The Little James Kitchen

15th October 2014.

The past few weeks have been hectic and there don’t seem to be any end to it till December (I hope!) However, once in a while, after a submission, it is such a luxury to not do anything or just do something you love to do. A friend of mine really loves cooking and invited us over to his place for lunch one day.

James’ kitchen is no Gordon Ramsay cooking studio or has potted herbs in reach like a kitchen out of Jamie Oliver’s. It is a typical HDB kitchen, small but it has everything James need including a couple of his prized investments such as an excellent blade from Spain. But, today the star is James’ newly acquired noodle maker which he got from Carousell.

The cooking begun with some hiccups such as forgetting the flour for the pasta and the pasta getting entangled because it was too sticky… Eventually, he got the tagliatelle to the texture he desires and cooking was a breeze.

The tagliatelle cooked really fast and it was pretty good when done aglio-olio style with some olive oil, bacon and garlic or with some home-made tomato pasta gravy mixed in with some meat patties. 

Along with the pasta, he also prepared a Roasted Chicken with Thyme and Rosemary on a bed of potatoes. Chiak kantang was never so enjoyable, the potatoes that came with the moist, juicy chicken was divine.

Dessert wasn’t part of the plan, but I got some pineapples at home and James got some left over jellies, so I did a dessert of caramelized pineapples paired with ice cream, jellies and pan-fried crushed biscuit bits, worked pretty well.