Su Suka Cook

suka means like in Malay.

Hi. I'm Su and since I like to cook, I named this blog Suka Cook. Susuka sounds like milk (susu = like in malay) and it sounds like a Japanese wannabe, so I just drop one Su and called it Suka Cook. I thought of naming this blog "Suka cook and suka eat", but I dont think I'll be writing much about food places in Singapore cos I find them okay only.

You see, I grew up with a really good cook. So good that people come to our house and go for multiple rounds during Hari Raya and still have the cheek to come to the kitchen to ask for ta pao. Well...maybe that one is called Greed :P

I'm quite fussy when it comes to food. So fussy that my friend, a food lover, gave up trying to bring me to places that sell good food. To her, the food is good. To me, and I've never fail to say this to her: Yes, the food is nice, but my mom's cooking taste better.

She almost killed me cos she grew tired of hearing those words. So, one day she challenged me and said: Bring me those good food that you have been eating at home!!! I did and she fell in love with my mom's cooking.

Due to circumstances, mom and I lived separately (about 2 bus stops away) but I still visit her regularly and she remembers my favourite food. Funny, she's a great cook, but I've never learnt cooking from her. I learnt cooking from watching cook shows, from books, from working in restaurant as a waitress watching the chef cook, from being friends with good cook and helping out with the prep work. She makes great asian dishes, particularly Javanese style cooking. But she knows that I like simple chinese style stir fried food and she learnt them so that I would eat.

I've tried baking and cooking stuff for my mom but she, being an even more fussy person than I am, doesnt really eat what I gave her, except for stuff like butter cake. I hope that I'll be able to find a good ginger cookies recipe cos she loves ginger cookies. The day that she praise my cooking or baking skill will be the best day in my life :)

I started baking only last September 2008. It started because my sister was tellling me that she wanted to make some cookies for Hari Raya and asked if I could help. I bought a hand mixer and as I baked one swiss roll after another, one cookie after another, I fell in love with baking. I'm still learning about the various ingredients. The recipes that I used for baking are not my own originals. I try to bake every once a week, but if I'm tired from school and work, I'll probably bake once a month.

As for cooking, I started quite late. I mean, I've worked at fast food joints and restaurants when I was young and was in kitchen in some occasion, but I think that doesnt really qualify as cooking. I watched a lot of cooking show and the stuff that I used to cook are things like sandwiches, salads and pasta. I do mainly western cooking cos I didnt pick up any skill or recipe from my mom at all. I mean I should since she makes delicious asian cuisines.

Anyway, some of the recipes that I'll be posting are my own original ones but mostly are recipes that I adapt from others, but omit this and that to make it suitable for my tastebuds. If I do learn those asian cuisines from my mom, I'll definitely post it here :)

I've always feel that recipes and cooking are personal and one shouldn't copy another recipe 100%. At least 5-10% has to be your own gauge because different people like different taste. Some people always asked my mom: Why your recipe didnt turn out as nice as what you cooked when I try making them.

Her answer will always be: Lain tangan, lain rasa(different hand, different taste) . To which, I totally agree! The amount of sugar, salt, pepper, chilli, onions, spices that you throw in depends on your own hand. Sometimes, depends on your own gut feeling. The temperature, the pot size, the duration of time cooked all varies from each individual gauge. These factor affects the taste of the food :)

I like savoury stuff and the food I like tends to be a lil saltier than what most people like. As for spicy stuff, I love hot and spicy food and unfortunately, there is so much my stomach can take.

Okay, I shall kick off this blog with some of the things that my colleagues LOVE and kept asking me to make it again and again. One of it is seafood filling and you can use it as a sandwich or as a cold pasta.