Student cooking: Chicken on Pasta

I've been observing the eating habits of students living overseas. Most of them have BAD eating habits.. I mean MOST (don't get me wrong).. not all. It's either junk food or eat out. McD or Pizza Hut would be the most popular names when it comes to eating. It may be the cheapest among all eat out places but seriously. It's not that cheap when accumulated together. Honestly, sometimes I would have McD too but that's only when I got tempted like a pregnant woman. And when there's cooking, it's INSTANT Noodle.

When I ask this question, "Why don't you cook?" The answer I get mostly is "No time."
HAHA!! To me, "No time" is just a synonym for "LAZY".
I'm a student myself and 90% of my days in overseas, I cooked. And I don't cook in bulk that will last for one week. I always cook and eat on the spot. That's because I want it fresh and I like variety. And I'll try NOT to use the microwave oven. because I'm a health freak.

I understand that cooking, to most students, are time consuming and there're lots of work. Preparing the ingredients, cooking, and washing the utensils. Students can't waste too much time on cooking... they need to use the time to play games and watch movies do their assignments and study.

I'm lazy myself. Those who know me know that I can sit in front of the television the whole day.
When I cook, I'll try to make something that takes the least time and uses the least utensils. But of course, it has to be healhy. After a while, I just got used to it and it actually makes me think a lot for creativity and taste. That's why I'm smart. =D.

So recently, I've given a thought. Maybe I should just share with the rest of the students. I wanna help reduce obesity and definitely I don't want McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC or Maggi to earn so much every year. I'm not cooking luxurious food like the homemakers do. It's just simple food, as long as it's Healthy, Simple and Time efficient.

I'll start of with the Chicken on Pasta one which I've been doing quite a lot in Spain because I finish work late.

How you cook the food really depends on the amount you eat and according to taste. What I'm giving here is according to my taste. I'm just giving ideas. =D.

Ingredients:
2 pieces of Chicken (Thigh, Drum, or Breast from the supermarket)
1 Tomato
Pasta (Preferably angel hair because takes the least time. It's better to break it)


Marinades:
2 tablespoon of Soya Sauce
1 table spoon of Sugar
Pepper
*No use of complicated spices unless you want to add some other stuff yourself. It's creativity



Utensils
2 plates (One for eating and one for marinating)
1 medium size pan (Non stick is the best) (I used this to boil the pasta as well. That's why I break the pasta)
1 knife
1 pair of fork and spoon
1 chopping board (not necessary. Usually I cut the ingredients on the plate. Yepp.. I'm lazy)

Steps:

1. Put water to boil in the pan. When water is boiled, add the pasta and let it cook. Stir once in a while.
2. At the time when you start boiling the water, start de-boning and cutting the chicken into pieces (*cooks much faster because there's more surface area). Then, marinade the chicken. Also, slice the tomato.(*If lazy, buy the readily de-boned chicken)
3. By the time the pasta is cooked, the chicken should be marinated or at least de-boned and cut. If not, just off the fire and continue marinating your chicken.
4. Drain the water from the pasta. (*Because I used pan, there is not much water to drain out. Just pour the water slowly and push back the pasta from dropping out using the fork. With this method, it's impossible to drain out all the water. Just let it be. As long as it looks like there's no water, it's enough.)
5. Put aside the pasta on a plate (*You'll be leaving the pasta for a while so it's good to have a little bit of water so the pasta will not dry out and stick together after you finish cooking the meat)
6. Rinse and dry the pan on fire and start cooking the meat. Remember to make sure there's no water in the pan before adding oil. It's IMPORTANT. Throw everything in including the excessive marinade and tomato (*tomato reduces the sizzling and minimizes the amount of oil droplets from flying everywhere).
7. Once the chicken is cooked, pour onto the pasta and it's READY for eating.

 Time Consumption
Preparing and Cooking (20 - 25 minutes)
Eating (10 minutes)
Washing (5minutes)

Nutrition

Protein and fats (chicken)
Vitamins and fibre (Tomatoes)
Carbohydrates (Pasta)

See... the total time used is only about 40 minutes and that includes eating and washing. Real fast for a healthy meal and much much cheaper. Seriously!! Stop eating junk food and instant noodles. There're other food too, which I'll post from time to time. Enjoy! And one more thing.. who says guys can't multitask??

Masia Restaurant

This is about another restaurant...again...called Masia Restaurant located at Lloret de Mar. Lloret is one of the most popular spots for young tourists. I was told that Lloret is where sex, drugs and alcohol lives. But I didn't go there for that. I go there for food.


