Dan Q

Day: 9 February 2005

So I’m Sat At Work…

…minding my own business, and some random guy walks in through the office door, looking lost. Nobody seems to get up to see to him, so I – in my new desk, which is quite close to the door – go over to greet him. “Is there;” he begins, sounding a little unsure of himself, “Is there a ‘Scatman’ here?”

Oh; fucking hell, I think. For some reason, I’m reminded of the last time somebody wandered up and confirmed my identity by addressing me by my “blog name”, and it turned out to be a scary stalker type. I try to think back about what libellous thing I might have said this week.

“Hi; I’m from Unigryw (another company in the Technium),” he begins, “I was looking at your web site -“

“Scatmania.org,” I reply, pronouncing the hyperlink with surprising clarity.

“Yes,” he continues, “I was hoping I could use your review of Nice ‘N’ Naughty on LocalTVi.”

So, I let him. Pretty much all the original content on my weblog is covered by a creative commons license anyway, but I just told him he could do whatever he liked with it. And if only LocalTVi had an RSS feed, I’d keep an eye out for my review appearing on it, too. I thought everything had an RSS feed, these days. Ah well.

Article posted at UTC on .

2 comments

Thai-Style Turkey & Rice

I’ve always been drawn to trying to prepare a fried-rice dish, but I’ve always been put off by the risk of burning it (I’d have imagined that it would be difficult to prevent rice from over-cooking and sticking to the pan, which would make for far-from delightful cleaning, later). But having watched Ken Hom preparing some egg-fried rice on a TV show earlier this week (he made it look so easy), I thought I’d have a go at concocting a Thai-style fried rice dish.

It was absolutely wonderful, by the way – if you only ever follow one of the recipes I’ve put on my blog, make it this one.

Thai-Style Turkey & Rice
Serves 2/3
Ingredients
3 portions boiled rice (can be ‘leftovers’, or whatever – sorry I can’t give you a real measurement; I always measure rice by guesswork)
300g turkey breast, cut into bite-size chunks (or any other white meat)
~10 medium-sized closed-cup mushrooms, quartered
3 eggs, beaten
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper (I used a ramiro pepper, ‘cos they taste great), diced
1 medium-sized red chilli pepper, thinly sliced and de-seeded
2 tablespoons nam pla (or substitute: soy sauce will do)
Hot red chilli powder
Dried ginger
Dried garlic (would have loved to have used fresh garlic and ginger, but couldn’t be bothered)
Dried lemongrass and kaffir (lime leaves) or generic Thai 7-Spice (or similar pre-mixed spice)

Method
Liberally oil a wok or frying pan and fry the turkey pieces, mushroom, and onion (and garlic and ginger, if using fresh rather than dried) and fry until the turkey is cooked (white all over). Add the pepper and chilli pepper and stir rapidly, while adding dried ingredients (chilli powder, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, kaffir) and nam pla to taste. Don’t be afraid to add more oil if you need to (as the rice will gobble it up when you add it, in a moment).

Reduce the heat and add the rice to the pan, covering all of the other ingredients. Push down firmly upon the rice with the back of a wooden spoon, to force it in among the meat and vegetables. After a few minutes, when the rice has begun to re-heat, pour the eggs over the entire mixture and increase the temperature. As the egg begins to cook (looks like scrambled egg), break it apart with the spoon and stir into the rest of the mixture, mixing all of the ingredients together.

Heat through, and serve.

Flipping marvellous.

Article posted at UTC on .

3 comments