The art and science of cooking, part 4

Within the past few months, I’ve realized that I like to cook more than usual. As the thesis-writing and defense season draws near, I find that I generally prefer to cook at home rather than eat out. True, I get lazy sometimes and I don’t want to cook EVERY day, but I am cooking a lot more than I had anticipated before I entered the “thesis dash”. Even if I get home late, I’d prepare some home-made goodies and enjoy it with a bowl of rice. After all, what’s better than a freshly made Chinese meal served hot on a plate? Sometimes when I’m very tired, I just make something very simple that would be ready within half an hour. No complicated procedures or recipes, simple is the best!

Of course, I am living alone and almost always cooking only for myself, unless I invite friends over. The advantage is that my experiments are allowed to NOT work, and I’ll figure out what’s wrong and make it right when I DO invite my friends over! And I do love doing that. Watching friends enjoy eating food that I’ve prepared is one of the most satisfying feelings ever. Actually, two of my bucket list items involve cooking, one of them being “Cook a full dinner for my family at home” and the other “Invite my university friends to my house and cook a meal for them”. Europe, then, has certainly been my chance to hone my skills and prepare for the big days when I complete these challenges!

Well, without further ado, let’s get onto part 4 of this series. Interested in the previous posts in “The art and science of cooking” series? Check out PART 1, PART 2, and PART 3. And now, à table!

Spicy chicken is one of the typical dishes in Sichuanese cuisine. When they say spicy, they’re not kidding – the chicken should literally be buried in the chili peppers so that you’d have to dig out the meat. One day I spontaneously decided to try making this chicken dish as part of a dinner invitation. I knew my Hunanese friend would appreciate it and might even challenge the spicy tolerance of the Sichuanese, so I decided to give it a try 😉 My recipe involved marinating, deep frying, re-frying, and a final stir frying. Seems complicated, but much less work than I had anticipated. Though I didn’t bury the chicken in chili peppers (although I already put as many chili peppers as I thought I could tolerate without burning my stomach), I gotta say my recipe worked out quite well!

The art and science of cooking, part 3

Food is the ultimate epitome of enjoyment in life. As I’ve mentioned before, I will never be skinny because I love food too much. Two weeks ago I was discussing food with a colleague, and when she said she loves food, I replied, “Who doesn’t?” She said, “Some people eat because they have to, but they don’t LOVE food!”

And that is true. The art of food can be so much fun to play with. Sometimes when I am tired at night, I just throw together something simple and eat it to fill up my stomach, but when I have the time and opportunity, I play around with food in terms of taste, texture, presentation…everything! The meticulous combination of all of the above and everything else that makes food more than just something you eat…that is ART. I may not be very skilled, but I certainly enjoy the process of experimenting with food, much like doing science.

Following part 1 and part 2 of the food series, here’s the latest edition with the some new stuff I tried in the past couple of months. Enjoy! 😉

Spicy salty crispy shrimp – yes, the name is long and a mouthful, but I can’t find a better way to translate it from its original Chinese name. I was quite proud of this dish. For the longest time I’ve been wanting to try the “spicy salty crispy” way of Chinese cooking, which involves deep frying the main ingredient (could be shrimp, squid, pork ribs, etc.) and as soon as I got back to Bordeaux and had access to my kitchen again, I KNEW I had to do it. The outer shell was a bit loose because of the starch coating, but my goodness, the combination of garlic, chilli peppers, ginger, and green peppers with the shrimp…heavenly! Let me just say…SUCCESS!

The art and science of cooking, part 2

As promised earlier, here is part 2 to the food series, being posted slightly later than I had intended, but better late than never! I’ll skip the introduction since it has already been presented in part 1, so without further ado, let’s get to the goodies.

Did someone say sushi? Yes indeed! I made sushi for my friend Cindy’s birthday party last month and mmmmmm, it was worth every bit of effort. Certainly, sushi is one of those things that takes a lot of preparatory work but is also a lot of fun to make in the process. I had five main ingredients as the fillings: raw salmon, shrimp (with mayonnaise), cucumber, avocado, and crab sticks. For each maki roll (I tried to make nigiri sushi but failed miserably) I mixed and matched random ingredients and out came our delicious Japanese favourite!

The art and science of cooking, part 1

Cooking is one of my passions. Well, it started out with baking. Ever since the first time I baked a cake five years ago, I’ve been addicted to the art of baking and subsequently, cooking. Yes, I consider it an art. It is also a science, as it is the exact same thing as doing experiments in a lab. You mix things together, whisper a spell, and wait for something to happen. You usually follow a recipe or a protocol, but when those don’t exist, you just throw in whatever you have available and hope for the best. Isn’t that how it works for both cooking and lab work?

