Control...the flame

I want to be as frank as possible for this opening thought. If cooking seems or is a chore to you, then you might as well just order take out. I am guessing it's better than your cooking anyway and you didn't have to waste your money buying the ingredients.

I like to a do bit of comparison on this note. The journey in life versus learning to control the flame in cooking.

Most of us are generally are good at managing parts or all of the aspects of our personal life; for example: career, direction of life or when to get married. These are within our control circumstance and time determination. From time to time, it may get out of control, but we can straighten it out eventually. There are times where we have to juggle multiple issues at the same time; it seems difficult at the beginning but at latter end, the steps will become second nature.

In my opinion, the hardest part about cooking is not putting ingredients together. It's cooking the ingredients without overcooking, undercooked or even burning the food. Just like life, you don't just cook one items at a time. If you are following my cooking site recipes (SimpleAsianCookings.Com) and uses 30 minutes per dish; preparing 3 dishes will take 1.5 hours which is not practical. Generally, you cook one dish and start preparing another. The challenge is watching the flame or managing the flame so as to not overcooked the 1st dish while preparing the second. This is a tough and it is hard to offer a good suggestion where every one's stove is different (you know who you are with "Viking" stove). I can offer a bit of guideline: 1st, understand your flame, how hot and fast the flame gets (this will help you on when to turn it down) 2nd, start on high then medium flame (for slow cooking) and lastly, start from low to high (for searing). Proper control on the flame can change the outcome of taste in food.

You have heard practice makes perfect, it's true. I stop counting the numbers of time I burned something, it's really embarrassing when you have guest. The encouragement is for any incident, there is an opportunity to learn a lesson. So watch the flame and control the flame as practice your Asian cooking. Feel free to leave your thoughts.