Summer Chicken Rice PIlaf

You will need: chicken breasts with skin, chicken broth, butter milk, basmati rice, green onions, garlic, saffron, lemon, parsley, pine nuts, cashews, pistachio, raisins, dates, butter, olive oil, cayenne pepper, salt/pepper.

Put chicken in buttermilk for 2-3 hours.

Toast pine nuts, cashews and pistachio. Put aside.

Add butter and olive oil in pan, add minced garlic and green onions, dates, raisins and cayenne pepper. Stir and add broth. And then put aside.

In a sauce pan, put oil and butter and stir in basmati rice. Just cook until everything is coated and a bit bronzed, but not brown. Add broth mixture.

Let the rice cook for about 10-15 mins. Use a fork to fluff the rice.

Take the chicken and fry in olive oil until golden. Cut up into small cubes.

Back to the rice: add the toasted nuts and fried chicken.

Mix everything and add some parsley and lemon zest.


Enjoy this light and summer flavours.

On Friendship

We must not therefore listen to these superfine (gentlemen) persons when they talk of friendship, which they know neither in theory nor in practice. For who, in heaven's name, would choose a life of the greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving or being be loved by any creature? That is the sort of life tyrants endure. They, of course, can count on no fidelity, no affection, no security for the good will of any one. For them all is suspicion and anxiety; for them their is no possibility of friendship. Who can love one whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared? Yet such men have a show of friendship offered them, but it is only a fair-weather show. If it ever happen that they fall, as it generally does, they will at once understand how friendless they are. -Cicero

No Worry Asian Marinade

You can store this in a jar for 3-5 days. Use it for marinating chicken, pork, even beef.

Ingredients: lemons, fish sauce, mirin, sesame oil, chili flakes, chives, green onions, ginger, cilantro

Finely chop green onions, ginger, cilantro, chives and lemon rind.

Mix in an empty jar lemon juice, fish sauce, mirin, sesame oil and chili flakes. Shake.

Add chopped items. If you are going to grill, spare some marinade to brush over the meat while on the grill.

You can add some chopped mint if you intend to use specialty meats such as lamb or mutton, especially for grilling!

Enjoy.

May Seafood Roast

Ingredients: prawns, mussels, clams, lobster, soft shell crab, fresh figs, tomatoes, garlic, red onion, pepper corns, thyme, paprika, butter, chives. Soak mussels and clams in cold water. Then drain before cooking.

Start with putting olive oil and butter into roasting tray. Cut fresh figs and tomatoes into quarters then put into roasting tray. Roughly chop garlic and onions, add with figs and tomatoes. Add herbs. Cook in the oven for 40 mins at 350F. Remove from oven and add sea food. Sprinkle paprika, lemon rind, salt and pepper.

Cook for 20 mins at 400F until sea food is cooked and prawns are crunchy.

Serve with basmati rice cooked in ginger and basil leaves. Lemons and parsley as garnish and a squirt of citrus.

Fusion Summer Salad

Ingredients: mango, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, grapes, mandarin oranges, endives, red onion, ginger, 1/2 lemon, sweet chili, coriander; mirin sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, chicken breast.

Dressing: Mirin sauce, sesame oil, lemon juice, lemon rind, sweet chili, ginger, coriander/cilantro, salt & pepper.

Take 1/2 of the dressing and marinate the chicken breast.

Cut mango, cucumber and endives into strips. add into bowl with seedless grapes, slices of mandarin oranges, red onion and cherry tomatoes. Drain.

Take your chicken marinade and grill until cooked. Grill or broil at high heat.

While still hot slice into strips and add into the bowl of fruits and vegetables. Add the dressing.


Enjoy.

