Something less serious, on my favorite subject – FOOD, Glorious food.
Good ol' chicken rice, you can't get it easily anymore. By this I mean chicken rice cooked the traditional way. A nice chicken stock is made from the legs, necks, etc and then used to boil the rice with fat you liposuctioned from the chooks; enhanced with ginger, salt, and other ingredients.. Rice cooked this way is nice enough to eat on its own, to borrow a phrase.
The chicken will be steamed not boiled as nowadays; no roast chicky for the true gourmand. Wonder who steams chickens the old fashioned way anymore. Steamed chooks actually taste sweeter as they retain the juices which are otherwise lost when boiled.
I recall when I was a wee kid my mum used to cook chicken rice for the whole gang on alternate Sundays. She reared her own chooks in a hutch I built for her at the back of the house; damn proud of it I was. She'd boil water and select the fattest unfortunate chook, pulled the feathers from the gullet area, then enlist the services of her most blood thirsty son namely yours truly here - the rest of her brood were too squeamish; and I'd blithely slit the poor bugger's throat while she held on to the squirming bird's legs and neck. Norman Bates's rival was on the prowl again! Now I do the squirming as I shudder at the thought of how I could do it then. It was by the grace of Providence I didn't graduate to become a serial killer.
Nostalgic, those were the days. Chicken rice you get now just don't taste as good anymore. The rice is boiled with bottled stock or cubes with margarine, coming out a sickly pale yellow and tasting as bad. Chickens are boiled and then immersed in cool water; ostensibly to improve texture. Old mamas will tell you to avoid such boiled chooks if you are in the midst of a coughing spell; don't really know why.
You ever thought how many plates of chicken rice can be served from just 1 carcass? I did, but never figured it out. Suffice to say, it is many. Vendors employ many tactics to squeeze out as many servings as they can. The breast meat is often cut into 2 layers as it is thick. One layer will have the original skin, then the second layer will be adorned by skin transplanted from another unsaleable part of the chook such as the back. Another trick is to smash the flat of the cleaver on the portion, squashing and loosening out the meat to make it look more substantial. This trick is the favorite of vendors in Johor Bahru as I have observed. I know as I grew up in ol' JB.
A must have condiment with this meal is ground chilli mix - made from chillies, garlic, lime juice, sugar and salt. Dip the chicken slices in this mix, heavenly taste. The mix you get from vendors are made with artificial vinegar or acetic acid, the taste is way off the mark. Sometimes, you just can't cut any corners.
Sometimes, the simplest things are the best.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
House brands
House brands of common food and household items are a boon for the budget conscious.
This is mainly in the realm of hypermarkets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour. With their huge bargaining power and marketing channels, they are able to extract good deals from producers. The lower price is then passed on to the consumer.
House brands with lower prices generally do not equate lower quality, though the imported items do tend to be superior. There are probably people who fight shy of house brands; do not want to be caught dead in possession of such items for fear of being labelled cheapskates. Such are pitiful souls who don't know how to stretch their ringgit.
My personal exposure to house brands is mostly limited to that of Tesco's. No, I am not paid by them to plug their house brand. A large proportion of the range is actually imported from the UK, and end up selling for substantially less than the equivalent locally made item. How is this possible? Buying power, economies of scale and efficient logistics; remember Tesco has a worldwide presence. Producers would much rather make less per unit and much more overall thru supplying a huge volume of goods; the bigger cake-small slice rationale.
Which brings to mind; how are our local producers able to survive? Given the choice between imported and local with the former having better quality and a lower price to boot, most people would plumb for the imported - halal status not withstanding. Are local producers just plain inefficient or they just greedy in trying to get a bigger margin? Trying to take local consumers for a ride? Or just not aggressive enough. The mediocre quality of their goods hardly puts them in a position to penetrate oversea markets? What about hushed up 'arrangements' between competitors to fix the market?
Think on.............
This is mainly in the realm of hypermarkets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour. With their huge bargaining power and marketing channels, they are able to extract good deals from producers. The lower price is then passed on to the consumer.
