First Day of Summer 2010

Grading done.
French exam done.

I won't be teaching for another year. But that doesn't mean much. Too many things to take care of. Too many writing projects to be finished. To many books to be read. And most of all,the dissertation needs to be finished.

I cooked something experimental after a long time today.A close friend of mine is staying with me for the month. It's always interesting to see how my desire to try out new recipes always escalates when I have people over. I tried a new dish. Found it in this website. I am cutting and pasting the recipe below just so that I succeed to keep a record of the things I am cooking these days:

AYAM MASAK MERAH
RED CHILLI CHICKEN
Prep time: 25 min | Cooking time: 20 min | Serves: 2 as a main, 4 as a side

2 large chicken breasts, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 small onion
1 medium-sized tomato
2 lemon grass stalks, discarding the rough green tops
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tbsp sambal olek / chili paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp light cooking oil
salt, to taste
water, as needed

MARINATE chicken in salt and turmeric, and set aside for 20-25 minutes.

BLEND onion, tomato and lemon grass to a smooth fine paste, adding a little water if necessary.

SAUTE the marinated chicken in hot oil till lightly browned, and set aside. In the same pan, fry ginger-garlic paste, Sambal Olek and onion-tomato-lemon grass paste, stirring continuously till sit tarts to give out oil from the sides.

ADD in chicken, salt and water if necessary, and stir fry till chicken in cooked through and the flavours absorbed.


I added some coriander powder while marinating the chicken. And added a quarter cup of raisins while blending the tomato, onion and the lemongrass.Partly because I am not the biggest consumer of that heat we call jhal in Bengali. Oddly enough, spicy is the word we use to refer to jhal here in this country. But my understanding of spicy is very different. Things can be extremely spicy without necessarily being hot at all.

Hoping that this desire to experiment will soon influence other areas of life. Aka writing. Haven't done any original writing so far today, but gearing up towards that. I have promised to myself that I will submit the first three of my bildungsroman series of poems to five journals by this week. To that end, I am making a list of journals now.