Monday, August 8, 2011

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You


There is a girl at work that I'll call M. She's a character right out of a bad late night indie comedy featuring eighteen year old stoners having sex. But she doesn't smoke. And she's 46. She likes to tell me who she's banging even though I repeatedly tell her I hate that word. She's Asian-American and speaks Cantonese & Mandarin. When she's not talking trash she can be kinda funny and she's never in a bad mood, which is rare but that's probably because she's not right in the head. She's single but her partners don't have to be. I tell her to get herself together, join the human race. I tell her she can act 18 but she's still 46 years old. She can dye that hair but its still gray underneath. But anyway I figured she might know a thing or two about Asian cooking and she did. I had chicken thighs and wanted to do a nice pineapple almond chicken but felt too lazy to take the meat off the bones. She said it wasn't that uncommon to pan fry the pieces whole and then add the vegetables, it would just take longer. So I did just that and it came out great.

First I seasoned the chicken and fried it in just a bit of oil to sear it on both sides then turned the heat down and let it cook until just done. I put those aside and then sauteed the onion, garlic and ginger before adding the seasoned stock. The chicken pieces went back in to finish cooking in the broth. At the end I added the toasted almonds, pineapple, chunks of huge beautiful ripe tomato with the fresh basil and seasoned to taste with soy sauce, Sesame and chili oil.
In the end though I secretly say good for her ignorant ass. She seems to be having fun and I'm half nuts myself. Plus she gave me some good cooking advice and my dish came out really great.

1 comment:

Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?