Seafood Trio

This has nothing to do with baking. But still, let me put it on "record" here..

For a change, I went for cooking class. Held by a local forum owner, who is a self-taught chef, at her home. Was supposed to be held in a kitchen studio, but there were no other participants other than me and another lady (people these days prefer to bake than cook).

This class is much anticipated because it's all my favourite dishes! Chili crabs, sambal mussels and black pepper prawns. Yes, I love spicy food and these are local favourites for many people. More importantly, we were taught how to "silence"the crabs. This is important if I want to cook crabs isn't it? No fishmonger will kill a crab for you. You have to kill it just before you cook it.

I've seen the killing being done before, so I know what to expect. It may sound cruel or feel cruel as you hack your cleaver through it...at least it's not bloody..so it's not that scary. The trainer recalled how in an earlier class, one participant was so afraid she waited in the dining room and refused to go into the kitchen while the rest were killing the crabs there....hmm...why had she joined the class? Maybe she just wanted the recipes, but I wanted to know all...haha!

Here are some pictures of what we did.

Seafood Trio...mussels, crabs and prawns

Fried rice with no salt added..because there is bacon!
The trainer even cooked fried rice for us as dinner! So thoughtful. She knew we would be there from work and probably had no time for dinner. We packed almost all that she taught us to cook, and even the remaining fried rice!

We started at about 7 plus in the evening and I reached home at 10 plus. Ate the crabs as they could not be kept. Wonderful. Crabs are my favourite...so much so that my hubby calls me "crabby face" whenever my eyes light up at the mention of crabs.

The green mussels were good too. Unfortunately some of the mussels were bad, and we had to discard all of them as we do not want to go to bed with an upset stomach. I shall keep the prawns for tomorrow.

The fried rice was good as well. The other participant asked how she managed to coat each grain of rice with the egg. Hmm...I am not self-bragging, but this is how my fried rice is as well. My mum used to cook fried rice, somehow one day I took over the job, tried to do it my own style, and voila, it's all coated nicely with egg....a little smart eh? There was another time I did the same with another dish....but oops...enough of self-bragging....