Loosely Creative

Do you diligently follow recipes? I always faithfully follow a recipe the first time round. To me, it is like having someone else's cooking, it is polite to taste it first to determine if it's really neceesay to reach for the salt shaker. Not everyone has the same taste, obviously. I see a lot of people give their 2 cents on bettering recipes in the comment sections.

I haven't used a recipe in a long while, mainly because I am too lazy. Nowadays, I don't usually plan and shop ahead any more. The kitchen in this tiny apartment has little room for storage, or even elbows during cooking or cleaning up. Besides, there are always things in the fridge and pantry (if it can qualify as such) that should be used up while fresh, but together they don't often never neatly map on to any specific recipe. Unfortunately, when I have to cook, there is usually no spare time for running to the shop.

But there is always an upshot to everything. Improvising led me out of my comfort zone of following recipes.

In Julia Child's The French Chef, episode Elegance with Eggs, she taught more than just fancy ways of cooking eggs - baked eggs and molded eggs. She also talked about how to serve food by combining various things you already know how to make, into a presentation of a new dish. She put cooked spinach mixed with white sauce on a sautéd round cut piece of bread, added a molded egg on top, spooned sauce over it and sprinkled with chopped parsley. And, voila! A brand new dish morphed from the hackneyed Eggs Florentine. She went on to suggest a few more ideas with other dishes to inspire the audience to be creative. So, I feel thoroughly encouraged to make dishes up, even if it is strange.

Use of Juicy Water from Canned Beet

The other day I wondered what to do with the juicy water left from a can of beet - that is, rather than drinking it. I looked for ideas on the Internet but most suggestions were to mix drinks or use it as replacement ingredient for its color. So, I kept thinking...

Then, it came to me, if you can mix 2 teaspoonful of tomato paste into a coconut cream curry, why not beet juice? Crazy experiment ensued. Crimson splatter on the walls, orange hued yellow dust circles overlapping various deep brown ones, grayish white smeary drag tracks across counter top and around the hobs... It could have been an incident that triggers a who-done-it investigation. Nah, I am not that messy a cook, really. Really!

The result was a really nice balance of acidity and sweetness with a piquant accent, yet delicate. It has been nice served with chicken, but I can image that it would be perfect accompaniment to crustaceans. If you would like to try this experiment, may I suggest you first try one measure of beet juice to two measures of coconut cream. Play around, and I am sure you will come up with the ratio that is right for you. Naturally, you will want to take into account of any liquid stock you normally use in your recipe, and substitute with stock powder, instead.

Tips:

A good natural coconut cream or milk, without whitening agent, is often slightly grayish.
There is a really good guide to different coconut milk and cream products and even how they are actually made, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXzELWHyOAg