Trying new recipes

Last weekend, I found a perencah packet for nasi briyani in a mini-market. I was curious about how to use it, because to me nasi briyani is always a dish of rice plus chicken, which are cooked and served separately (though maybe on the same plate). So was the perencah to be used for the rice, or for the chicken? Or were there two separate packets inside?

Turns out that there is only one powdered mix, and it is to be used for both. The instructions were pretty simple; just stir-fry the paste with ghee, then stir in the uncooked rice and chicken before adding water and cooking, all done in a rice cooker.

So I decided to try it out. (this weekend!) Since the preparation steps were pretty simple, I decided to make acar timun to go with it (if the steps had been complicated, I would have just sliced up some cucumber instead :P ).

Here's the end result:

The briyani rice tasted really good. Just the right amount of spices, I guess. Not surprising since I used the same amount of rice as indicated in the packet. I didn't use ghee, though... I just used normal cooking oil. Seems that I need more oil than ghee... at first I put only two tablespoons (the amount of ghee indicated on the packet), but I couldn't even get the powder to mix in properly.

Oh, and I did all the stir-frying and mixing in a frying pan before pouring it into my rice cooker pot. Since my rice cooker is small, I think it would be easier that way...

That was yesterday... and today I made creamy chicken pasta.

Some time ago, I found a few one-pot pasta recipes. It basically involves putting all the ingredients into one pot, instead of cooking the pasta separately. I first tried a tomato-basil pasta (in which I substituted parsley for basil, and added chicken; because yeah, we're carnivores in this family). It turned out very well, so I decided to try creamy chicken pasta after that!

Basically you just cook the pasta in milk (plus water) and add a little flour to thicken the sauce. And in the end, right after it is done, you stir in some grated cheddar cheese (I used Chesdale slices which I hacked into small pieces; though not very small, actually, because they melt with the heat from the pasta anyway)

while cooking

serving!

And why not show you pictures of the tomato pasta as well...

while cooking

done, in the pot (I didn't take this photo for the creamy chicken one)

serving!

All the recipes are there; you can try it out too! Bon appétit!