Masak Masak..

Today I cooked..

Was kinda sick of the bentos from the convenient stores that I decided to cook.. As I do not have a kitchen in my room, I was very reluctant to cook when I first got here.. Even now, I hate going into the common kitchen as the state of it doesn't really 'inspire' appetite, in fact one could very well lost one's appetite after a quick 'tour' of the common kitchen.. :x

Thus I decided to cook something, without leaving my room, using the rice cooker that my brother passed me few months ago. It was a very simple rice dish with some pre-packed ingredient that I got from one of those economical stores.. Not too bad for someone who is using this particular rice cooker to cook Japanese rice for the first time. I had put a bit more water to it so it was slightly mushier but it was okay as I like mushy rice.. :) The rice cooker is also capable of making porridge, so maybe I would give that a try someday..

Here the raw ingredients are not much cheaper compared to Singapore, much lesser Malaysia. I bought 1 kg of rice at 498yen, which is more than SG$6! 4 eggs for 150yen (around SG$1.80)! Have yet to check out the prices for vegetables and meat or poultry, but I doubt it would be any cheaper.. thus frankly, it wasn't very economical to cook just 1 meal for 1 person.. especially with the kind of instant food that is widely available and so much more hassle-free.. The two reason I think people would cook, particularly in the dorm, is either religious (aka food must be halal, no pork/etc) or cravings (missing home-cooked food or the taste of home).

As this is my first try with the rice cooker, I think I will 'experiment' more and see what other dishes I can cook with it.. maybe I could even try cooking curry with it, :p before getting another appliance like the hotplate, slow cooker or whatever.. Also the dorm has a rule that says that all cooking should be done in the common kitchen, to prevent fire or whatever.. but frankly, the number of times I smell burnt 'stuff' from the kitchen tells me that I should be safe cooking in my room as long as I am careful about it.. cos hey I am going to sleep in the room after cooking, right? Who would want to start a fire in their own room??!! And I would definitely clean up properly after cooking, unlike those using the common kitchen!

So for the days that I'm going to stay in, I might cook something to eat for the whole day.. The one thing that I miss a lot is green cooked vegetables.. The vegetables here are either pickled vegetables, white radish or cold salad (lettuce, carrot,cabbage, etc). I missed my kangkong belacan, xiao bai chai, chai xin, bitter gourd and even mixed vegetables.. :( The only interesting vegetables here is mushrooms.. there are a great more variety of mushrooms available in Japan.. so maybe I might do a blog on the types of mushrooms next time.. :)