food

I watched My Kitchen Rules for the first time tonight. And it will probably be my last time watching it. This is why:

YOU DON’T MESS WITH FOOD

It’s this simple. Channel 7 is a poor channel and My Kitchen Rules is a sad pathetic lame excuse for a cooking competition show. And I’m pissed about it, for reasons unknown. How pissed? I thought that a 45 minute Magic the Gathering game with 2 very close matches against cfgt would take my mind off it. It did not.

What got me so pissed off? Firstly, if anyone from Channel 7 is reading, it’s spelled “HAINANESE Chicken Rice”. Note the spelling. You spelled it on screen wrong. TWICE * Evidence 1. Evidence 2 . And everyone pronounced the word wrong countless times. Is it so hard? Hai-nan (IPA: ˈhaɪˈnæn)

Hainan?

The etymology of the word ‘Hainanese’ is as such: the root word is Hainan, which is a place in China. Hainanese describes a situation where something is of Hainan. Hainanese people are a sub-ethnicity of the Han Chinese (oh yeah, there are more ethnicities in China than you think). Hainanese food are foods typical of the Hainanese culture.

Now that the primer is done, here’s some more interesting things. Hainanese chicken rice is not exactly Hainanese. You see, the Hainanese people moved south from China into South East Asia. They settled in places like Malaysia and Singapore. And with them they brought their cuisine, which having passed through a different geography, mutated on its own. Ingredients not found in the place of origin were added (like pandan/screwpine leaves).

The original inspiration for Hainanese chicken rice was the wen chang chicken (文昌鸡). And what was it? Chicken blanched in hot water. What’s special about it is the sauce, made of ginger, garlic, spring onion, and soy sauce.

That was the original inspiration for Hainanese chicken rice.  As previously mentioned, the recipe mutated. Chicken was boiled in pork stock instead of just water. The sauces had a dash of sesame oil. As such, it can be said that Hainanese chicken rice is almost exclusively a South East Asian fare, although I’d grant you as far as saying it’s Hainanese.

But this is not what the judges say. Here is a transcript of what they said:

[Read More]

The awesome Neil deGrasse Tyson (follow him on Twitter) once said that if you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you. And last night I ate at a place that was very clearly run by a scientist and there are evidence to show for it. What does an eating place run by a scientist looks like? Firstly, superfluous signs that explain even the obvious. For example, there was a sign that says “Dining Area” (the shop had two entrances – one for takeaways and one for eating in). [Read More]