So I've been trying new things with recipes. By trying new things, I mean I have tried not to cook the same thing over and over. When I first started cooking this summer, I ate pasta daily with chicken pan seared and pasta sauce. I was really good at that. 15 minutes and done. But I got bored quickly. I remembered that before leaving for law school, I purchased a cookbook packed full or recipes from Trinidad and Tobago as well as some of the other Caribbean nations. I dusted it off (it was at the bottom of my shelf for the past 10 months) and opened it up excited for my cooking adventure!
First task: Stewed chicken. Recipe books have these wonderful proportions for if you are cooking for 4 or if you are using 2 pounds of meat etc. Seeing that I live alone, I am usually cooking for 1 (maybe with 2 or 3 servings so I can carry it with me to school the next day). The problem with that is reducing the requisite amount and weights to suit my requirements. To begin with, I am a law student; math is hardly my strong point. Dividing by 2 is about the extent of my expertise. Well you tell me, if the recipe calls for 2 pounds of chicken, how do you reduce it for 2 chicken breasts?! I didn't even know how much 2 chicken breasts weigh. Anyway, I was unphased by this. I looked at this as an adventure, so excited to see how my chicken would come out. Well that excitement was short lived. At first my chicken was too sweet (what did I expect after mistakenly putting an entire pot spoon of sugar in the pot?!) Then to cut the sweet, I added the spice Hot Shot. I shook that about 12 times over the pot b/c I could not see it coming out of the container. Needless to say, just b/c I could not see it, does not mean it was not coming out! My super sweet chicken became too spicy. To cut the spice, I added Teriyaki Sauce. I was pulling at straws here, I am not an experienced chef, but I figured with good common sense and help from my mom, I would be ok. FALSE. It was sweet, spicy, salty chicken. It tasted nothing like my mother's stew chicken but I sucked it up and ate every bite.
Stew Chicken take 2: So this time, I got all the proportions down. I was soooo excited. A typical Trini side for stew chicken is macaroni pie. I organized to borrow my friend's casserole dish (why would I own a casserole dish?!) and did everything right with my pie. It was beautiful but there is a story for that one too...stay tuned. Anyway, my second go at stew chicken was going well. It tasted good, I had all the right ingredients, etc. So I decided that it needed to cook for a little longer. I'd say 5 minutes passed but I am not 100% sure. All I know is the next time I looked at my chicken it, all the water in the pot had dried out, the bottom of the pot was black, the chicken was all burned. I was devastated! I was not even hungry anymore. I'd started cooking at like 5...it was now 7:30 and I was over it!
Macaroni Pie: This one is the best. The pie was great so I am not even going to take time talking about the process. The entire ordeal can be summed up in a very short story. As I was putting the casserole dish in the oven, I heard a sizzle. By the time I caught what was going on, I had burned a few layers of skin from my arm off. It is currently swollen and b/c I am a klutz, whatever skin remained around the perimeter has been removed thru inadvertence on my own part. Yesterday, as I was putting my back pack on, the shoulder strap took of a bit. Later that night, I sat on my arm (what?!) and took off the rest. It's red and puffy and it's going to heel into a really gross looking scar, but the pie was the best thing I made all night.
For years my mother has been encouraging me to learn how to cook. After this entire ordeal, she finally agreed with the assertion I have been making my entire life: I am going to have to make a lot of money as an attorney to hire someone to cook for me b/c it is not worth the incidental damages I suffer as a result of my attempts!
No comments:
Post a Comment