, he explained that, when you cook a roast, "it comes." This method that I use makes it convenient to retain the "it comes"and turns it into a beautiful sauce - by just using one carrot and one large white onion.

By tasty roast chicken,  I am looking for a crisped flavorful skin and succulent meat (not dried out). Like Cantonese Roast Pork, the chicken skin when roasted adds flavour.

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.