Saturday, November 12, 2005

Altoids

I like the Altoids Tangerine Sours. they really taste like tangerines! not to be confused with tamarinds, which in my opinion is far less desireable.

Am TAing this quarter. my duties include

1) conducting section once a week (to go thru the lecture material n problem set)
2) grading problem sets, midterms n finals
3) making up 2 problem sets + answers
4) conducting a 'cellular n molecular techniques in immunology' seminar
5) office hours 1 hr/week

so far it's been ok. sometimes hectic. like now. just finished grading 120 copies of question 5 of the midterm, and setting this week's problem set. Am now trying to come up with the problem set answers. I realised that it's such a bitch of a problem set! Damn annoying questions, requires checking the notes n the textbook n some critical thinking. It seemed more fun when I was making up the questions..... =I..... got so bored I decided to blog again.

Oh, Lisa printed this black pepper crab recipe off some visit s'pore website! so we tried cooking today! **grin**.... first step: deep fry crabs in hot oil. sounds simple. heat up oil till hot. add crab pieces. big mistake man. the crab was fresh frm washing (ie. it still had water droplets on it), so the hot oil just started ERUPTING like crazy. Both of us jumped back like 12 feet. I was seriously worried that the oil will set something on fire and the whole kitchen will burn down (like Jason's kitchen last year).... fortunately it finally subsided to a quiet splutter, and our kitchen was safe again. Wah cor. stupid recipe. trying to kill us, man. never warn people... wait kena sued.... =X.... basket.

so that was drama #1. drama #2 was also during deep frying. after the first volcanic piece, all other pieces we first dried on paper towels. The next one was quieter. However, the crab legs Spasmed while frying! it's true! it was jerking about, all over the place, like it was still a live crab! we got kinda freaked out. **shudder** wonder why it did that?? expansion of the meat inside the legs?

but the rest of the cooking went well. And the crab turned out really authentic! (though slightly undercooked) we were very impressed. we should have filmed a home-video of the whole event. Such a monumental occasion. Our first black pepper crabs! of course, the real test is to wait till tmr, and see if everyone's stomach is still ok.

we're gonna try chilli crab next week. but this time got prima packet. no need to pound black peppercorns. and no more deep frying.