recipe

My female owner never believed in following recipes (which explains why she can't cook many dishes). There are many reasons for this. Firstly, she doesn't trust recipes which are NOT recommended by anyone (issue of trust). Secondly, because the recipes are not proven to be good, she does not want to subject anyone to potentially bad cooking (issue of responsibility). Thirdly, she never saw the need to learn to cook (issue of need). My male owner was famously fussy about food. He eats mainly egg, cucumber and rice. No red meat, no other form of vegetables, chicken is ok only if there are no bones, no spicy food (or chilli). While eating out, he usually eats roast chicken rice, Hawaiian pizza or sushi (with very selected fillings). Once in a while, he would compromise on tofu and bean sprouts (we turtles definitely take after him in this aspect!).

Finally, the strongest reason is that she grew up in an environment where her mother did not refer to recipes when cooking - everything was in her head (issue of upbringing). I can testify to that. From steamed chicken rice to laksa to pig trotters' soup to curry chicken to claypot rice... everything was recipe-free. (No, her mother never cooked turtle soup!)

Well, yesterday, my female owner undertook the module "Following a Recipe" 101 with her Intuitive Fren as tutor. Around dinner time, IF spied a suspicious looking bottle of shrimp fry paste (known as bagoong in the Illocano language) which had been sitting in her kitchen for weeks (her housemate won the shrimp paste during a church game). Since nobody in the house knew how to use it and is unlikely to use it, IF decided to use it to cook dinner. Acting on his spontaneous decision, he looked up the internet and managed to locate a recipe which required that paste.

My female owner was quite doubtful about using the paste, coz it smelt like turtle food to her. IF didn’t help matters coz he said it smelt like goldfish food. The paste was apparently pungent and pink. Following the recipe and modifying it somewhat, the end result (according to my female owner) was a surprisingly yummy and hearty dish of beef/ tomatoes/long beans/ eggplants/ onions/ garlic in shrimp fry paste (unfortunately, they didn’t take any photos of the dish). The dish had an explosion of taste – sour, sweet and salty – coupled with the natural flavouring of the heap of beef they used.

This was the first Filipino dish that my female owner ever saw created before her eyes and, which tasted yummy… the last time she went Philippines with her friends (potahto included), they didn’t manage to lay hands on any yummy Filipino food..

So besides having a proper dinner, my female owner learnt that there's nothing scary about using randon recipes (they cooked so much that they even had time to mull over how they could further improve on the taste). Maybe her housemates can now look forward to more interesting dishes when it's her turn to cook dinner. Other dishes, rather than the usual stir-fried vegetables in oyster sauce and stir-fried meat doused with cheat sauce.