As I only developed this passion late into university, I started to expand my kitchenware collection in fourth year, a bit too late as I only had one year left to take advantage of my relatively well-equipped kitchens in Waterloo and in Toronto. By the end of the school year I had accumulated a set of baking utensils that would in no way be able to accompany me to France. Oh boo.

After coming to France, I didn’t bake as much, mainly due to the lack of a large oven, but instead I picked up cooking. As long as I had a wok (which was thankfully given to me by a friend), a pot, some basic Chinese sauces, and rice, I was ready to experiment, even with a small kitchen. (Of course, that is not to say that’s all I have, but that’s the bare minimum, anywhere.) Unlike baking, I rarely follow a recipe when I cook; instead of precise measurements and proportions, I go with past experiences – sometimes I rely on instinct – and whatever inspires me at the moment, which makes things a lot more interesting…and fun!

Many friends ask me, “Annie, what do you eat in France?” I think some people expect me to say things like cheese and baguette and things with fancy French names, like foie gras and escargots, but sorry to disappoint you. Although I do occasionally eat out and enjoy authentic French cuisine, my daily life revolves mostly around Chinese cooking. I’ve lived all my life with the Chinese way of dining and although I would probably survive without it, it wouldn’t make me very happy 😦

In this post I share with you some of the culinary experiments undertaken within the past year and a half. Unless otherwise stated, I made the dish myself. Of course, not everything is cooked the Chinese way, but most are. There will be a second entry after this one with more goodies. I don’t want you to get TOO hungry… 😉

Let’s start off with some good ol’ pancakes served with butter and the Canadian favourite, maple syrup! Yes they are typically eaten at breakfast, but who says you can’t eat breakfast food at any other time of the day? 😉 Pancakes are so simple to make as well, just mix the seven magical ingredients at the right proportions – flour, egg, milk, butter, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Then pour some batter on a frying pan, flip until both sides are golden brown, and tada! Fast, easy, and delicious. I actually had some last week but without the maple syrup, and while plain pancakes already taste pretty awesome with butter alone, I just felt that there was something missing without my sweet Canadian goodness. Time to restock.

New camera plus food

The day after I arrived in Toronto, I purchased my first DSLR, the Nikon D5100. Now, I know about 6 months ago I said I wasn’t going to get one any time soon. I guess I lied.

It wouldn’t be completely correct to say I’ve been saving up for one, because I had the funds that I needed this entire time, so money wasn’t the biggest issue. As I had mentioned before, portability and convenient was perhaps the thing that stopped me from making the purchase much sooner. What, then, changed my mind? Perhaps the more relevant question for me was, why Nikon?

I realized that I had never actually put my hands on a DSLR for a long period of time, even though I said I wanted to try it. When I saw my friends who owned one, I would occasionally ask to take one or two photos without really taking the time to figure out what was going on outside auto mode. On a recent trip to St.Emilion, I asked to hold onto a friend’s Nikon D7000 as I experimented with the settings a bit and took pictures here and there. Bingo – versatility plus image quality equals instant love.

That was probably the event that made me decide to let go of my excuses and settled for a DSLR. If I ended up with no neck pain after carrying a D7000 the entire day, a lighter D5100 would be no problem at all.

As for why I chose Nikon in the first place, well, let’s just say I’ve always been a fan of Canon. My first two cameras were from Canon, and I’ve never used a printer that wasn’t a Canon, so it would make sense that my first DSLR would be a Canon. I suppose I wasn’t as loyal as I thought I was. Then again, I never gave Nikon a chance until that fateful day when I laid my hands on the D7000, and it all changed from then on. (Sorry Canon, I’ll still keep my A2000 with me all the time, I ensure that; you won’t be abandoned.)

Deciding on the Nikon model to purchase was also no simple task. As a complete DSLR newbie, I could definitely do with some advice and suggestions. And certainly help was there from various friends who had been doing DSLR photography for a long time (oddly I think the three people I often go to for photography advice started around the same time). I played around with the Nikons at the camera shop and with the budget in mind, the D5100 seemed to be the most appropriate choice – and recommended by almost everyone – although the D3100 was the less superior and less expensive alternative, if I did want to save the $200. Then again, I figured that the camera would be staying with me for (hopefully) a long, long time, so why not invest in something that I would feel most comfortable with?

So, I have been the proud owner of my Mr.Nikon for a little more than a week, and I am loving every second of interacting with it so far. The art of photography is something that had been tempting me to immerse within its glamour for a long time, and all of a sudden a whole array of new possibilities seem to have opened up just now. I still need to take time to seriously learn how to use this baby, but I am sure the process is one that I will enjoy dearly and the investment is something I won’t regret.