Like other Catalan restaurants, the design is also based on antique styles. There're lots of antique farming tools hanging on the walls. I remember taking lots of pictures but I don't know where it goes...How I wish I can download them from my memory instead.

The only picture of antiques left is this antique sewing machine. Old times.. when people are healthier because they exercise more. Even sewing needs lots of energy. Unlike now.. things are so easy even the sewing designs are computerised.


Well, the restaurant is quite big and complicated. It took me 10 minutes to find the toilet. I walked up the stairs and down the stairs repeatedly but couldn't find it. Only after I asked then I realised it's in the middle of the stairway. I mean who knows the toilet would be in the middle. It's always ground floor or first floor but half-floor?? And I didn't see any sign board either.


About the food, the restaurant serves mainly seafood. Again, I lucky picked the dish from the menu. And this is what I picked..

One whole plate of mussels for appetizer. Wooh... it is a lot of mussels I tell you. Usually for marinara pastas there're only two to three mussels and I would complain the restaurant being stingy. Here, I have one whole plate of just mussels. Had too much of it I'm not eating mussel for a month. Seriously...


Then, for the main course, I had baked fish with potatoes. It's quite good though.. Not awesome but good. I think they did add curry powder to the fish.

And finally, for dessert, I had Crema Catalan. Although it's the dessert which is supposed to be as a "mouth-washer", I think this would be the climax of my meal. It's similar to creme brulee but the Catalan style. Best dessert so far in Spain. The texture is so fine it melts away in my mouth and the sugar crisp on top provides the sweet bite... Mmmmmm... excelente!!

10 B

Here comes another post and it's about.... FOOD again!!! yeah... I'm just so glad I was given the privilege to try this and that for free.

This time, it's a restaurant at the city centre of Girona called 10B. I don't know what inspired them to give such name but I think it's simple. On the way there, I kept on hearing 10B within the Catalan conversation and I thought it was some sort of project but no... it's just 10B. I know Spanish people will never talk about work during lunch. And there's no use calling them during lunch to ask about work because you'll never reach them until lunch time is over.


Well, this restaurant sure is a very busy restaurant... People queue up waiting for their turn to sit down. And for the first time in my life, I see the waiter come to our table and shoo us away... literally with their hands like when you chase a way a cat. I guess they have been doing this a lot considering the continuous crowd they have. But it wasn't anything serious and the customers are considerate and smart enough to realize the situation.


The meal in this restaurant is divided into four parts. The first was potato soup (forgot to take the picture) for palate and tongue "cleansing". Cold potato soup. It's more popular to have the soup served cold in Spain. So far I have not had hot creamy soup yet in restaurants. For me, the first mouth is always surprising because there's a mindset that soup is always hot. I think most Asians would have that kind of mindset.

Everytime, when I have the first spoon of soup, I would always get the reflex action like "Huh, cold soup??" But after that, it just gets tastier until the very last spoon.

Then comes the appetizer. I ordered the famous Spanish potato omelette called Tortillas de patatas. But to be honest, I didn't know what I ordered until when the dish is served. The names are always different and it's in Catalan. It happens every lunch. I would just pick the coolest name and then wait to be surprised. It's like Boxing day every day.


And then the main course. I also didn't know it was fish until then. But I'm like Ferdinand Magellan in the food world so nothing bothers me. The portion wasn't that big but I think there's a reason for it.


And here comes the unique part of the restaurant, the dessert session. Unlike other restaurants, 10B has a bar with all sorts of desserts and it's "All you can eat". I was surprised at first and didn't dare to take so many rounds for I fear there will be extra charges. But nope, it's included in the lunch set price. Kinda regret for not taking more though.

I've had all kinds of normal buffet before but never the "dessert only" buffet.
I only had two small pathetic rounds though... Sigh.. haha

The first was the caramelized baked apple. This is the first time I've tried baked apple and it was good. I like how the sweetness and the sourness is being locked inside. Plus the sugar bits on top...YUM
Then the second round was chocolate dipped pudding and fruit topped pastry and cookies. The three balls on top are the best sweet stuff I've tasted in Spain. I took five actually and ate two before taking the picture.

And throughout the meal, I drank this. This beautifully bottled vodka lookalike is in fact just plain agua. A very high class looking water. And it's not refilled. The bottles served are all sealed. I wonder how much it cost... Perhaps I should buy back as souvenirs. People would think it's some sort of expensive alcohol and I'll just keep quiet, telling them not to open too soon.
;)

FOOD FOOD FOOD!!!

I've been trying different restaurants 5 days a week. It's just impossible for me to post one restaurant one by one at a time.. that's just ridiculous. So, I've compiled two of the regular restaurants together. The food in both restaurants, like usual are delicious. It's a restaurant for goodness sake so there's no really terrible food. The most terrible food in a restaurant is still edible. Of course there are some which are below my expectations so there's no use posting those food.

