Kiss the Cook!

This month our assignment as a class was to cook a traditional Chinese meal (with less than traditional means). My good friend Natalie and I were the chefs for the evening, and created a rather nice meal (Natalie is also going on the China trip… her blog is http://www.NatalieWChina2010.blogspot.com). I’m not very good at cooking, and would have been completely lost without the help of my little sister, Savannah (the chef in the family) and me and Natalie’s friend, Katie. Here’s to our sous-chefs, who made sure things went smoothly! We couldn’t have done it without you!

On the menu is huo tui tan ch’ao fan (for those of you who do not speak Chinese… myself included… this is ham and egg fried rice), egg drop soup, hot bananas in coconut milk, and a favorite between Natalie and myself; homemade fortune cookies (again not exactly traditional… fortune cookies originated in California, but still very fun to make!).

We made the fried rice first. The first thing we did was heat oil in a skillet over medium heat, adding in chopped onions. Then we stirred in rice, eggs, salt, and ham. After about 5 minutes we added soy sauce. This dish was very good, however we ran into a problem with the rice. The recipe called for cold cooked rice. We had just made the rice and it was cooled, but not cold when we used it. As a result of this our rice didn’t really fry, it was still pretty mushy when it was done. Despite this, this dish was still wonderful.

The next item we made was egg drop soup. This dish is exactly what it sounds like. Basically what you do is slowly pour beaten egg whites into boiling chicken broth while stirring. When the eggs are in the broth, they cook and become lumpy. The slower you pour the eggs the more strands of the egg form. By putting chopped spinach leaves on top of the soup, we completed this dish. In the end it looks other-worldly, but tastes good all the same.

Thirdly we made Savannah’s favorite, hot bananas in coconut milk. This is another easy and delicious recipe. In a saucepan we poured in the coconut milk (and much to our inexperienced eyes' surprise, it is not white, but a brownish cream slimy mixture… not exactly appetizing), and after it was boiling we added sugar and cinnamon. We then brought the mixture down to a simmer and added in the bananas. The timing on this was rather important because we had to cook the bananas until they were tender but not mushy. This dish was different, and no one in our group of chefs really knew what coconut milk would taste like. We all tried it, and our sweet-tooth would agree that it was very good. It tasted better on the second bite after our tongues weren’t so scared. J

Lastly we set out to make homemade fortune cookies. Natalie and I were set on making “The Perfect Cookie”. This recipe is very hard and timing is extremely important. We made the batter for the cookies, which has the consistency of pancake batter. We put them in the oven (375 degrees) for about 6 minutes. When the recipe says “Now for the tricky part: move fast during this step!” it’s not kidding! When you take out the cookies you have to quickly scrape them off the pan, place the fortunes inside of them, fold them in half, and the fold them in half again. If you do this too quickly, the fortune sticks to the cookie, and if you wait too long they will break and fall apart. In the 3 batches we made, we did achieve our goal; we had some pretty awesome cookies! I believe we got “The Perfect Cookie”, and it tasted delicious. Yummmmm…

“The preparation of the food and its presentation often take longer than the actual cooking”. This was certainly the case in our kitchen. By the time we were done cooking we had to reheat everything, as a result of the length of preparation for each dish. The plating of the meal was very fun, and the food was great! I loved cooking this meal and had a great time.

We served this meal to the four of us and my mom and dad. My mom said “I was amazed at how good everything tasted! The presentation of the meal was very professional. I was surprised that one could make ‘homemade fortune cookies’! All in all, it was a very delicious meal and the girls should be quite proud of their accomplishment.” Savannah said “Shelby and Natalie’s food was amazing. I especially liked the banana and coconut milk dessert. Loved it!”

Our critic, Ms. Katherine gave us her review:

“Chinese cuisine is highly praised and admired for its beauty and preparation. The beauty and grace of the dish is paid unique attention. When such a thing is homemade it’s completely sensible for someone to be skeptical, but after tasting the four dishes that were prepared for criticism, I was delightfully surprised. The egg drop soup, although deceiving in appearance, was fortunately editable, even good. The rice, fortune cookies, and coconut bananas were also quite incredible. Most were humorously deceiving in looks but impeccable in taste. The only unfortunate part of the meal was that it was served cold due to the frantic preparation and mess. After spending at least two hours making the food, my servers spent another hour cleaning and carefully styling the table, taking constant pictures. All in all the meal was made beautifully.”