Pork Loin Stuffed with Pears and Apples

Ingredients: loin of pork, pears, apples, 1 bulb fennel, raisins, thyme, basil, shallots, 1 white onion, garlic, lemons, chicken broth; carrots, celery, potatoes, fava beans. Instructions: take 1/3 of thyme, basil and lemon rind then finely chop them.

take loin of pork and butterfly at 1/3 inch thick. rub the thyme-basil-lemon rind mix onto the pork. let it sit for at least 2 hours. preheat oven to 375F.

finely dice apples and pears, add lemon juice to prevent browning. in a sautee pan, add olive oil and butter, sautee shallots and garlic and sliced white onions and fennel. avoid browning, we want them to be soft and onions should be translucent. then add the remainder of the herbs. finally, add the raisins, salt and pepper to taste. then finally add the diced apples and pears. do not over cook. allow sautee to cool then use as stuffing. spread the mixture onto the pork then roll. secure with cooking twine.

take a roasting pot with rack and add 1cup of chicken broth; then place the stuffed pork on the rack and tightly cover with foil. poke some holes to allow for the steam to come out. cook for 30 mins. then remove the foil, be careful with the steam, then place the carrots, potatoes, fava beans and celery around the roast. cover with the same foil then cook for another 30 minutes. finally, remove the foil cover and broil for another 10 minutes. just enough to get a golden brown crispy crust on the pork.

take the vegetables out and serve in a separate platter. the juices can be reduced for gravy. serve by slicing the stuffed loin. drizzle gravy on top.

serve with brown rice. you can cook your brown rice with a twig of thyme or some basil, this will add some fragrance to your side dish.

enjoy.

Vanakkam!

I survived my first 2 months (at least!) without major complications.

To survive is not a way of life.... one must strive to live and make most of the situation and the resources or lack of.... whatever that means. One must adapt quickly and with boldness.

Happiness makes us beings rooted in gratitude. I am grateful for the sense of humour that the people have generously shared. This is a culture that knows how to laugh and to not take itself seriously, it is a culture that is rooted in gratitude.

"Trust me, its paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed, for mine is a generation that circles the globe in search of something we've never tried before. So, never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite, and never outstay your welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what, it's probably worth it. You hope and you dream, but you never believe that something is going to happen to you not like it does in the movies. When it actually does, you expect it to feel different, more visceral, more real. I was waiting for it to hit me." - The Beach, film

Recipe # 1

Ingredients: minced pork and chicken, thyme, oregano, lemon grass, garlic, ginger, shallots, chili flakes, paprika, tumeric, saffron, salt-pepper, tamarind puree, eggplants, jasmine rice, and banana leaves.

Instructions: Pre-cook Jasmine rice about 75% cooked. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Sautee pork, chicken, shallots, garlic and 1/2 of herbs into butter and olive oil. Add diced eggplant and then tamarind puree. Then add 1/2 remainder of the spices. Take a cup of the rice and 1/2 of the sautee and carefully envelop them with a banana leaf. Put the stuffed leaves in a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 350F, this will cook the rice.

Careful of opening the banana leaf, hot steam will come out.

You can purchase banana leaves at a local asian food store/market. You can substitute by using parchment paper and a slice of plantain banana underneath the rice.

Enjoy.

2011: Something Is Going to Happen

In a short while, my vespa and I will embark on another adventure in South Asia.

Some Things Are Not Meant To Be

“To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is...at last, to love it for what it is, and then to put it away.” - Virginia Woolf

There I was minding my own business and then boom! Some person wants attention. They'll do almost anything to get my attention. Then I realize that some kind of cat and mouse game is being played. I got sucked into whatever ploy the person had imagined.

Some things are not meant to go on living. Some things do stop moving. Some relationships do die. It is selfish for anyone to want some things to keep going even when it is obviously struggling or dying, or dead. The mind can recall memories - good ones. The mind can distract us from recognizing the agony of a failed friendship or relationship.

I say let it go. Put it away. Shut the door. Put on some music. Hot tea. Call a friend. Move on.

Love Doesn't End

It was one of those days.

I woke up at 930am and the sun was out. There was this inherent sense of possibility. Today, I will paint, I will dance and listen to The Smiths. I will watch the new Nightmare on Elm Street. As soon as I thought of these things, the feeling was immediate. It did not take its time to percolate through my premature thoughts and aching joints. I felt the banality that was hiding behind these potential events. It crept in silently.

It is time. It is time for a change. Something different, a new route for my journeys, a new way of looking at the horizon, a new way of loving and being loved, a new way of speaking.

The bottom line is, when there are people who have no level of accountability to anyone, I think there’s going to be a level of cruelty"

In the next little while, I will be presenting some documentary material. These vignettes will explore the nature of friendship.

You know your friends by reading, arguing, praying, playing, speaking, etc. with them.

Friendship humbles us in that we are so fortunate to have it. It tends to make good men better and bad men worse.

So what do you think?