Happy Birthday Illie Mako

So as most of you know, I had a birthday sometime this week, who even knows. Anyways, my friends all chipped in and got me this legit 7" Japanese Santoku blade. Putting this thing in my hand feels amazing I haven't tried it out yet so hopefully it is sharp as fuck. Also, when I found out about Japanese knives, I learned that they are sharper on the right side than they are on the left, like a 70/30 distribution. Not sure why but it makes sharping this thing a lot harder if I wanna keep that edge...and I do. Fuck, gotta figure that out. Prob gotta use a stone. Anyways, Thanks gais! I love it.

Yeeeee

So, in honour of Stefy's parents leaving, I decided to write on how to cook rice since the kid had so much trouble the one time lololol.

There are 3 ways to cook rice, each more deadlier than the last.
1. Rice cooker method
Easiest way to cook rice. Rice comes out perfect every time and doesn't stick to the sides. I don't even measure anything out with rice cookers, I put some amount in, and make sure there's a bit of water above the rice (like 1cm or less) and then cook it.

2. Absorption Method
This method is exactly the same as the rice cooker basically, except you are using a saucepan and unlike your rice cooker, your saucepan wasn't blessed by a monk, therefore, you can easily fuck up your rice.

How much piggin rice do you need?
For 2-3 people, 1 cup (250 ml) rice and 2 cup (500 ml) water
For 1 person, 1/2 cup (125 ml) rice and 1 cup (250 ml) water

How can she slap?
- First, figure out how much water and rice you need.
- Lastly, put the water, rice and a pinch of salt into the sauce pan and put the stove on High and boil it for 9 - 13 minutes (with a lid of course)

3. Boil and Steam
So at this point I should point out that the way you cook rice will determine how the rice feels and tastes. With the absorption method, the rice comes out heavier (because it absorbed all the water) and stickier (because it absorbed all the starch). This method makes the rice more filling and Asian style. The boil and steam method makes the rice lighter and less sticky which is good for absorbing sauces and curries and such. Personally, I prefer this method of cooking rice, because you waste less rice. With the other method, if you have a shitty saucepan, the rice will usually stick to the sides and burn. Yeah the rice in the middle is ok to eat, but the rice that is burnt is wasted and a bitch to clean out after wards.

How can she slap?
- So with this method, it does not matter how much water you use (well there is no such thing as too much, but don't put in a teaspoon of water for 2 cups of rice you retard). Put the stove on high and bring the water to a boil (with a pinch of salt) and then pour the rice in after and cook for 8 min.
*I should point out that if you have a kettle, use that to boil the water and then put it into the saucepan saving a small about (like a cup) in the kettle for later. I'll explain that in a sec.
- Here is the tricky part, when you are done, grab a sieve and quickly pour the rice in it and catch the water that is dripping from the bottom back into the saucepan (about an inch of water). Sounds tricky but luckily you boiled the water in a kettle first. So pour the rice into the sieve, then pour the leftover water from the kettle into the saucepan and put the sieve on top.


theres a sieve just in case lolol

 - Finally, put a lid on the saucepan (it won't fit on to properly but that's ok) or cover the saucepan in tin foil and put the stove on Med-High to High and let the water evaporate and steam cook the rice for 5 to 10 min. Righteous!

Thanks again for the present gais!

Roasted Tilapia with Tomato Curry Sauce

This is the first curry dish I ever cooked. Being the scrub that I am, I have only had a handful of curry dishes so far in my life so I am very noob at all the flavours and what not. Still haven't even scatched the surface on brown food, I'm always so weary of eating shitty brown food because I would like to be able to tell the difference between pro brown and nasty mall food shit. It's like when I hear that people like Mau Du Gross Pho, I'm like shii... that food is sooo bad, I'd rather eat sauce than that... jk jk. I would never do that.

On another note, I got this recipe from LCBO Food and Drink magazine that they give out for free. Those books are really really pro. You should try and grab them when you can. It'll come in handy. Stefy you too. That way, when I forget to grab one I'll just take yours like I did the one time :D

Roasted Tilapia with Tomato Curry Sauce
From LCBO Food and Drink: Holiday 2010

I made this in Fishtown with Sam and Caitlin... as in just Sam, but Caitlin ate it too lolol. Also, this recipe called for Halibut but we couldn't find that shit, I'm guessing the encounter rate for a Halibut in the wild is probably 10% and 90% Tilapia.

Uncle Ben provided the rice and Sam made bok choy lolol

Ingredients
Marinade
- ginger and curry paste
Curry
- coriander, cumin, onion, garlic, tomatoes, ginger, cayenne pepper
- coconut milk
- mango chutney
- chicken stock

Notes to Ingredients
- Coconut Milk: This ingredient basically brings the whole thing together. Before adding the coconut milk, this just wasn't curry to me; it was just tomatoes mixed with a bunch of veg and spices. There is also coconut cream too. Other than how thick it is I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe taste, iunno, I'll figure it out sometime. Point is... coconut milk = bowss

Cooking
Nothing too biggie with this one. At one point we had to put all the tomatoes in a blender (or Magic Bullet lawl) with all the other ingredients and blitz it until it was smooth. Not sure if its just me, but doing that felt so weird. I'm so used to putting fruit, ice and juice in a blender lololol

Tips/Things I learned
- As the name suggested, we had to roast the tilapia in the oven. With fish, you don't want to over cook it and have it dry out. Keep the light on in the oven, and when the white juices start to appear at the top you should take it out and it will be moist and tender
- I've said it before and I'll say it again, everyone should start putting the plates/bowls in the oven to warm up, shit is cash
- We used as much pepper as the recipe told us, but it wasn't spicy. I like my curry hot, so next time, I'm gonna pack in the spice :D

Mega Homemade Cheeseburgers

Mega Homemade Cheeseburgers
From Jamie Oliver's 20 min meal app

The title is what Jamie Oliver calls this recipe lololol

Waffle Fries! and nasty pickles ugh.

