Cooking is Fun

I’m going to be honest with you. Six months ago, I never imagined myself becoming so interested in cooking. Not that I’m any good at it now, but I’m having fun learning and practicing. Here’s one recipe I’ve enjoyed preparing. I learned this from one of my cookbooks (I’ll get back to you on the title). I’m sharing this with you now because, well, I’m just eager to share with you what I’ve recently learned and I’m also hoping that you will discover the joy of cooking at an earlier age. Anyway, the book calls the recipe “265-Calorie meal” and it serves about 4 or 5 individuals. It’s not that complicated, really. But it’s fun to prepare. Note that I’ve made a few changes here and there to suit my taste. This takes me about 1~1.5 hours to make.

Ingredients: Chicken (4 drumsticks or 3 breasts), light Italian dressing, 1 can button mushrooms (sliced), 1kg tomatoes, 1 zucchini, butter (fat free, if possible), 3 cloves garlic, 1 onion, canola oil (sunflower will also do), Parmesan cheese, white wine.

First things first. Remove and discard the skin from the chicken and cut the flesh into bite sized pieces. Put it in a bowl. You can discard the bones if you like. I usually put them back in the freezer just in case I need to make chicken stock in the future. Anyway, add in about 4 tablespoons of Italian dressing to the bowl. At least, that’s what the book says. I like to drench the chicken in it though. Next up, get the button mushrooms. Drain it, then add it to the bowl. Mix the whole thing. Use your hands. It’s fun. After a few seconds of mixing, leave it to soak while we prepare the other ingredients.

Mince the garlic and slice the onions. Easy, huh? No crying now. A friend once told me to wet the knife with water every few seconds when slicing onions. I was skeptical at first, but it seems to work.

Up next, cut the tomatoes into wedges. One tomato usually ends up as 6 wedges depending on its size. Next is the zucchini. Cut it into discs with a thickness of about a quarter of a centimeter or less. Now we’re ready to cook!

Oh…the white wine is so that you’ll have something to sip while preparing this dish. I’m assuming, of course, that you are already old enough to drink when you’re reading this. If not, forget about it son.

It’s time to heat up the frying pan. Once it’s ready, add a knob of butter and about 2 tablespoons of oil. By the way, I recently found out why you should do it this way. When butter is heated, its water component evaporates leaving behind the solid parts which heat up pretty fast and burn. To counter this, we add oil into the mixture. I learned this from another cookbook titled “Don’t Sweat the Aubergine” which tries to provide a scientific explanation for most cooking practices. Interesting stuff, huh?

Anyway, where were we? Ah, the heated butter and oil. Now it’s time to add the garlic. Saute it, then add the onions. When the onions have become tender, add the chicken that we marinated earlier BUT leave the marinade in the bowl. I guess this means you should’ve drained the whole thing before you started heating the butter, huh? My mistake. Anyway, saute the chicken until it becomes tender. Try to achieve a brownish color with it if you can. I’ve never been able to do that so far though.

Once the chicken is tender (or browned), add in the tomato wedges, zucchini, and the marinade. Mix them around. The tomatoes should start to liquefy into a thin sauce. I realise that you could’ve just used ready-made tomato sauce or paste, but it’s good to avoid pre-processed foods whenever you can. Fresh is always good. Anyway, you’ll know when the whole thing is cooked when the middle part of the zucchini becomes translucent, showing its seeds. Previously, I tried waiting until the tomato sauce has reduced considerably and thickened. I found, however, that this mellows down the taste of the tomato, so I don’t do that anymore. I just use the zucchini as my cue. While you’re waiting for the whole thing to cook, grate the Parmesan cheese.

Once the mixture is cooked, take the whole thing off the heat, blanket it with the cheese, cover it up for a few minutes until the cheese has melted. Serve hot!