The One With the Lopsided Smile...

I'm quite free this month so I've to make myself busy. Housewife lifestyle doesn't suit me. I don't know what to do except to play half a song on the piano, get bored with it and walked out of the piano room. I spent most of my time in the kitchen or the computer. The eyes got tired after a few hours looking at photos. So, I'm hosting a simple dinner and looks like all of a sudden hubby and I created a list for the next long table dinner. For today, I spent the whole morning until the afternoon doing grocery shopping at the wet markets and the hypermarkets.

Hi, Mrs. Flounder...

I was looking for ikan ayam ( direct translation: chicken fish???) for the texture of the flesh is equivalent to that of a chicken's thigh meat. Since there's none to be found in the market, I bought the flounder at Tesco. Excuse the direct stares from the fish with the lopsided smile. After getting everything that I needed, the man on duty to clean the fish was still too busy with another customer's order. I carried the fish home and clean the fish up on my own. It's not that I don't know how to clean a fish but sometimes you will prefer others to do the dirty job for you. If you haven't meet the flounder, say hi to her. It's a she. I found fish eggs in the belly.

The blind side....

The flounder is a one-sided fish. There are no eyes on the other side. The fish swims sideways. I like this fishy. And I did a good job cleaning up the fish - de-scaling, removing the gills and intestines. Then, I dressed the fish.... errrmmm.... more like I tucked the fish to sleep with a thick blanket of spicy mix.

Blanketed in spice...

Oh, yeah, by its look, it ain't happy. The fish was baked and then grilled and I'm one complicated person to cook in different ways. I should say the baked and grilled flounder was nicely done. The spice mixture was not burnt while on the grill. Something else swam in to join us for dinner.

Baked squids...

Hey, squid~! My first time cutting them this way <-- sounds really wrong, that sentence. Usually I will cut them into rings but just wanted to cut them differently today. They went into the oven for 12 minutes and came out the colour that I wanted. The main taste was hoisin sauce but I made them a little spicy and a little sour.

Steamed chicken....

I broke my own rule of not going to repeat any dishes. I repeated this coz' mi mama has not tasted them when I first made this. Mi mama was in the United Kingdom when I hosted the second long table dinner. That was the easiest dish of steam chicken with mushrooms and red dates. The taste was exquisite. I did alter the recipe. I always alter them to suit my taste. Just steam the chicken for 20 minutes and you can have it with rice.

Blanched cockles....

I was suppose to bake with all the ingredients ready. But I was attacked by some lazy bugs that I postponed my baking activity. Instead, we had blanched fresh cockles for tea time earlier before going for my evening jog. Blanch them for 5 minutes or less and that's the first time I see the shells opening on their own like some mussels. Just dig the flesh out, take a small bowl of water to wash away the mud stuck in between the crevices of the flesh and dip with Thai chilli sauce. Nice if eaten in a moderate quantity. Too much would make you feel yucky.