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Bookworm is happy

This Sunday I went for business in Dubai, and since the Magrudy's were having a clearance sale we decided to check it out. Ah, it was a bookworm heavn, mountains of books... tons and tons, all starting from 5 AED~. Took me an hour to pick 4 books, and the total cost was 60 AED! I got Sharpe's Fury, the one I was lusting after since forever, for 15 AED; that's 90 AED less!, it's like it was free; my basket had also Man and Wife, The worst case scenario: x-mas, Pretty Straight guys and some English reading material for grade 5. After I went home I regretted not buying more books as gifts *selfish mai* and it was too late to go back, next time in sha'a allah I'll make sure I come out with a box full of books.

how big is your mouth

Ever since I started cooking, my golden rule was "never handle meat", the mere thought of cooking meat scared me, I always had this feeling that cooking meat needs some talent and experience, once I see a recipe that calls for meat I sigh and flip the page. One day I was craving beef burgers and my mum was out, so I had to summon my courage and make my own burgers; after flipping in some cookbooks and scraps of magazines I decided to use a recipe in James Martin's easy British food , but I did some modifications and 'till now I made burgers with the same recipe four times, and every time my family ask " when will be the next time you make more", hah~.

so yesterday I made some, and as always I remembered to take a picture after I started to eat, a trend is starting.

Beef burgers (Mai's way)

(makes 6 good sized burgers)

1 Fry the chopped onions in a little oil to take off the rawness.
2 Mix the minced beef with the onions, chopped gherkins, mayonnaise, mustard, Tabasco... then season well with salt and pepper.
3 Take a ball of the mixture and shape it into a burger then make a small indentation in the middle of it, put the cheese in it and enclose it and reshape into a burger.
4 Put in the fridge to firm for a 30 minutes.
5 Fry in a hot saucepan for 6 minutes on each side, for a well done burger, if you like it medium done cut out the cooking time to 4 minutes. If you are lazy (like me) you can just throw it in a 190C oven for 45ish minutes or less, and they will be perfect, just remember to splash some olive oil on the burgers before you pop them in the oven.


Ingredients
2 small onions, finely chopped
700 g minced beef
8 Gherkins (pickled cucumbers) chopped
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp mustard
splash of Tabasco, depending on how hot you want it
slat and pepper
6 slices of cheese, fold each to make a slice that is similar to a coin in size

Ego is a dangerous thing

Hah, remember that choux pastry I made ages ago, I finally took it out of the freezer today to bake it, and for some reason *cough*cocky-mai*cough* I managed to under-bake 50% of the patch, and there was nothing I could do to save them, in the end I had to throw them :'(, note to self : never freeze stuff unless you become a pastry chef, and leave you stupid ego out of the kitchen next time

I remembered to take a shot this time after I started to munch away, and this bit of eclair in the pic was my last bite, I took the shot and threw the yummy thing in my mouth XD.

I love chili

Today cooking lunch was on me, so after a minute of thinking I decided to go for Thai+ Vietnamese with a bit of Indonesian cuisine thrown in, I made my list that had : rice noodles, bean sprouts and many other ingredients... after preparing every thing I was craving some chili, and so I made a lime-chili dressing to drizzle on my bowl of noodles, since none in my family like spicy food I made a small amount of it. I have to say that I ended up putting a bit too much chili, and it was OH-lord-have-mercy-on-me hot.. it was hot hot hot hot, I never in my life eaten anything that is so hot before (and I ate my share of chili for the bast five years) I thought I was ready for this, but no! sitting next to my mum I couldn't talk to express my discomfort, all I was able to do is to groan and stick my tongue out, then I ran to the kitchen to grab some sugar to put down the fire in my mouth ;_;. while I'm writting this I had to stop a capule of times to wipe tears, say soothing words to my grumpling stomach, and to supply my brunt tongue with sugar. But still, I love chili!

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