Ingredients (Some of them):
- Ground Beef
- onion, egg, bunch of spices
- Paremsan cheese, Cheddar cheese
- Breadcrumbs
- White wine vinegar

Notes about ingredients:
- Never bought breadcrumbs before, went to Vincenzo's and go a thing of their own bread crumbs, pretty sweet. Found it in the bakery section. For some reason I thought it was somewhere else.

Tools:

Food Processor: Needed one, still don't have a food processor lawl. I used my dad's infomercial Rocket Chef appliance which is just a shitty manual version of a food processor. Thing fucking sucked lololol.

Grill Pan: Don't have one of these either. Do want. I just used one of those silly normal frying pans

Cooking:
- Not much to say about this, mix all the ingredients, put it in the fridge for a while and then fry it huge until it looks delicious lolol

Tips/Stuff I Learned:
- Run the onion in cold water and you won't cry as much (doesn't work that well with me though)
- Leave the homemade burgers in the fridge as long as possible so that they stay together when you start to fry it

Now for some righteous stuff, everyone needs to know how to use a knife properly.

Szechuan Chicken Stir-Fry

My very first dish I made after a long hiatus of fail. Back in Grade 12 when I was learning to cook, I never made anything that was good. Barely edible and threw out most of the food. Huge noob. After that, I stopped making stuff for a long ass time, and beginning 2011 I got my springtime of youth for cooking again and got right back into it. I only wish I could talk with Mr. B again, I know so much more now and the conversations would be way more pro. That man was huge OG!

Here is the first recipe I went for:

 Szechuan Chicken Stir-Fry

From: Jamie Oliver's 20 Min Meal App (best cooking app ever)

P.s. I'm not going to be putting any recipes on here that aren't mine (i.e. from cookbooks)



Pics don't look as good as IRL.. or taste as good ROFLMAO!

Ingredients: 

(Some of the important ones)

- free-range/organic boneless chicken thighs

- szechuan peppercorns

- cilantro, ginger, garlic, scallion etc.

- dried red chiles

- sweet chili sauce
- yellow peppers

- peanuts (man, I love any dish with so many peanuts...mmmmm)

Notes for ingredients:

Here is the stuff

Szechuan peppercorns: this shit right here... hardest things to find if you don't know where too look. Anyways, this stuff is located in Chainese grocery stores in the spices sections. Another thing that makes this tricky to find is that it goes by many names in NA like, "Szechuan Pepper", "Prickly Ash", "Aniseed Pepper", and "Chinese Pepper". 

The rest is easy to find unless you have something that is the opposite of up lolol

Free range/organic meat is the best. I'll never go back and I think everyone should try it. Stuff you get at the grocery store is very weak sauce: stuff doesn't look good, taste good, feel good etc. Maybe I'll rant about this topic more in the future.

Tools:

Pestle and mortar: I bought this thing a while ago and in case you don't know what it is, its an old timey tool to crush things, like spices. These things are made of different materials but I recommend you go for the stronger ones like marble or wood and stay away from the ceramic ones and what not. Just doesn't feel sturdy to me.

For this recipe, I had to coat the raw chicken with crushed dried peppers and szechuan peppercorns. Yeah you could buy your ingredients already crushed and most of the time I do too. But when I have special ingredients and I have the opportunity to crush them myself, I do it. In the end, it is just more fresh if you use a pestle and mortar and your spices will smell great. Don't be lazy, food needs a little love sometimes :D

Cooking:
Stir Frying:
- With stir-fry, prep all your ingredients before hand (even if the recipe says otherwise) and have them ready near your stove, because with stir-fry, shit cooks fast and stuff needs to be put in at the right times. Noobs like us shouldn't be doing too much at once or you might end up doing something wrong.
- Common misconception about stir-fry is that you can cook a lot of it at the same time. Well as the man himself Jamie Oliver recommends, you should cook a maximum of two portions at a time. That way, your food actually stir-fries instead of steaming together like it would if there was so much shit in your wok.
- Constantly keep you food moving or I'll kill you
- Always use an oil that can withstand high-muthafuckin-temperatures. With stir-fry, your stove should be on "full wack" so don't use olive oil. Canola oil and veg oil should do the trick.

Tips/Things I've Learned:

- Google any ingredient you don't know. It'll help you when you search for ingredients
- With meat, you should try and take it out 30 min before cooking to let it warm up a bit. If meat is too cold and you throw it on a hot pan, itll "tense" up and become more tough. You probably want delicious tender meat right? lolol :)
- When you prepare ginger, use a spoon to scrape the skin off instead of a knife and you'll waste less ginger... I know eh? Respek.
- Warm up your plates and bowls in the oven. Shit was so cash.

For next time:
- Don't coat chicken with too much peppercorn/chilis unless I'm feeding brown people or Sher

P.S. A lot of the stuff I learn is from watching Jamie Oliver. The man is my cooking hero. Ya'll should check him out.

This is wasup

There comes a time in every man's life where he feels the need to write about stuff. A-Town writes about Pokemon on his Glitter account, Stefy writes about his feelings in his journal that no one knows about but me, and I am going to write about cooking. More specifically, I'm going to post pictures, and tips and things I've learned and all that nasty shit. 

Basically this blog is chat logs for my cooking. Gotta remember all the shit that happens so I don't fuck up with the same mistakes.

Inb4 I give up on this blog so fast

I most likely will.... but when? :)

- Mako