level up!

when i first invited A and R over for dinner, ever the considerate guest, A asked if there was any occasion. telling him it was a celebration of being alive (albeit true) was just too cheesy, so i went with "we're celebrating my new deep fryer". and that, my friends, is the unfortunate truth. so continuing on the birthday theme, my present to myself was a "cheap cheap" mini deep fryer i found on amazon. this is something i have yet to tell my healthy living parents so please be gentle and withhold judgment. 

it's easter break now and i've one glorious month to while away. last easter break (well last st paddy's to be precise) i was being kept awake by drunken revelers in a tiny 6 bed dorm in manhattan. this st paddy's i was feeling all grown-up with a spouse and a house, enjoying a very refined japanese supper club dinner with my charming changmoh cousin and his wife. what a difference a year makes!

to further cement this new-found status as capable young wife, i felt the need to learn to cook. and as a product of the internet generation, what better place to start than online. so i googled a few recipes, got the mister to drive me to the asian grocer's* and armed with hope and a freezer full of frozen lasagne (just in case!) i set about this latest domestic blitz. truth be told, i'd been mulling on the menu for almost a month now since i first sent out the invite and envisioning my little action plan as to what to cook and when. hey, when you're simultaneously prepping and cooking six dishes in the span of two hours, organisation is key! thought canto-style would be the most crowd-pleasing and thankfully our wonderful friends 1) ate lots 2) complimented loudly. behaviour that secures them an open invite to future 'dos. 

i attempted the list below, served with steamed rice. nothing fancy, no bells and whistles. really should have done a dry run because there was this heart-stopping moment** just before they arrived where i thought the said fryer was. not. working. turns out i was using it wrong and after jiggling it around a bit, it cranked into motion. disaster averted but oh so scary nevertheless.

so we had: 

steamed egg

salt & pepper chicken wings

beef stew

spare ribs with black bean sauce

sweet & sour pork

wonton soup

"lao ban" style tau huay and fresh fruit for dessert

and because their mamas taught them well, they came laden with cakes and sweet wine. be still, my sugar-craving heart. in fact, we were so full that they graciously left the goods behind and the cakes are now mine all mine for breakfast, lunch and dinner today :D

for the aspiring home cooks out there, the evening's cooking order was as follows.

1730h prep stew and marinate chicken wings, spare ribs, sweet sour pork

1800h put stew in oven for 2h, mix eggs for steaming, prepare tau huay, make sweet & sour sauce

twiddle thumbs till 1930h

1930h put egg dish and spare ribs (separately) in steamer and steam for half hour, steam rice too

1940h fry chicken wings

1950h fry battered pork in deep fryer then stir in sweet & sour sauce in frying pan

2000h pop frozen wontons into soup (boiled pork bones with dried shrimp earlier in the day) and simmer for 5mins 

(and bob's your uncle!***)

*funny story here, indulge my little brag! tried to buy beer for them boys but GOT CARDED. and because i'd run out of the house with just the mister's plastic, i had no ID. tried flashing my wedding band (hmm, maybe counter-productive) and insisting that i've been legal for longer than i care to admit but the cashier wouldn't budge. didn't know whether to laugh or cry but unabashedly thrilled i look underaged :D in fact, every time i'm NOT carded, a small part of me dies on the inside.

**yes i shouldn't joke about these things. but if that had happened (CHOY!) i would've been in good hands because incidentally, R is a totally bad*ass neurosurgeon who once casually CPR-ed a man back to life on the streets of london. no big, just your friendly neighbourhood doctor-man.

***cantonese as dinner might've been, anglophilic i still am