PCAMFS

I thought it'll be really sweet and nice to cook a meal for SH before I leave, despite my limited culinary abilities. I mean, it's the effort that counts right? This would be my anniversary + christmas present for her ! (I won't be around)

But I don't have any idea what to get for in terms of a monetary gift, so I decided to invest the time and effort (and a bit of money) to prepare a special meal for her!!



I actually had this idea BEFORE she told me what she was getting me... so it's quite a bummer cos I think her present trumps mine lol but oh well. (she got me a CAMERA)

Now this is a MUCH bigger headache than you can imagine, because of my mom. She's VERY VERY VERY annoying when it comes to me cooking because she doesn't like me touching anything in the kitchen and doesn't like me cooking and has some traces of OCD which means maintaining a very clean kitchen and imagining imaginary oil spots all over after I cook which don't exist.

Gosh I can't begin to express how much annoyance she has annoyed me with since I brought up the idea to her and I had to negotiate and plead and beg and argue to shut her up. Seriously damn annoying!

Try 1 - 27th July

Naturally, having almost 0 experience, I needed to have a few trial runs. So this was the first. The general idea was to make some variation of cordon bleu, along with some other side dishes + pasta or something for a complete meal. At this point of time, I think I'll be making cream of mushroom + mushroom ham cheese omelette (she likes mushrooms) + cordon bleu.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="363"] Calm before the storm! Bread crumbs, pepper, salt, chicken, cheese and ham![/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="364"] Omelette (with ham and cheese) i scrapped together[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="348"] Cordon bleu before deep frying[/caption]

 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="351"] Kinda burnt :([/caption]

 

So... attempt number 1 was quite a fail. Firstly, I couldn't get the meat flat and big enough, so it ended up being not that flat and not squarish enough for rolling up (like an actual cordon bleu).

Next, when I put it into the oil, the side that went in was burnt when I first turned it after 5 seconds - I think I have to constantly move it :/ I tried what I could to salvage it by constantly turning for the remaining period it was cooking, and when the outside was sufficiently black/brown I took it out - and realized that while a layer of chicken was cooked, the inner layer was not cooked at all -_-

I ended up cutting it into 3 pieces as you see above, and putting it back into the oil to cook the insides. It turned out fairly well cooked, but it didn't have the crispy outside feel!! How!!

I think next time I have to start cooking when the oil isn't so hot... I've no idea how to gauge when though. 5 minutes? And I have to add way more bread crumbs if I want to achieve any semblance of a crispy outer layer. Plus, I have to somehow modify it so that it's not so goddamn thick and the insides will be cooked! Oh gosh. I hope I will be able to actually cook this dish.

Oh, washing up after was a bitch too -_- Deep frying means a lot of oil everywhere which also means a very cranky mother who complains about oil spots everywhere even though they don't exist (e.g. 10 metres away, outside of the kitchen. YA OIL CAN FLY AND TURN CORNERS)

-end of entry on 27/7-

Try 2 - 2nd August

No pictures of the food this time because I was lazy - the first attempt was quite fail as the oil was STILL too hot even though I only heated it for 2 minutes, and thus the outside became chao ta quite fast, and i found the inside uncooked.

I got frustrated with cordon bleu and decided to just keep it simple - I'll just cut the chicken into smaller pieces, and then deep fry THOSE. I'll try to add cheese to it somehow but if can't, so be it!

On the next try, I only heated the oil for a minute and began deep frying the chicken pieces... it was perfect. The outsides didn't cook too quickly, and I could thoroughly cook the chicken. The chicken tastes not bad! But the outside gets soft and soggy really fast though... not sure how to preserve it. Must make sure szehong eats them soon after I cook them :/

I really like the taste of the omelettes I'm making with the leftover egg too. Not sure why, maybe it's the taste of the chicken oil? Haha. I think I'll add some sausage slices and mushroom to it, should taste pretty good! :)

Now all that's left is to think of the ambience.. I'm hoping to make it all candlelight dinner + jazz music playing HAHA sounds good doesn't it. But I don't know where to find candlestick! Hmm.  And still have to prepare a card and.. some sort of gift I suppose? Like just a meal doesn't seem complete. Must have flowers and card haha. But flowers.. SH doesn't really like. SO... ok I shall think in my mind and stop thinking out loud here. bye!

-end of entry 2/8-

Baking - 11th August

So after some thought, I decided to add brownies to the mix! Like there's soup, main course, there has to be dessert right? Thus I employed the help of my good buddy weiqin to bake!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="407"] Brownie batter. Yes I know it looks like shit, literally.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="347"] I'm sieving the flour[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="455"] Brownies fresh out of the oven![/caption]

Note to self - follow instructions on the box. The instructions said to bake it for 33 minutes, but when we took it out it looked REALLY liquidy so we added another 2 more minutes to it... which resulted in some parts being really hard and the brownies being rather chewy and hard :(( Follow instructions next time!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="373"] We made cookies too! Here you see the cookie batter as well as a baked batch :)[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="496"] Resting after we're all finished! You can't see it but I'm full of perspiration lol. Tiringgg[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="491"] me and qin! Thanks for letting me bake at your house! I'll miss you![/caption]

-end of entry on 10/8-

THE DAY.

I was quite worried on the day because due to some events occurring she wasn't in a very good mood. So what if this carried over to what I was doing! :( All my hard work!

But ok when I finally met her she seemed fine. And I was keeping her in suspense about this whole thing - she had no idea where she was going and what I was doing - I just told her her present was PCAMFS, as the title of this entry says. She had no idea what it stood for - Project Cook A Meal For Szehong ! hahahaha.

Yup so when we eventually reached my house and I told her what it was, she squealed happily and reacted in a happy grateful manner which warmed my heart haha glad she liked it. I was worried she wouldn't like it that much! Plus my cooking isn't very good lol.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="636"] A very happy girlfriend[/caption]

In case you're wondering what I made - mushroom soup with extra button mushrooms+chicken bits (she likes mushrooms); mushroom + cheese omelette; deep fried chicken cubes (seasoned with black pepper and some cheese).

And for dessert we had brownies + ice cream + cookie :) Also gave her a card + sang her a self-composed song... which for the sake of my dignity I won't post it here because I really can't sing and I sound horrible.

It was a super filling meal and I think she really did like it haha! PCAMFS success! :D

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="529"] <3[/caption]