Last week in International cooking, we traveled to the continent of Asia, in our minds, to sample their home cooking. I have to say that these meals were among my favorite to help prepare. The Asian food that is prepared for the usual consumers is nothing compared to the almost authentic meals that we prepared in class. The forst meal we prepared was the Kung Pao Chicken, spicy chicken with peanuts. I really like this particular dish myself. I found the freshness of the ingredients very refreshing. The chili peppers, which I thought would be a little bit overbearing, combined very well with the other ingredients. I really loved frying the peanuts, the aroma really took me back to my childhood when my mother would roast peanuts in the oven early in the mornings. I think this dish was also paired well with the rice.
The Tempura we prepared was also quite surprising. This was my first time using peanut oil in my cooking. In the reading form the previous night I learned that peanut oil has a higher burning and cooking point than vegetable or canola oil. I have had fried chicken, mushrooms, and onions before, but this was a first for me having fried carrots. I thought the carrots would still be a bit crunchy but they turned out to be perfectly cooked. The tempura was fried really light. I think it was the batter that made a difference. We also cooked karintos, which are deep-fried cookies. I was really excited about them because we didn’t really prepare anything sweet in the course. Although they weren’t what I expected they were still quite delicious. I thought that they were going to be sweeter tasting than they actually were. The tasted more like a fortune cookie to me.
These were my favorite dishes of the week. I really enjoyed preparing them and I would definitetly prepare them again. I would more than likely try to prepare them for a dinner with a special someone. I wouldn’t try to get fancy with the side dishes and I would try to stay in the culture and maybe just prepare some type of fried rice, maybe chicken or shrimp. I would also maybe add egg rolls or maybe spring rolls tho make it a little more authentic.
- Enoby Ironbar
