Have you ever dreamed of what it would feel like to meet your soulmate when you travel? Not everybody believes in the idea of a soulmate. I admit that I am one of those who keep thinking, "How will I know when I meet the one?". The answer is different for everyone but for me, it is about going through culinary adventures together.
Cooking is one of my love languages. Cooking together encourages us to work as a team and bonding over is a proven way to get close to each other. If we could not
be teamwork in the kitchen, how could be united in a relationship?
I wholeheartedly believe that challenging a potential boyfriend to cook a non-complicated Thai dish is one of the ways getting to know the real him and whether he is the one.
Flashback to 8 years ago, on the evening of the hostel's kitchen. I chose to cook an easy and practical pineapple fried rice or 'Kao Pad Sapparot' (ข้าวผัดสัปปะรด) in Thai for a cooking date night. It was not that romantic date with candlelit-alike. But it was for the moment of truth that is how I know I have found my soulmate when he is home to me. Credit to pineapple fried rice!
Fried rice or 'Kao-Pad' (ข้าวผัด) in Thai is influenced by Chinese immigrants 100 years ago. The idea of using leftover rice to create the new dish is so genius.
Thai fried rice is different from the Chinese one because it is not oily and prepared with jasmine rice rather than long-grain rice. Each Asian country has its own adaptation. The Thais choose pineapple to be a superstar of national fried rice because Thailand is one of the largest pineapple growers on the planet.
Pineapple fried rice becomes the talk of the world in 2019 when Disney featuring Mickey and Minnie in their short film,“Our Floating Dreams”. Mickey sells pineapples, while Minnie sells fried rice at Thai floating market. Both fight to sell their own products. In the end, they decide to sell pineapple fried rice.
Let's make your own pineapple fried rice with prawns. You can replace with chicken, turkey, pork or vegetarian version with tofu. The choice is yours.
Begin with cut pineapple into half and use a spoon to scoop the flesh out and put the shell of pineapple which is similar to a boat-like bowl into an oven (200 'c). This gives you an exotic smell and warms them up before putting the fried-rice in.
Heat a pan or a wok until hot, then add vegetable oil. Add chopped onions and stir-fried until onions change colour and edge turn yellow-brown. Place prawns or meat and stir well. Fried onion give a distant sweet flavour to the meat. Add carrot and stir-fry.
Next, add sugar, oyster sauce, soya sauce and pineapple, before adding a tiny piece of butter and stir-fry.
Add leftover jasmine rice and mix well for 3-4 minutes. For best results, use leftover rice that is refrigerated until cold. Freshly cooked rice has too much moisture and gets mushy in the pan.
Remove from the pan and take the pineapple out from the oven. Put fried-rice into the pineapple-bowls. Garnish with fried shallots, coriander and slices of sweet peppers. Serve immediately.
You wouldn't believe what great taste the leftover had brought.
Ingredients (serve 2)
360 grams of prawns (recommend big prawns)
1 Fresh pineapple (or pineapple in a can)
800 grams of jasmine rice (leftover)
40 grams of onions (chopped into nice squares)
40 grams of carrot (chopped into squares)
80 grams of soya sauce
80 grams of oyster sauce
20 grams of sugar
30 grams of vegetable oil
80 grams of butter
Garnish
60 grams fried shallot
a handful of coriander
a handful of sweet peppers
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