All Things Chill

A whole roasted boneless chicken, topped with a red Thai curry sauce served with a salad of baby greens and red onions, lemon basmati rice, toasted flatbread, and Thai iced coffee mixed with a touch of chocolate soymilk.

Short Clip. I’ve been taking things a lot slower around here… cooking for friends and relaxing when I can. Can you blame me? Hee hee. I’ve also been playing with a broad spectrum of fresh / already prepared ingredients… just so I can get a feel of what I like and don’t like about them. Most of the time, pre-packaged foods hit the middle of the general populace when it comes to spiciness and intensity of flavor. Unless it’s trying to capture a particular niche group (i.e. wasabi peas & OMGYOU’LLDIEHOTSAUCE), most companies try to cast a large net around the average Joe / plain Jane… and that’s a good thing.

…Why?

Mainly because they’re a great starting point to develop my own recipes from a culture that I have no inherent frame of reference. The Thai red curry sauce was quite tasty, but I think a little more heat and less ginger would make it mo’ betta. Next time, I’d coat the flatbread with some parsley, olive oil and garlic to give it enough EEUUMMMPPHHH to stand on its own. It’s all about adjustments, differentiating yourself and doing what you (or your, kids, significant others, customers, etc…) like.

As a side note, I’ve always been impressed with Trader Joe’s “right out of the jar / can” quality. I was quite pleased with all the products I bought (thanks for the ride Laura!), and I didn’t even fiddle with any of it. And… the whole chicken was only SIX BUCKAROOS! YAY.

I believe that I’ll be busy with work and other things for the rest of the week, so I think today was the only day for a good (self) home cooked meal. Oh well… the satisfaction of cooking someone else dinner should last me a while.

I just wish I had leftovers.

~Spec

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 2:54 am and is filed under Cuisine, ViBlog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.