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!

Eating at the Office

I really thank God for having generous colleagues. If the alignment of stars are right, someone treats us for lunch. Like last time they bought these:

Pancit Palabok, Pizza and Chocolate Mousse cake. Pancit Palabok is a noodle dish topped with shrimp, a few small meat pieces, egg slices, chopped spring onions, toasted garlic, chicharon and a special sauce that is accountable for the yellowish color. There are a lot of variations, actually. The Pancit Palabok was from Goldilocks and it was drenched in sauce but I liked it so much! The sauce was light but flavorful. There's pizza of course. Everyone loves pizza. This one is from Pizza Hut. Bah! Shakey's, Yellow Cab, Greenwich, Mr. Mappy, etc. name it, for as long as it's pizza, I'll eat it. The last one is Chocolate Mousse Cake from Goldilocks again. It was soft and creamy but not too sweet. Someone divided it into several small slices so I took all the corner parts, haha!

Anyway, change topic.

I sometimes don't eat breakfast in the morning so upon arrival here in the office, I stop by a convenience store and I buy these:

Funloops mini donuts. Just chocolate covered, choco-centered donuts. I love munching on these and my favorite is the peanut butter variant. I also made a cup of coffee from our scary-looking coffee maker. Why scary, you ask? It sometimes operate on it's own and emits steamed milk! What more if it starts shooting coffee beans around. Anyway, the concoction turned out to be super bitter despite the fact that I already added two small packs of brown sugar. So I added a lot of milk so I had this:

Haha, looks weird. Change topic, again. We had our lunch out one day at Gerri's Grill so I'll just place these pictures here.

Sizzling Bangus (Milkfish), Hills of rice, Fish stew in Miso Soup, Fried Chicken and French Fries, Sizzling Sisig, and Iced Tea. All were delicious and filling. This is actually one of our favorite restaurants, we dine in big groups and have a good time laughing and taking pictures.