Food for thought #1

Have that special taste in mind and follow your heart to create it!

As an amateur cook, I often fall into the trap of adding every other good seasoning or sauces all into one dish, thinking that that special concoction would make wonders to the chicken, fish and whats not.

Thanks to some good luck, I have, most of the time, managed to present pretty decent dishes back home. However, it was after one (or was it two or perhaps three?) failed attempt/s with vegetables (or was it fish?) lately in aussie that I realise my formula of “all-ins” just doesn’t work.

On one particular day, I was trying to recreate that familiar taste of home-cooked veg/fish. Yet, all I had in mind then was a very simplistic approach of having oyster sauce, soya sauce, pepper and miscellaneous others all added to my food. And amidst a slight sense of loss, i prayed for the magic hand of the kitchen fairy to ensure my food was really ok. However, my kitchen fairy did not turn up and I went frantic. The uncontrolled burst of anxiety thus resulted in a dish with confusing taste.

I should have known this wasn’t it. I have the taste in mind, why did I not think harder or at least hard enough to make up what it is? Why should I leave taste to luck and blessing of the kitchen fairy when I know what I want to deliver?

In retrospect, i realise that recognising the uniqueness of your ingredients' taste and after-taste, fragrance and texture, just like how you acknowledge one another’s worth, strengths and weaknesses would surely help to bring out the best of what each of them could be. We can only have something better than best if we think hard enough, feel strongly for it and act on it.

If having an end in mind is like stretching out to what could be, getting there would be the real test of the fundamentals.

So, confuse the tastebuds no more - start focusing on the essentials.