Focus on Food - Part 3 - Where I Prepare It.

My Malaysian Kitchen

I'm pretty lucky as far as Malaysian kitchens are concerned. I have a two-burner gas stove top, a microwave oven, a small portable "oven", a rice steamer, a hot water pot, a coffee maker, and a blender. All of these appliances are located in what I call the house-maid's kitchen which is a hold-over from when the kitchens were located outside and a very, short (smaller than 5 feet tall)  housemaid stir-fried or cooked over an open flame. Some houses have a second, more modern kitchen with taller, bigger and more beautiful counter tops next to the housemaid's kitchen. Although we have the space for just such a kitchen we haven't installed one because we need storage for our "exercise mats" and "bicycles", and we want the extra money for travel.

Here's the order of appliance use from most used to least:

Hot water pot - Occasionally we drink tea but mostly I boil water for dish washing. My housekeepers use it to boil water for mopping the floor. I also use it to dilute my coffee because we have a little two-cup coffee maker so I make it really strong and dilute it.

Coffee maker - We bike every morning at 4:45. Enough said.

Gas stove top - It has two temperatures, hot or off. To compensate, I stir-fry most things and burn just about just about everything else. I make a pretty mean fajita and my own version of Chinese food. But aside from that we eat a lot of burnt sausages, burnt grilled cheese, over-hard eggs, and burnt-on the outside, pink-on-the-inside hamburgers and tough Australian wanna-be steaks.

Blender/Chopper - I can't remember when I last used my blender in the US but here I use it at least once a day. With all this short-shelf-life,  inexpensive, tropical fruit smoothies and juices make a great, refreshing, potassium refilling drink..As a matter of fact, trying to drink enough water has been a constant battle for me. With the humidity, I seldom feel thirsty but my skin and lips can always attest to the fact that I need liquids. The fruit smoothies are helping.

Microwave - I use it for "baking" potatoes and reheating things..I never was very creative with a microwave.

Steamer - On the rare ocassion we eat rice at home, I use the steamer. Also, I can steam vegetables, but then it's another pot to clean. (Reference hot water pot above and child-height sink) So, I unhealthily just throw the veggies into the same pan as the meat on the stove top and Stir fry away.

 Oven - This is a new appliance for me and one that we bought with our own money. (I was sure I needed an oven!)  It kind of reminds me of an adult "Easy Bake Oven" without the prepackaged cake kits. The oven works OK for baking some fish or a little chicken but it's not too useful for anything else. (We're wondering if  a small turkey will fit inside). The temperature gauge is Celsuis and, although I made a nifty conversion chart and hung it just above the oven, I don't think the temperature is really accurate or consistent anyway. Another problem is that the oven only works when the timer is on and the timer only goes up to 60 minutes so it's not like, even if I could find  one, a frozen lasagna could cook while I was at work. The oven needs a babysitter.

Well, I gotta run. The spaghetti I've been trying to "simmer" over "high" smells like it's burning. At least the water for the noodles will boil quickly.