And we’re cooking!

I actually do a mean Julia Child impersonation. It’s awe-inspiring.

One thing I don’t talk about a lot on the blog is cooking. Mostly because…well…I cook really well. I don’t have to think about it. It’s easy. Which means that it’s not really all that funny. Despite the Martha-y-ness of all things home prepared, it just doesn’t occur to me to blog about cooking because I can’t really see where it will be entertaining for anyone. (Unless I’m making a crepe cake, because THAT is funny. Me making crepes is funny. By definition.)

But I invented a new recipe. I do this a lot, but mostly I can’t remember them. So when my family says things like, “Wow! We should have this again!” I pretty much ignore them because I know I won’t be able to.

But this one is too simple and too memorable. It was inspired by a recipe we saw for ginger-scallion sauce. This recipe can be found in its entirety here.

And, as it turns out, the act of trying to be a food photographer and food blogger went a little less smoothly than I meant it to. Which totally upped the entertainment value.

Take two ounces of ginger and four ounces of scallions and pulse in food processer until very fine:

How do I know that this is two ounces of ginger? Because I know that it is all the fresh ginger I had. Therefore, it is “two ounces.”

This picture is totally unnecessary except that I thought the green and the pink were pretty together.

How do I know this was four ounces of scallions? I know that the package said “6 oz” and I know math.

While you are doing this, set two chicken breasts in a shallow pot of water with some ginger chunks (not pictured), a few smashed garlic cloves (not pictured), a few extra scallions cut into large pieces (not pictured) and 1 tsp. of salt (not pictured). See how great I am at this?

After you take this picture, wipe the steam from your lens and your glasses.

ALSO, poaching should typically be bone-in breasts. It takes a little longer, but the meat stays much more tender. These are boneless though, which I decided to use due to the seeing as how I didn’t have any other kind.

I set the timer for six minutes. After some time it occurred to me, “shouldn’t that timer be going off?” and when I glanced at the oven, realized that I had set it for 6 hours. Which would have resulted in chicken-jerky. I’m glad I noticed.

Now, in a largish soup-size bowl, mix the ginger and the scallion and salt them (and this is a quote from the recipe): “like they called your mother a bad name.” It turns out that in my house, calling my mother a bad name earns you just shy of two teaspoons of salt. Mix well.

While you are doing that, heat 1/2 cup of corn or peanut oil (NOT canola or olive, which of course is what Himself and I purchased the first time we decided to try this recipe) in a small pot until you JUST see wisps of smoke.

Right about now, realize that you have turned on the wrong burner. Which, considering you have lived in the house for almost four years, is pretty well inexcusable.

Now stop referring to yourself in the third person.

After I turned on the CORRECT burner, I stared intently at it, because heating up oil always freaks me out.

Once I saw the first wisps of smoke, I pulled the pot off the burner and poured it slowly over the ginger/scallion/salt mixture. It boils.

I couldn’t quite get to the camera fast enough to get it in full bubbly boily-mode, but trust me…it was awesome.

This needs to cool a bit, so now we move on to other things.

These are rice sticks from Trader Joe’s. I use these for all sorts of dishes. I do a peanut sauce noodle dish that’s incredible, I’ll toss them with veggies and soy sauce, they’re great.

Boil these. I’m not going to say any more about it than that. Read the directions. I have faith in you.

This is a pile of sliced chicken. Cut in whatever manner suits your fancy. I cut each breast in half, then in narrow-ish slices. I have no reason for this. The size just spoke to me. Zen-like. In whatever Zen-like way boiled chicken is capable of speaking.

Now here is where I tried to take another picture of the sauce, only to realize that the camera battery was dead. So I figured I could load the battery in the charger for a few minutes and at least get enough charge to take my last few photos. So I sprinted down the hall. Halfway down the hall I realized that I had just left the kitchen in the care of two cats while I had diced chicken on the counter. I sprinted back to the kitchen. At which point I realized that I could not herd cats with the camera around my neck. So then I WAY sprinted down the hall to deposit the camera on the bed, and sprinted even faster (which I would not have previously thought was possible) back to the kitchen to evict the cats. Which I did. Then I loaded the battery into the charger. Then I considered passing out and leaving the whole rest of the dish undone.

But it was a potluck, I was expected to bring something.

So back to the kitchen, where noodles are boiling, sauce is cooling, and chicken is…uh…well, drying out, frankly, if I don’t get my arse in gear.

So now I pull these out from the fridge:

Pickled Zombie Eyeballs!

No. Not really. Sorry.

Quartered mushrooms that I had marinating in teriyaki sauce overnight. They were scrumptious. They come later. But I wanted to show them to you now.

So once the noodles are cooked, drain.

Some of the psychotic awkwardness of my kitchen would be viewable in this photo if I hadn’t stood unnaturally close to the noodles for the sake of the picture.

But that’s another post. I didn’t want to distract myself, so I kept the field of view narrow.

So now, we have these things:

Rice noodles, poached chicken, ginger-scallion sauce and pickled zombie eyeballs.

For the sake of this arrangement, I did not want to add the zombie eyeballs…er…mushrooms just yet. I needed it to sit for an hour or two before serving and I didn’t want the teriyaki flavor to take over the dish. So I mixed everything but the zombie eyeballs (which I drained and brought with me) and then it looked like this:

Note the lovely and highly photogenic tupperware.

Then later, once I was at our little work soiree, I threw it all into a lovely bowl, sprinkled the pickled zombie eyeballs on top, and then it looked like this:

And it was delicious.

It is also, however, nameless.

Any ideas?

This post happily linked to “Tasty Tuesdays” at A Beautiful Mess!