Random Cooking: Fried Chicken and Tofu

The first food I learned to cook was an omelet. Very easy huh? Since then my fascination in cooking grew! Here in the Philippines there are a lot of foods that are cooked the traditional way using native and indigenous ingredients. Although I am really interested in cooking, believe it or not, I don't know a single Filipino dish. My approach to cooking is different, I like it unplanned, unmeasured, unexpected and unknown. I cook with my instincts. So last weekend I was assigned to prepare lunch. My mother defrosted portions of chicken the night before and I began the operation. I call this "Operation Randomness". Cook with whatever I see.

First off - boil the chicken in a mixture of lots of cane vinegar, ground pepper, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce.

then drain it

Before frying, I gathered anything useful in sight for the breading. In a bowl, I mixed flour, a little baking powder, a few or rather lots of turmeric powder and cinnamon powder! Haha! What a mix!


As for the rice, good thing I found this Clara Ole's instant java mix. So I just chopped up some onions, mushrooms and lots of garlic.. I just love the taste of garlic in fried rice!

When the rice is halfway cooked, add them all to the pot.

I still have a few breading mix left and it would be a waste to throw it away. Good thing I saw a pack of tofu at the fridge. Like what I did to the chicken, after slicing them into thin parts, I dipped them in egg, rolled them in the batter and in to the oil.


Lunch is served! The chicken had the aroma of cinnamon and the tangy flavor of turmeric. It was crisp and well done. The rice was a bit lacking in flavor. Maybe I should've put more java rice flavoring. I love how the tofu turned out. I increased the heat and fried it in less than 3 minutes. It was perfectly crunchy on the outside and really soft inside! Let's eat!