Love Thy Neighbours, Eat Thy Neighbours

Haha!... At least the food they offer, I guess.

I woke up this morning, bright and early at 9.30AM, to the sound of my phone ringing. Frankly a tad miffed because I barely had 6 hours of sleep. I thought I was rather rudely jolted awake from an otherwise peaceful rest.

It was a call from the next door neighbour. Immediately I flick-switched to the most convincing you-did-not-just-wake-me-up-cos-I-was-awake-for-some-time fresh, clear voice. There's something about the hoarse morning voice that's an instant giveaway over the phone. Imagine the morning breath, though! *flinches*

Anyways, the next door auntie asked if I was at home, because she had cooked some rice and wanted to bring some over for me. What good neighbours right?

Last night, she had brought half a dozen huge chicken paos for us too. Impressive.



Sambal udang(prawn), rice and egg. OMGWTF right?

Aunty Sandy said that it was her husband, Uncle Ong, who did the cooking. Just a while back, she did offer us a dish of sambal udang with petai(?)(some smelly bean thingy) for dinner. I swear, it's the best sambal udang, okay?

This morning's udang was stir fried with ikan bilis and onions. The rice was perfect too. I like my rice kinda on the drier side, with every grain distinct, yet maintaining enough moisture for the grains to just clump nicely together. Well, it was just that. Perfectly cooked rice.

I can never cook the perfect rice. I've tried it many times with the rice cooker, but it always turns out a bit too wet, soggy even. I've never tried cooking rice over a stove though. I guess since the beginning of (my) time, cooking of rice has always been left to the rice cooker.

My mother don't happen to cook the perfect rice either. I can just vaguely remember ONE time when my mother cooked a pot of near-perfect rice. It was unfortunately just a miraculous stroke of luck. Nowadays, the rice turns out looking like kueh-kueh, sometimes pancakes.

Yeah, we could just switch to a more powerful cooker, I hear you say. But after the Housewarming Party, it's pretty clear to me that there is NOTHING wrong with the rice cooker. Remember I got home that evening, then I snooped around the busy kitchen, lifted the lid of the rice cooker and exclaimed excitedly and loudly, "WAH! The rice chio leh!"

It is not the appliance but the cookers of the rice. You know, it's a total bitch to try to agak the amount of water to add. They say with your palm flat down on the rice, the water level should just touch the middle knuckle. What a load of bull. I obviously have very thick hands in this case.

I need more experience with cooking rice. Kitchen experiments! Fun and (sometimes) delicious.

So back to the stir fried sambal udang this morning. MAN, IT WAS SPICY!


See article on Scoville scale.

The Scoville Heat Index measures the hotness of peppers. How hot can you go?

I love Habanero Tabasco sauce on everything, and that's just comes up to 8000 on the hotness scale. Therefore, the sambal udang I had this morning, DEFINITELY score at least 50 000 on the scale. I definitely love hot stuff!

Maybe, just maybe, I should try and ask for the recipe too. I mean, after all, teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime, right?