House brands with lower prices generally do not equate lower quality, though the imported items do tend to be superior. There are probably people who fight shy of house brands; do not want to be caught dead in possession of such items for fear of being labelled cheapskates. Such are pitiful souls who don't know how to stretch their ringgit.
My personal exposure to house brands is mostly limited to that of Tesco's. No, I am not paid by them to plug their house brand. A large proportion of the range is actually imported from the UK, and end up selling for substantially less than the equivalent locally made item. How is this possible? Buying power, economies of scale and efficient logistics; remember Tesco has a worldwide presence. Producers would much rather make less per unit and much more overall thru supplying a huge volume of goods; the bigger cake-small slice rationale.
Which brings to mind; how are our local producers able to survive? Given the choice between imported and local with the former having better quality and a lower price to boot, most people would plumb for the imported - halal status not withstanding. Are local producers just plain inefficient or they just greedy in trying to get a bigger margin? Trying to take local consumers for a ride? Or just not aggressive enough. The mediocre quality of their goods hardly puts them in a position to penetrate oversea markets? What about hushed up 'arrangements' between competitors to fix the market?
Think on.............
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Light & Deadly
Quick! ditch those aluminium pots and pans you have lying around the house. Sell them for scrap, aluminium fetches a good price nowadays.
Has this guy gone bonkers or something? Sorry to disappoint you, still same old rambler. I didn't go into the scrap recycling business either.
Seriously, aluminium has long been suspected as a contributory factor to the onset of Alzheimer's disease; though not conclusively proven. Best to minimise the risks and keep one's fingers crossed, mine are crossed till they turn blue.
My dear mom is now 84 years young; losing her memory – suspected Alzheimer's.
Praise the Lord that her health is very good indeed. Short term or recent memory is very bad but has photographic recall for yesteryears' happenings. To test her during the last CNY balik kampung, I asked her about her life before I was born. She could recall every detail well; I even managed to extract from her some recipes for comfort food that I sorely missed. During the CNY binge of eating and sitting around, my mind got around thinking what brought about her condition. It is not a simple case of her hard disk getting full. I then recalled that she used a lot of aluminium cookware; stainless steel or tempered glass ones were not generally available then. Lord have mercy, I ate a lot of food (albeit delicious) from those pots and pans too. Am I destined to get Alzheimer's too? This is rather worrisome to say the least. I hope I don't get to the stage where I have to jot down my life's details in a little pocket book or make that a PDA in this digital age. Good thing I haven't been quaffing down fizzy drinks in aluminium cans for a long time. Hmmm, must inspect restaurants' kitchens before I eat there, gotta beat a hasty retreat if I see any aluminium cookware lying around.
Not only kiasu but getting kiasi too.
(kiasu= afraid to lose ; kiasi = afraid to die)
Has this guy gone bonkers or something? Sorry to disappoint you, still same old rambler. I didn't go into the scrap recycling business either.
Seriously, aluminium has long been suspected as a contributory factor to the onset of Alzheimer's disease; though not conclusively proven. Best to minimise the risks and keep one's fingers crossed, mine are crossed till they turn blue.
My dear mom is now 84 years young; losing her memory – suspected Alzheimer's.
Praise the Lord that her health is very good indeed. Short term or recent memory is very bad but has photographic recall for yesteryears' happenings. To test her during the last CNY balik kampung, I asked her about her life before I was born. She could recall every detail well; I even managed to extract from her some recipes for comfort food that I sorely missed. During the CNY binge of eating and sitting around, my mind got around thinking what brought about her condition. It is not a simple case of her hard disk getting full. I then recalled that she used a lot of aluminium cookware; stainless steel or tempered glass ones were not generally available then. Lord have mercy, I ate a lot of food (albeit delicious) from those pots and pans too. Am I destined to get Alzheimer's too? This is rather worrisome to say the least. I hope I don't get to the stage where I have to jot down my life's details in a little pocket book or make that a PDA in this digital age. Good thing I haven't been quaffing down fizzy drinks in aluminium cans for a long time. Hmmm, must inspect restaurants' kitchens before I eat there, gotta beat a hasty retreat if I see any aluminium cookware lying around.
Not only kiasu but getting kiasi too.
(kiasu= afraid to lose ; kiasi = afraid to die)
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