08 March, 2011

Cooking for beginner

Every time I opened my Facebook page, I always found and couldn't help admiring, the cookings that were made and posted on Facebook wall. We must agree that cooking takes time and -the case for cooking Asian food in Europe- money. A beginner in cooking department, I want to share something I have learned about cooking. No one ever told me this, it comes from my own experiences and I would like to share it here for you who never entered the kitchen -like I did- before:
  1. Combine garlic with red onion or large onion with red onion, try to use several kind of onions (or all three of them if available) to enhance the food taste.
  2. You could not afford to short with pepper, specially for cooking meat and seafood.
  3. In almost every Indonesian food, it is necessary to add an exact amount of red onion to make it taste impressive (but if it is TOO MANY, it will makes the food taste bitter).
  4. If the recipe contains ginger, we must careful too. Exact amount will makes the food GREAT. TOO MANY than the food becomes UHUKKKK!
  5. Train yourself to measure the exact amount of salt you need to pour into your cooking (pasta and vegetables needed lots of salt and pepper, eggs only need few salt but more pepper).
  6. Speaking of salt and pepper, my meat cookings have won several praise from my 'friend' & friends who had taste it. My secret (so proud because I had use logic on my first attempt long-long time ago and proved to be right *ohkaaay, cut out the self satisfaction will u!!*) is: I usually save twenty minutes before frying to marinate the meat with salt, pepper, and other spices. I gave them a good massages in those spices before fried the meat in a generous volume of oil. I always cooked my meat even before I made it into Curry, Smoor or even Chicken Cola, because I could not consume meat that is not perfectly cooked. WARNINGG!!! BUT THIS IS STRICLY FOR BONY CHICKEN WINGS/AYAM NEGERI A LIKE, DO NOT WORK FOR BROILER (GOOGLE BUTTERMILK CHICKEN RECIPE FOR THIS ONE)
  7. Either you like seafood, burger meat or while you are short with salt, or when you are too lazy to marinate with spices, pull out the butter from fridge. I got this from watching that Julie & Julia. The handy things of frying with butter is, you don't need to add salt if you are frying in butter. It will be enough salty. Frying with butter also best for fried eggs. Omega 3 from butter plus eggs potentially enhance your memory.
  8. To accompany your Indonesian and pasta cookings, green chili and green pepper taste superb over the red one (except if you are making 'spicy sambal' *ooooh how I miss sambal*).
  9. My new way of cooking fried rice without sambal: heat two spoon of butter, add garlic, add red onion, pour down eggs/shrimp/fish balls, after the eggs start to fries, add chopped green chili (rawit), add rice, add sesame oil. Eat while warm.
  10. Keep tasting. Until it's cook and ready to serve, keep check on the food taste. Cooking is like painting, it is necessary to keep adding final touch here and there until you are satisfied.