Kitchen essentials for a student on a budget

What kind of cooking ingredients do you always have on hand? Taking a cue from ioyces's earlier post, here's my list of essential condiments/ingredients:

Cooking oil: I use two types, a vegetable oil and olive oil, although the latter is optional (but tastes darn good)
Soy sauce: There are two types, light and dark, but I've opted only for the light version. Great as a mnarinade base and salting soups
Ketchup: Not only great with fries, but great as a marinade and flavouring too
Oyster sauce: Another great flavouring for Asian dishes
Worsteshire sauce: Another meat marinade
Sesame oil: This one's purely for flavour, a few drops make all the difference
Kicap Manis: A dark sweet sauce. I use this to add colour and flavour to my fried rice and noodles
Salt and pepper: 'Nuff said
Herbs and Spices: Currently, I have paprika, cumin, coriander and a mixed dried herb blend
Alcohol: Usually it would be wine, currently it's just a small bottle of rum (on a budget mah...)
Rice, Pasta and Instant noodles: Varied carbos. Rice is standard Asian fare, current pasta is linguine, and instant noodles are always good for a quick snack - but I never use the flavour sachets because there's more than enough condiments that can be used!
Butter: A sometime oil-substitute
Mixed vegetables: The frozen kind, quick convenience food
Plain flour
Sugar
Eggs
Onions and Garlic: Why? Because they go well with everything!
Stock: Homemade, of course. I usually make a big batch (about 1 1/2 litres) over the weekend, using a base of onion, carrot and garlic and whatever leftover greens left in the box, coupled with meat and bones that have been saved over. In fact, I keep a "stock box" where I stash away bones, prawn shells and veges-about-to-go-bad in the freezer and make them into a stock at the end of the week. That way, it's a different stock every week that makes for an excellent soup base.


As usual, the practice is to buy in large sizes and a preference for house brands, which are mostly established brands disguised as a way to draw customers away from the competition. (You probably can tell that I live near a Tesco.) I haven't found any reason to get canned goods yet, but I think I'll stock up on some canned tomato and canned soup soon enough.

An Update

I started this blog three years ago, when I was in the middle of studies in Mellbourne, Australia, to document my cooking experiments while keeping to a (relatively) tight budget - hence the name. There, a cheap meal costs AUD$7 and can go up to $20, so cooking really made sense in order to keep costs down. Along the way, the blog grew as friends and other students-on-similar-budgets chipped in as guest contributors. In 2006, I returned to Singapore to begin life in the working world. I tried to keep the blog up as best I could, although not too successfully.

This year, I'm back to being a student again, which means hopefully I can dust off the cobwebs from this blog and start chronicling my culinary adventures in a new country. As of June, I've moved 400km north of the peninsula and started postgraduate studies in Penang, Malaysia where I'll be a student again for at least another two years. Unlike Melbourne, food in Malaysia is cheap - and there's many a Malaysian who can attest to the wonderments of Penang food! The challenge for me here is not to replicate the local food (which is available cheap, anyway) but make up new ones - while keeping on a tight budget.

I've been really lucky that none of my housemates cook, so I've just about taken over the entire kitchen. I set myself up with just about everything you see here, from the fridge, to the microwave oven to the induction cooker. (The toaster oven was a kind donation). It's not a big kitchen to work with, but for a student on a budget I think I can get by.

More to come!

Pig Trotters in Vinegar Stew

Okie, since I'm gonna be someone's wife soon, I've been practising some "traditional" dishes... Hopefully that will impress the in-laws Muahahahah ^_^

So presenting... Pig Trotters in Vinegar Stew... a very popular dish served expecially during confinement, which the elders believe will help the lady "remove wind" in her body. To much wind is big no-no... *Whack* I digress...

Before we start, some tips on how to buy and prepare pig trotters. If you're cooking for a few people, go for the piggy's front legs instead for a smaller portion.

Ingredients:
Old ginger
Pig Trotters (2 portion should be slightly above 1kg)
Black Vinegar (buy 325ml for 2 portion)(refer to pic below)


Brown Sugar (to taste) P/S: Please don't use white sugar...different taste oh.









>*VERY IMPORTANT*
Please ensure that you wash the pig trotters clean before you cook. To prepare the trotters for cooking, boil some water in a pot and immerse the trotters in boiling water for a few minutes, until the meat has turned slightly greyish.

Next, remove the trotters and wash them again, ensuring the hairs are removed, and no blood is seeping out. Throw away the water. This is important to remove the meat smell and to ensure cleanliness.

Cooking Technique
1. Place the trotters into a clean pot.
2. Slice the ginger across the middle and slightly smash the ginger with the flat side of the knife (this will allow the ginger to release its juices into the meat).
3. Pour all the black vinegar until it covers the meat.

4. Boil it on low-medium low heat until cooked. The longer you cook, the tender the meat will be (Dad recommends a few hours but I'm skeptical).
5. Then, season the sauce with brown sugar to taste. My "future" in-laws like em sweet.

Note: The stew sauce will be slowly reduced over the fire. Add water when low on liquids.

Ta-Da!!! Pig Trotters in Vinegar Stew!!! Enjoy!