foody tagged

ngeahhh!!!! been tagged by cyrene. 1st time and it is about food. wooohooo!!!!

The questions

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
cook maggie can count ah? :D

hmmmm.... actually there's 2 but I'll take the real 1st one.

We the boys in our 2nd yr of undergrad and staying in a DSL. We cooked some cucur and it took some 8 of us to get it done. Naturally we divvy up the responsibilities.

1 got to be the info gatherer ie. he will call his mum and confirm the cooking procedure, cucur's colour, taste etc. Coins are his responsibilities.

1 get to be the runner cum despatch cum driver - Back then handphone is an alien concept thus this bloke's role is very very important. This bloke will always have his helmet on and always ready to carry the info gatherer to the nearest public phone, or run and get some ingredients or fire extinguishers if needed.

1 get to be the back-up runner to main runner and general worker. Very important too, just in case something came up and we need to relay the info to the info gatherer that's at a public phone booth

2 get to be ingredient mixer, smasher and general mix up. This is very important as these fellas are the ones who know how flour, onions and the cooking oil looks like. Seriously, there's so many types of onions and when we got to the cooking oil section we're just stumped.
Which one to choose lah? can't they just have 1 brand and name it cooking oil? but noooooo.... they just have to name it palm, soy (which does not look anything like soya bean drink by the way) then got different logos. Udang, kipas, 2 udangs, 2 kipas, burung helang, burung pipit, 3 udangs.. aiyoh!

1 get to be the master cook ie. the fella who actually dip or throw the processed flour into the pan or kuali or.. .. actually not sure what's it called lah

1 get to be the general "cooked" flour collector and arranger. (Me do this job) what I did was just to extend the plates, or something near the pan or kuali when the master cook say "DAH READY OIIII!!!!"

1 get to be the general aftermath clean-up fella. He is the main man in cleaning up duty but it is somewhat shared with the 2nd back-up runner and me.

So how it went? hmmmm..... this is what we learned
1. Master cook is the most difficult and dangerous job. When you put in those cucur those boiling oil just jump at you man!
So he ends up wearing his long sleeve riding jacket to cover his upper body, thick trackbottom and shoe to cover his lower body and a helmet with full visor to cover his face. We got nothing to cover his palm though.. so tough luck. But... being the genius that he is (doing his PHD now in finance) he took the rice cooker hood and use it as a shield ala braveheart :)

& those who knows Ulu then you'll know how hilarious he looks like and farking cute when he jump backwards whenever the "angry" oil just jumps at him ehehehhehee...

2. Just because the outer layer is pitch black doesn't mean its cooked inside.

3. No matter how detail the instructions are IF it is relayed to someone who don't understands the trade/thing then you might as well hire a madman to do the talking.
Yeap!! just like those boyscout/motivational/teamwork game. Info from 1 source which went through several intermediaries will result in distortion/inaccurate info. In this case just 1 ie ONE person and we got mangled info.

and finally

4. No matter how bad your cooking (or your loved ones cooking) you'll end up eating it all for 1 reason or another. But more likely its either don't want to waste it, or to soothe up the ego of the cook (in this case our own collective ego lah)

**ps : cyrene dear, consider point no 4 when your hubby keep on eating whatever it is that you cook ok :P


Who had the most influence on your cooking?
The fully covered FRU lookalike mastercook. I devote quite an amount of time for research on how to reduce the angry jumping boiling cooking oil after that


Do you have an old photo as “evidence” of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it?
duh! we're all too bloody busy lah!

Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
CUCUR!!!!

What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest let down?
valued would be those riding jacket that I wore to cover my hands whenever the mastercook "throw" the "cooked" food at the plate I'm holding.

Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!
ermmm.... errrmmmmm..... Sometimes I miss those rather "kembang" maggie mee lah. The one that you soak in water for such a long long time instead of the usual 3 minutes.

Reminds me of my secondary boarding school days where we just take some laundry pail cum baldi mop lantai put some maggie and just pour some water in it. Sometimes the water is a bit cold so have to wait for it to get soaked. Once its soaked we'll sit in a circle and then take turns of having a "bite" ie. a spoon per person and pass the pail to the one on your right. So given it is a minimum of 10 people and it took quite sometime to finish, by tthe end of it the instant noodles at the bottom would be really soaked or simply squashed and "kembang" and broke into 10,000 pieces. Stilll.... we makan!

What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don’t want to live without?

1) Potato - Not really but ok lah since cyrene love it so much

2) TEMPOYAK!!!!

3) TEMPOYAK at IKEA!! :D

Any question you missed in this meme, that you would have loved to answer? Well then, feel free to add one!

ermmm.... does the cucur turrns out ok?
YEAH!!! don't you know that well done is the IN word 10 yrs ago? duh!

Three quickies:
Your favorite ice-cream… : X-choc
You will probably never eat… : wood, steel and leather seats
Your own signature dish… : "Believe it or not... my Hubby claims I make a mean Fried Bee Hoon." yeah yeah yeah.... refer to point no 4 from the 1st Q answer :P

actually, once upon a time while at overseas I manage to make somekind of soup that is edible. Quite an achievement IMO

Who do you want most to cook you dinner? (added in by Oslo Foodie)
ermmm.... my sis!

And my own question that I would loved to answer:

How neat is your kitchen?
ermmm... very neat thank you as we don't cook! :D