Sunday, June 1, 2008

Final attempt

I never knew how to cook and never really take the initiative to learn until one fine day I suddenly craved for mummy's fried spaghetti. Instead of cooking some canggih sauce to pour on it, she stir fry it with oyster sauce. Simple and nice. And you know, leaving the Land of Beng-Lian to the Land of Tempe-s, anything that's home-y will be nice.

Ya, so I decided to cook it by myself.

My very first exposure to spaghetti was some years back where my 3rd auntie cooked it. In my family we address our aunties by numbers, eg: 3 auntie, 6 auntie and 7 auntie. So here's this 3rd auntie of ours who loves baking and cooking western food (my 2nd auntie cooks chinese food. ok it's complicated). So one fine day, she said that she wanna cook spaghetti. Coming from a chinese background, that sounded English to me.

Her whole preparation was complicated to me. If I'm not wrong, 3 auntie cooked the sauce by herself instead of using those ready-made paste like 5th auntie, which is my mummy. It was my first experience eating "mee" by pouring sauce on top of it. How jakun.

And it was awesome!!!! Still remember the mushrooms that I chewed that day. I'm serious!!

So from that time onwards, 3 auntie's spaghetti is the standard for all the spaghetti I eat. I'll just compare them with 3 aunties spaghetti. And till now that was the first and last time she cooked spaghetti for us. (3 auntie, can cook spaghetti for us when I go back this time?!)

Ok, that's 3 auntie for you. Now mummy also cooks well. Just that mummy doesn't cook complicated stuff. All her cooking is simple, healthy and I-love-it. The very first thing that I remember mummy cooking for me is what she called it omelette. It's basically omelette with fish past in it. And I love it so much. That was the first time I hear the word "omelette". I was 3 years old then.

Like I said, mummy's cookings are simple.
Here's what happen at home.
We come back from school and, mummy, from work, we'll sleep all we want until 9pm, somebody will wake everybody up and say "hungry!!!"
Then mummy will wake up and say "let's have spaghetti"

And within half an hour, dinner is served. and everyone gets activated for the night.

Ok, that's an exaggeration. We don't usually do this but at times mummy gets really tired after work, so we'll have a nap first before dinner. And it's amazing seeing how mummy prepare and cook the spaghetti. She cooked it the way chinese cook "mee" and just that she's using spaghetti. What a great combination, I think.

So here's my attempt.

The very first time I tried cooking it with my housemate's oyster sauce, it turn out to be as black as Hokkien Mee and so salty that people thought that I cooked it in Dead Sea. It was a failure. Thanks to Lai Yin who gave criticism so gently in order that I could improvise a bit without feeling discouraged.

My second attempt was good! I came out with two flavours. Chinese BBQ (i curi Yew Kong's sauce) and Tomato. Lai Yin and YY was hungry that day. So it was apparently good. But I did enjoyed what I cooked.

My third attempt was with some chillies and tomatoes. Min Ming thought that I was joking about cooking and she was amazed when I brought her what I cooked. And she enjoyed it.

and yesterday I cooked one last time to finished off the spaghetti I bought.

the stuff that I used:


After so much of attempt, I'm pretty much know how much to put and how long to cook stuff like that. and most importantly, I feel like at home.

After much boiling, stirring, mixing, oil popping, frying, the outcome:


And it's awesome!!! I-like-it.

No matter what other people say. I enjoyed it, and I like what I cook! *grin

and what is more indulgent than having Indian Malika mango cut and waiting for me in the fridge while I'm eating my home-y spaghetti?!
Nothing!!!

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