The FIRST restaurant

Another type of paella. This one has no seafood but has all sorts of sausages and meat

This one was the starter... It's baked eggplant with cheese and bolognese sauce equivalent. I love this one..

Like I always said. There are three kinds of drinks all the time. Water, Carbonated water, and Wine... ALWAYS!!

The SECOND Restaurant

This is Flam.. It's the local traditional caramel pudding

Traditional homemade ice cream. If i'm not mistaken the main ingredients are egg whites and milk.

And these baked beans with three layer pork... Presentation wise is not nice but when you put in your mouth you'll never stop until the plate's empty..

And this is grilled monkfish from one very random restaurant. No trace of where and when but I'm pretty sure it's in Spain because we cannot find this fish in Malaysia.. Go and search in google what this fish is and I bet you'll not wanna eat them. Only food lovers like me will try good food.. =D

Obviously I'm a really greedy person. Hmmmm... why do I enjoy food so much?? But of course I'll watch my health and weight (Trying to bulk up here.. but only the face radius seem to fluctuate)

Till then....

Andreu in La Roca

Well, here comes another Spanish food post again. This time, it's something which cannot be found in Australia or Malaysia. Just Spain.

So, we went to this place called the La Roca Village. It's actually a Direct Factory Outlet where you can find lots of French buying stuff from this place.


A few shops away from the entrance, you'll find a restaurant called Andreu.

This restaurant serves nothing else but HAM and CHEESE. Every dish has got either ham or cheese. So if you don't like to eat ham, then it's not recommended.

However, it's not exactly the ham that you can find in the supermarket. It's really high quality ham. The pigs are like the "kampung chicken" which runs freely and they are only fed corn and not waste which human cannot finish eating.

The ham legs for sell. It's really expensive. 85 pounds for one leg.
I can actually buy a return ticket to Germany or London

Of course, the ham has this price for a reason. It's just awesomely delicious. And the texture of the ham is fantastico!!

The menu of the Restaurant. It's either you order something with ham or with cheese. Anything else then maybe you'll have to go to Restaurant Asiatic Nou Wok.. =D

The starter of my meal. It's sheep's cheese with tomato marmalade (Not tomato sauce ok... tomato marmalade.. sweet stuff). It's my first time eating this and like usual, I like it. It's more elastic compared to the regular cow's cheese.

Then I have the Ilberian ham with Brie cheese served on pizza bread. This is the best ham sandwich I've ever tasted. So good. It's almost like silk, the meat.

I wasn't full, so I decided to go for another round. This one is Pork Loin Fillet with Brie. This one is not bad but it wasn't as good as the first one. This one is a little bit tougher which I don't really prefer.

Then, my dessert is cheese cake. It's ok but wasn't the type I yearned for. I wanted the really heavy and rich cheesecake which they don't have.

However, overall, it's really a must visit restaurant if you visit Catalunya. After trying this, you'll feel the difference in the ham here and the ones available in the supermarket.

Till then

Restaurant Asiatic Nou Wok

This is another restaurant which I've visited. I forgot where it is but I know it's at a really touristy place with lots of foreigners coming to the beaches and there's also a water theme park somewhere near. I think it's Llorets if I'm not mistaken.

Well, from the name of the restaurant, obviously you'll know it's an Asian restaurant. This is the first Asian restaurant I've visited in Spain and it's different from the rest of the restaurants. Not because it's Asian but it's BUFFET style.

Yepp, having buffet for lunch during a working day. That's life. Especially for a food addict like me.


All the workers in the restaurant are Chinese. So, for the first time I get to order myself. But it's a buffet restaurant so I didn't exactly order anything. All I said was "Coca-Cola" and therefore it's like the rest of the restaurants... Sigh..

There are many sections of food in the restaurant.

There is the fresh seafood and poultry section where you get whatever you want and the chef will cook for you

here. This is where I get to talk to the workers and found out they were migrants from China. They are "own people" (in Chinese) so I felt rather good.

And there's multicultural section I call it because they've got from western fries to eastern satay.
By the way, in Spain, fries is not a popular food here like the rest of the world. In fact, it's so rare that my supervisor find it weird eating deep fried potatoes (which we call chips in Australia).

Then, there's another seafood section. There's sushi, sashimi, prawns and snails... Yummm


And another section. The regular section where you find fried chicken, prawns, squid, octopus, duck.. I took so many rounds of food from here.

I really liked this place. Despite going for so many rounds, I haven't got enough of it. I so wanna go to this restaurant again.