Chicken Ratatouille, Shrimps in garlic, French Omelette, Toasted bread

The Pixar movie, Ratatouille (I have to check G**gle everytime I want to spell this word), says "Anyone can cook".

Puddy, the clumsy cook, says..."Anyone with peanuts can cook French foodie".

After acting on a whim and buying the ingredients for Rat...ille, I decided that Monday's dinner will be French theme. So decided to search for recipes online.

Most of them involves lots of garlics and onions (oooh, yumyum onion soupie), which are relatively cheap, but still poses a problem for puddy. My beloved lil lamb...happens to hate garlic. Maybe we shall avoid France in future. But but...I wanna kiss on the Effiel tower, so think I have to bring other cute penguins along then.

The other ingredient I see the most is....French wine. They use french wine for virtually anything...cakes, soups, seafood, chicken...blah... And of cauze, cheesy! And we are not talking about common cheezes are cheddar or parmeson or mozzie....they are exotic sounding name that no one can pronounce, like Pont-l'Evêque,Mont d'Or, Vacherin du Haut-Doubs...

So without peanuts, do not try your hand at French foodie, cauze wine and cheeze cost a bomb.

Back to the monday meal, so I finally decided on 3 dishy, which have simple ingredients that i actually can find and pronounce in the supermarket.


Well, I combine 2 recipes to get the Rat..ille, as the cooking for engineers site is very precise, with cooking minutes and has photos too. But because there is chicken involved, I also consulted the other site, so I know when to throw the chicken in. The cooking for engineers one , after referenceing many other sites, ask for chicken stock water , which no other site ask for, and Im wondering if thats the reason why my Rat..ille, the gravy is not as rich as it should be. And because I keep thinking its not rich enough, I simmered it for loonger than usual, which might be the reason why the veggies are a bit too mushy, like my tomatoes and bell pepper disappeared. Basically the thing should be tomatoey, so either you simmer with the tomatoes, or you add tomato paste.

After cooking it, I just have one statement to say, Rat..ille is just a brinjal stew in tomato sauce la! Make so much big fuss duhz. Much of the prepartion work is cutting the veggies. Mehz commented that how come got pasta sauce taste? That is because I do not have tomato sauce but becauze ms witchie very nicely donated 3 big bottles of Prego to me, I substituted that.

The shrimpy garlic when served hot is very nice(n easy)...I like the garlic taste in it, but of coz due to the lamb's hiammie food preferences, I has to cook a second batch with more butter in it for him.

And the french omelette I think is the first time in my life i cook such a nice eggy. Really, the word is "combine", not "beat" the egg. It should look nicer the next time I cook it, but the inside soft soft one...yummy. The instructions look harder than it is though, once you get the hang of it, it's really easy.

Who washed the dishy? Damsel, thks!

Ratatouille recipe (mainly from http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/227/Ratatouille, Also referencing http://www.ourgaggleofgirls.com/recipes/?p=203)
6 garlic cloves, 5 medium button or brown mushrooms (I used shitake coz cheaper), 1 medium zucchini, 5 sprigs of Italian parsley(substituted with oregano powder to taste), basil (to taste), 1 medium onion, 2 tomatoes peeled, seeded, and diced, chicken stock 3/4 cup (i just used tap water), 1 Tbs. tomato paste, 1 medium green bell pepper, and 1 large eggplant (450 g).

1. Start cooking by heating olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and saute until the garlic smell intensifies, about one minute.
2. Add the diced onion and continue to saute until they turn translucent, about 4 more minutes.
3. Once the onions are translucent, add 1 Tbs. tomato paste. The tomato paste will be in a clump and will take a bit of stirring and pressing to get it to spread out and cover the onions and garlic.
4. (Throw in the chicken and saute until lightly browned)
   
5. As you work at spreading the paste out and mixing it with the onions and garlic, the paste will cook and darken in color. Once some of the paste starts to still to the pan and brown, it's time to add the stock (about one minute).
6. Pour in 3/4 cup chicken stock and stir until the broth begins to simmer.
   
7. Add the diced eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Stir to combine thoroughly and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring every couple minutes to promote even heating.
8. The eggplant will release a lot of liquid (slowly) into the pot and it's in this liquid that you'll want to simmer the other ingredients in. To evenly cook all the ingredients, you'll have to stir it to make sure the vegetables spend time touching eggplant liquid.
   
9. The eggplant will mostly be falling apart at this point, but the zucchini, bell peppers, and mushrooms should be tender but not yet mushy.
10. Add the diced tomatoes and stir in. After about a minute, the tomatoes will have heated through. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting.
11. Stir in the chopped parsley and basil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Shrimp in garlic sauce Recipe (from http://www.francethisway.com/frenchrecipes/shrimpgarlicsaucerecipe.php)

6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
0.5 cup vegetable oil (so much oil wanna die of cholestrol? I used just a lil bit more than usual)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter (1 tblsppoon)
1 1/2 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled, de-veined and butterflied (about 16 prawns)

1. In a large frying pan, sauté the garlic in medium-hot oil until light brown. Watch carefully so as not to burn.
2. After about 6 to 8 minutes, quickly whisk in the butter and remove immediately from the heat.
3. When all the butter has been added, the bits will become crisp. Remove them with a slotted spoon and reserve the oil and butter for sautéing the shrimp.
4. In a large frying pan, heat about 2 to 3 tablespoons of the reserved oil and then sauté the shrimp for about 5 minutes.
5. Turn over very briefly and then remove.
6. Add more oil as necessary to sauté all the shrimp.
7. Salt to taste. Garnish with garlic bits and parsley.(i hate parsley)

French omelette (http://food.articlesarchive.net/the-perfect-omelette-how-to-cook-it.html &
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1669/the-ultimate-french-omelette.jsp)

1. Add butter
2. combine the egg yolk with whites. I just gently break the egg and stir with fork
3. when butter foamin, pour in mixture
4. Count to 5, then use a fork to lift up one side and push to center and tilt the pan 45 deg so uncooked eggy on top flow down to lift-up space.
5. repeat for the other side and again and again til no more liquid can run down, but the egg inside is still soft and liquidy.
6. fold the eggy in half first...coz i don think i can do it when putting it on the plate.