Cooking for a humble family of two- part 2

Substitution Vs Creativity

Memories are fragile; it is so easy to forget that cooking was a newly adopted interest of mine. When Ming occasionally messes up the kitchen or ask why I cooked an ingredient a certain way, I would roll my eyes and give him the don’t-you-know-you’re-not-supposed-to-do-that? or the I’ve-been-doing-that-like-for-forever look. Apparently, I haven’t done it for that long. I started cooking my own meals three years ago when I moved out of the dormitories and lived in a house. I wasn’t able to cook the food I grew up eating or watching other people make. Saratoga Springs, upstate New York has no rice cooker, no steaming racks nor dishes, no seasonings nor sauces to offer. Thus, I started a habit of using other ingredients or techniques as a substitution to my Chinese/Canto taste. Ming says that is being creative, but really there’s no creation involved.It is trying to achieve a certain result with all the available resources at hand. Two springs ago I found daikon radish for sale at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market, I bought it without a second thought. It was the first time I saw it available in the area and I love daikon radish!

Back in the kitchen when I'm calmly looking at all my groceries, I realized I don't necessarily like daikon radish... I like it when it's cooked in two separate dishes: slow-cooked briskets with daikon and turnip pudding. And between the two dishes, I prefer turnip pudding. My head brought me back to the one particular evening my brother and I looking at my mom making turnip pudding for Chinese New Year. I need Chinese dried sausages, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimps, scallops, some scallions, and rice flour. Salt and grounded white pepper! That time my mom forgot to put those in, and my grandmother would not let her hear the end of it for two weeks straight. I looked at my lonely daikon on the kitchen counter, I did not have of those ingredients at hand and I didn't have the equipment to steam the pudding either! I started looking around for substitutes: bacon, portabella mushrooms, cracked black pepper, all-purpose flour, mixed with the shredded daikon, that would work. And I can bake the mixture in the oven! Turnip cake can't be that far away from turnip pudding. And in the end I was happy to consume that weird interpretation of turnip pudding thinking it's a taste I like.

Through many similar experiences, I started to love cooking. There's a lot of freedom, a lot of personality, and a lot of changes involved in this skill. Ming is my first client regarding my career as a personal chef, and he gives me free range to whatever I want to serve. In order to keep a high customer satisfaction rate, mere substitution is not enough, now creativity is called for. What I mean is creating an illusion for him. Ming is not a picky eater, and he's not allergic to new things, but from years of eating out he developed a habit. Leftovers are a foreign concept to him. To me, growing up leftovers are like a necessary evil in our family, it is heated up on top of the bed of rice in the rice cooker. And before we start eating, my mother would ceremoniously divide the leftovers in equal portions at hand it to us at the dinner table. While she mutters that as a family we have an obligation to share the responsibility of finishing the leftovers. When I asked Ming if he would like dumplings the third night in a row because I made them in bulk, he looked like a disappointed child.
"Okay... can we have something else though?"
"Why? You liked it so much yesterday."
"yeah, but we had that as dinner for two days already."
"Is that a problem?"
"Not really... but... Can we have something else?"
I mean, I have no intention of throwing leftovers away, but I don't want to shove it down Ming's throat either. Because leftovers is not a necessary evil, it's food! And as long as it's food, it should be enjoyed. Hence, the great transformation started, I started altering leftovers into something totally unrecognizable. Forth of July barbecued leftovers was diced to bits and made into fried rice.
"Wow, this rice has a smoky flavor in it!"
"Yeah, that's what sauteed peppers do."
Cooked rice became porridge on the second day, leftover salsa was used as a sauce to the rice paper wrapped chicken in the coming week, and the boiled potatoes was safely hidden in scallion pancakes. Masking food became such a fun thing to do, I started getting bolder...

The other day I was making lunch for Ming, and the fridge had a bit of cream left from last week. I was making scrambled eggs so I figured I will splash the last dash of cream in it, why not? It will makes the eggs fluffy and creamy. Only when I was whisking the eggs I realized the cream was sweetened previously because it was a dessert ingredient… well, what can I do? I'm not throwing it away, so I diced up some carrots and lettuce, and wrapped the whole thing in rice paper.

“Wow, this tastes great!"

“Is it too salty? I sprinkled a lot of salt in it at the end"

"Nah it's okay, the sweet carrots and crunchy lettuce balanced it out."

 "I’m glad you liked it…”